About Projeto Arcomusical: ! ! ! Dr. Gregory Beyer and Alexis Lamb began Projeto ! Arcomusical in the Spring of 2013 under the auspices of the ! Undergraduate Artistry and Research Apprenticeship ! Program at Northern Illinois University. The UARAP allows ! faculty "to engage undergraduates in their artistic and other ! scholarly activities in one-to-one mentorships." Through New! Music for an Ancient Instrument ! Projeto Arcomusical, they have embarked upon the ! ! composition of a numeric series of berimbau chamber ! PASIC 2014 Tour ! works, one per semester through the Spring 2015. For more ! ! information, please visit www.arcomusical.com. Program:! ! ! ! ! Berimbau! Duo no. 6 (2014) Gregory Beyer ! ! (b. 1973) ! Projeto Arcomusical wishes to thank: ! ! ! ! Descobertas! por pau e pedra (2013) Alexis Lamb ! Rich Holly, Dean, College of Visual and Performing Arts, ! (b. 1993) ! Northern Illinois University (NIU) ! ! ! ! Berimbau! Trio no. 1 (2013) Gregory Beyer ! NIU Office of Student Engagement and Experiential Learning ! ! ! ! Caida! de quatro (2014) Alexis Lamb ! Susan Carter, Administrative Assistant, Office of the Dean, ! ! ! NIU CVPA Berimbau! Quartet no. 1 “Chip” (2014) Gregory Beyer ! ! ! ! ! Dr. Janet Hathaway, Acting Director, NIU School of Music Mudança! de onda (2014) Alexis Lamb ! ! ! ! ! Deana Eberly, Administrative Assistant, NIU School of Music Berimbau! Quintet no. 1 (2014) Gregory Beyer ! ! ! ! Jeff Hartsough, Executive Director, Percussive Arts Society ! ! ! The NIU! Bau-House Is: ! N. Scott Robinson, Chair, Percussive Arts Society World Music ! ! ! Committee Dr. Gregory! Beyer, Artistic Director, Composer, Performer ! Alexis Lamb,! Composer, Performer ! Chris Mrofcza,! Performer ! Abigail! Rehard, Performer ! Kyle Flens, Performer About the Program: Caida de Quatro (or “falling on all fours”) is a common ! ! ! defense move in the Afro-Brazilian tradition of Capoeira I first drafted! the opening section of Berimbau Duo no. 6 as ! Angola. As part of Projeto Arcomusical, we have been part of !a commission to create an original soundtrack for the ! training capoeira to better understand the traditional short film! “Chip,” directed by Nancy Kiang. The film is an ! context of the instrument, so this title seemed appropriate for intriguing! retelling of Anton Chekov’s short story “A Father,” ! a berimbau quartet. I also wanted the title to reflect the and includes! gorgeous footage shot in South Africa. Given ! falling patterns that are consistently found throughout the the historical! roots of the berimbau to its ancestors in ! piece, whether they be pitched or unpitched. There are southern! Africa, this geographical connection was very ! common themes where the upper wire notes are falling inspiring! to me as I created the music for the film. I wanted ! down in pitch while the lower wire notes are “falling up” in the material! to have its own life beyond the soundtrack ! pitch, as it were. The two falling patterns meet up in the alone. !A wedding celebration for two former students from ! middle to create a beautiful melody from both sides of the NIU, Krissy! Bergmark and Mat Solace, offered the occasion ! wire. During the course of rehearsals my colleagues and I to extend! and complete an idea from the film to create a ! renamed rehearsal letter B “sapinho” (or “little frog” in stand alone! duo. NIU Alumnus Dan Pratt and I premiered this ! Portuguese). Sapinho is another movement in capoeira duo at! the wedding and the work is dedicated to them. This ! named for reasons that are instantly obvious to any observer. is the ! second berimbau duo written in honor of former ! Rehearsal B presents a series of 16th note figures, one for students! as an offering for their future hapiness and success. ! each player, that leap into the existing 11/8 rhythmic Duo no.! 3 bears a similar dedication. - GB ! ostinato. This section was cause for great merriment and joy ! ! ! when we first tackled it. - AL Descobertas! por pau e pedra was the first piece I composed ! ! for Projeto! Arcomusical. The title of reflects the first ! The opening harmonic progression presented in Berimbau discoveries! that I made while learning about the instrument ! Quartet no. 1 comes from two sources of inspiration. My very and how! these translated into my own compositions. Two ! first composition project for berimbau, Bahian Counterpoint works by! Steve Reich, Clapping