Grammy-nominated Third Coast Percussion Brings New Rhythms to DeBartolo Arts Center

By: Jan. 27, 2017
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The DeBartolo Performing Art Center's acclaimed Ensemble-in-Residence, Third Coast Percussion (TCP) brings new music to the Presenting Series on Saturday, February 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the center's Leighton Concert Hall. The evening of contemporary music serves as the ensemble's final concert of their annual six weeks of residency at the University of Notre Dame. As part of their residency, Third Coast joins the St. Joseph County Library's 25th Annual Science Alive with a demonstration on sound waves developed with faculty in Notre Dame's College of Engineering. The group is in its fourth year as teachers and innovators premiering works commissioned by Notre Dame. The spring program features works by Brooklyn-based composer Christopher Cerrone and Hungarian composer György Sándor Ligeti (1923-2006), as well as compositions by ensemble member Peter Martin and the first work collaboratively composed by Third Coast, all accomplished and active composers. The work by Cerrone is a University of Notre Dame commission and receives its world premiere at the concert.

The diverse evening of music opens with Martin's BEND, which draws inspiration from the player piano compositions of Bruce Goff, a wonderfully original architect, and amateur composer. Many of Goff's piano rolls were highly stylized geometric designs perforated into the scrolls, resulting in music that created very clear sonic "shapes." Whereas these shapes would determine the pitch and rhythm in a player piano performance, BEND translates these shapes into volume, tone, and gesture. The composer's experience with the piano rolls- through a blurry, decades-old video inspired a unique sound palette created with alternative techniques on two marimbas.

The first work that TCP composed collaboratively as a group is titled Reaction Yield. Inspired by scientific ideas, the quartet set a process of writing the work inspired by the creative process of synthetic chemists, who experiment with combinations of materials chosen from an extensive catalog. Likewise, they each composed musical motives: rhythms, harmonies, abstract concepts, and more.

György Ligeti is widely considered one of the most significant composers of the 20th century. Born to Hungarian-Jewish parents in Transylvania, his family was torn apart by the Nazi regime-his brother and father died in concentration camps, Ligeti endured forced labor, and his mother survived Auschwitz. Some his works became known through their use in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel (With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles) is one of Ligeti's final works. It is a cycle of seven songs for mezzo-soprano, performed for this engagement by Rachel Calloway, and percussion quartet. The texts are taken from short poems in Hungarian by Sándor Weöres, and the title of this cycle comes from a Hungarian children's rhyme, dating from the Turkish occupation of Hungary.

The program concludes with the commission and world premiere performance of Goldbeater's Skin, Cerrone's work scored for voice and percussion. The commission took its name from a collection published by the poet GC Waldrep. Cerrone wrote of his inspiration, "I found it to be particularly pregnant with musical possibilities (actual musical allusions abound). So I decided to craft a new work for voice and percussion quartet around these poems. They are often deeply imagistic; the source of each reference would be impossible to trace, yet each poem leads inexorably to a potent and dramatic conclusion."

Ticket Information

Regular tickets are $15. Child/student tickets are free in alignment with the educational mission of Third Coast Percussion's residency. Visit performingarts.nd.edu/newseason for more information or call the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center Ticket Office at (574) 631-2800 Monday-Friday, noon-6 p.m.

About the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center

Since opening in September 2004, the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center has become an integral part of the University's vision and commitment to becoming a preeminent research university. It is the University's leading presenter of world-class artistic programming, one with an institutional focus on contemporary works. As an academic space, the center enhances the scholarship, teaching, and practice of the performing and cinematic arts. As a community space, the center welcomes more than 100,000 patrons annually, including thousands of K-12 students in education and related artistic programs. Presenting Series and Browning Cinema programs are curated to increase the center's capacity to educate, enlighten and engage.

Third Coast Percussion at Notre Dame is made possible through the generosity of Shari and Tom Crotty. Additional support for the Presenting Series provided by media sponsor WSBT-TV; visiting artist accommodations by The Morris Inn, program printing underwriting by Express Press Inc., WNIT Public Television, and Grass Roots Media.

 


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