TOMORROW at 7:30 P.M.

Cal Poly Humboldt Percussion Ensemble and World Percussion Group

Fulkerson Recital Hall

The Department of Dance, Music, and Theatre at Cal Poly Humboldt presents Contemporary Music for Percussion performed by the “Cal Poly Humboldt Percussion Ensemble” and Afro-Cuban Folkloric Rhythms performed by the “World Percussion Group”. The performances are directed by Howard Kaufman. Join us Saturday, April 19th at 7:30 p.m. at the Fulkerson Recital Hall. Concert tickets are $15 General, $5 Children, and $5 for Cal Poly Humboldt students with ID. Tickets may be purchased at the door or in advance at tickets.humboldt.edu/dance-music-and-theatre. Director Howard (Howie) Kaufman is enthusiastic about the evening’s program, “I so appreciate the love and support that Humboldt County has shown us for the forty-plus years I have been a part of the percussion experience on campus and in the community. Please come out to this concert, support our students and the unique live music that the percussion ensembles perform. You won’t be disappointed!”

The Cal Poly Humboldt Percussion Ensemble begins the program by featuring three exciting works, two of which have never before been performed on the North Coast. The first piece, Wanderlust, composed by Chad Heiny, is a piece featuring an array of percussion instruments including steel pans, marimbas, vibraphone, wind gong, a drum set, and much more. Combined, this piece creates a sonic landscape that is full of wonderment and excitement, one that will surely transport you, the listener. The piece allows the performers to “roam” by creating opportunities for most to solo and express themselves within only a framework of harmony and meter.

The second piece on the program, Pattern Study #2, is a minimalistic piece consisting of an ostinato bass line played throughout while other performers move freely through twenty-four patterns based off of a F mixolydian scale. Composed by Stacey Bowers in 1976, this piece allows each performer to pick which patterns to play and for how long. Players can also improvise on the scale. Patterns range from short two-beat to as many as twenty-seven beat durations. This performance will be interpreted on a number of marimbas and a vibraphone.

The third and final featured work for the contemporary ensemble, and a Cal Poly Humboldt premiere, is Black Racer by Brian Blume. Black Racer is a piece composed for four players, each playing a large tom-tom and different sized cymbals. In addition to a set of temple blocks and bongos, two glockenspiels are played on opposite ends of the setup, creating a canonical, antiphonal effect that contrasts the intensity of the non-pitched instruments. In Black Racer, Brian Blume has crafted an effective piece filled with intensity and musical sensitivity.

The concert ends with the World Percussion Group performing two styles from the Afro-Cuban folkloric repertoire, Iyesa for Ogun and Iyesa for Ochun. The Iyesa were a Yoruban subgroup from the region of Illesha in Western Nigeria, Africa. In the nineteenth century, large numbers of Yoruba people were captured and enslaved in Cuba by the Spanish. Survivors, some of whom paid for their freedom, set up mutual aid societies called Cabildos, where former slaves practiced their African religions and customs. The first Iyesa cabildo was established in 1830 in the city of Matanzas. The songs and rhythms selected for this performance are in the Matanzas style and are a direct lineage to this early cabildo.

DATES/TIMES

• Tomorrow : 7:30 p.m.

WHERE

• Fulkerson Recital Hall

PRICE

• $15
• $5 Cal Poly Students with ID
• $5 Children