Music and Six Marimbas, ! (2002) began not so much as a composition as an attempt formed! the point of departure for the compositional ideas I ! at an arrangement of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint for present! in Descobertas. - AL ! the guitarist, Pat Metheny. The first movement of Bahian ! ! ! Counterpoint hewed very closely to the rhythmic patterning Over the! summer of 2013, thinking ahead to the prospect of ! of Reich’s “long-breath” manner of presenting a chord writing !what would become Berimbau Trio no. 1, I sat down ! progression. The second inspiration for the progression at the! piano one evening and developed a 12-bar ! comes from the success of a similar progression in my harmonic! progression playable on three instruments in which ! Berimbau Trio no. 1. For the progression presented in this no chord! is ever repeated. This progression became the ! quartet, I developed a consistent way to voice lead from basis for! the work upon which a series of increasingly dense ! suspensions to chord-tone resolutions in 6 pairs of harmonies. rhythmic! hockets ensues. The work begins with a simple ! The middle section of the piece was composed first, not for presentation! of a West African timeline pattern in 12/8, ! this quartet but as one segment of an original soundtrack for played! in hocket between the gourds of the three ! a short film entitled, “Chip”, that film director, Nancy Kiang, instruments. - GB commissioned us to create. The film is an intriguing retelling ! of Anton Chekov’s short story, “A Father”, and includes gorgeous footage shot in South Africa. Given the historical roots of the berimbau to its ancestors in southern Africa, this possibilities for the “meta-harp” that is a berimbau geographical connection, although not conscious in Kiang’s ensemble, first explored in my Berimbau Trio no. 1. Other mind when! she approached Arcomusical, was very inspiring influences in the piece are Bartók (accel/decel gesture in for us as we created the music for the film. - GB mm. 120-124, as well as all of the odd meter passage work) ! and, of course, Steve Reich (mm. 125-132), whose work, Mudança de Onda (or “Wave Shift”) is the fourth piece I Electric Counterpoint, was the point of origin for nearly have written for Projeto Arcomusical. Similar to my other everything I do with the berimbau. - GB berimbau compositions, this work focuses and expands on a ! singular motive throughout. Prior to writing this piece, I spent * * * two weeks in the Mediterranean with my family, during * * which I stayed four days in the heart of Rome. There, I was * struck by the omnipresence of ambulance sirens flying ! through city streets, a soundscape that reignited my About the NIU Percussion Program: fascination with the Doppler “effect” or “shift.” In Mudança ! de Onda, the rhythmic cloud of the opening gesture and The NIU percussion program annually enrolls a total of 24 the frequent glissandi are rooted in the memory of this exotic graduate and undergraduate students. Each week, students urban experience. The Northern Illinois University Bau-House’s study privately and in percussion topics class settings as well recent performances of Alexandre Lunsqui’s berimbau as participate in percussion ensemble, which presents three sextet, “Repercussio,” were also “shifting” through my mind concerts each season. Dr. Gregory Beyer is Director of during the composition of this quintet. - AL Percussion Studies and co-runs the studio with Michael ! Mixtacki. Additional opportunities for study and ensembles For Berimbau Quintet no. 1, it seemed natural to meditate on are offered under the direction and guidance of Rodrigo the number five and to consider how I might weave Villanueva, Robert Chappell, Liam Teague, Clifford Alexis, together a piece revolving entirely around a play of Omar al Musfi, and Jui-Ching Wang. numbers. Inspired by the way five is made manifest in ! southern Indian rhythmic “solkattu”, I set about a creating a For more information, please visit: niu.edu/music pleasing way to systematically string together every 3+2 and !2+3 binary combination. The result is: 3+2, 3+2 3+2, 2+3 2+3, 3+2 2+3,! 2+3 This numeric DNA can be found throughout many parts of the work, as I intended it to be the touchstone and unifying factor of the composition. The harmonic progression midway through the piece is a further exploration of harmonic