So Percussion Performs Steve Reich's New Mallet Quartet at McCullough Theatre 3/11

Texas Performing Arts welcomes modern performance ensemble So Percussion to the McCullough Theatre on Thursday, March 11 at 8:00 p.m. They will present the Austin premiere of composer Steve Reich's new Mallet Quartet, written for the group and several other renowned percussion ensembles. This new piece for two vibraphones and two marimbas promises the audience a melodic and totally unique musical experience.

Since coming together at the Yale School of Music in 1999, So Percussion has been creating music that is both raucous and touching, barbarous and refined. Realizing that percussion instruments can communicate all the extremes of emotion and musical possibility, it has not been an easy music to define. Called an "experimental powerhouse" by the Village Voice, "astonishing and entrancing" by Billboard Magazine, and "brilliant" by the New York Times, the Brooklyn based quartet's innovative work with today's most exciting composers and their own original music has quickly helped them forge a unique and diverse career.

Although the drum is one of humanity's most ancient instruments, Europe and America have only recently begun to explore its full potential, aided by explosions of influence and experimentation from around the world. In the 20th Century, musical innovators like Edgard Varese, John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis brought these instruments out from behind the traditional orchestra and gave them new voice.

It was excitement about these composers and the sheer fun of playing together that inspired the members of So to begin performing while still in school: Cage's Third Construction wove elaborate rhythmic counterpoint using ordinary objects, while Reich's Drumming harnessed African inspiration to ecstatic effect.

A blind call to David Lang, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and co-founder of New York's Bang on a Can Festival, yielded their first big commissioned piece, the so-called laws of nature, which appeared with Evan Ziporyn's gamelan-inspired Melody Competition on their first album "So Percussion." In the following years, the thrill of working with amazing composers would yield new pieces by Paul Lansky, Dan Trueman, Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, Fred Frith, Martin Bresnick, and many others.

For the past several years, So has been joining the electronic duo Matmos for shows around the country and in Europe, exploring the sonic and theatrical possibilities of beer cans, hair clippers, ceramic bowls, and dry ice. This collaboration will culminate in a new album to be released on Cantaloupe Records in Summer 2010.

So Percussion has performed this unusual and exciting music all over the United States, with concerts at the Lincoln Center Festival, Carnegie Hall, The Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Stanford Lively Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and many others. In addition, recent tours to Russia, Australia, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the Ukraine have brought them international acclaim.

With an audience comprised of "both kinds of blue hair... elderly matron here, arty punk there" (as the Boston Globe described it), So Percussion makes a rare and wonderful breed of music that both compels instantly and offers rewards for engaged listening. Edgy (at least in the sense that little other music sounds like this) and ancient (in that people have been hitting objects for eons), perhaps it doesn't need to be defined after all.

Campus & Community Engagement Event:

Join us for a post-performance talkback in the hall with the artists, including composer Steven Reich immediately following the performance.

Thursday, March 11, 2010, 8:00 pm -Texas Performing Arts presents So Percussion at the McCullough Theatre (2350 Robert Dedman Dr).

A map of the campus:
http://www.TexasPerformingArts.org/visit/maps_directions.

Tickets ($30 / $10 student tickets / discounted tickets available for UT faculty & staff, seniors and Military) are on sale now authorized ticket outlets, which include the Bass Concert Hall Box Office, most H-E-B stores and all Texas Box Office outlets, online at http://www.TexasPerformingArts.org , or by calling (512) 477-6060 or (800) 982-BEVO.

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