April 4, 2020

#MSMBridgingTheDistance:

MSM Percussion Ensemble performs live via videoconferencing on Monday, April 6 at 7:30 PM

Join us for a unique 30-minute live performance on Monday, April 6 at 7:30 PM, of 15 percussion students from Manhattan School of Music.

The musicians will play together on the Zoom videoconferencing platform from different locations in a concert of new music inspired by the challenges of live video connections and our current global situation.

Compositions include John Cage’s Six (1991) and works by MSM Percussion Ensemble Co-Directors Mike Perdue and Jude Traxler.

The performers will use classical percussion instruments, along with found objects and household items such as radiator pipes, ladders, bicycles, electric toothbrushes, dinnerware, flashlights, and other items from the shelf.

PROGRAM

JUDE TRAXLER An Homage to Sleep (2006)
JOHN CAGE Six (1991)
 MIKE PERDUE Home from Working (2020)

Co-Directors: Mike Perdue & Jude Traxler

PROGRAM NOTES:

“Percussionists are no strangers to the practice of building instruments and repurposing found objects to make experimental music. This kind of ingenuity is in our DNA. The earliest percussion ensemble pieces by Varèse, John Cage, and Henry Cowell captured the sound of urban globalization on scrap metal, rice bowls, and invented instruments. In this concert, we continue this practice both out of necessity and tradition.” — Mike Perdue

“This concert puts our resourceful, resilient students to the test by having them create a program that exists on and for the laptop. We’re embracing the experience of what this medium is, with its dropouts, technical issues, and digital artifacts – including the fact that we can’t exactly play together regardless of our best WiFi connection. Every individual listener will have a unique sonic experience because of these uncertainties. We’re leaning into this landscape, hacking it so it works for any audience.”
— Jude Traxler