Unique Baylor Percussion Group Performs Sun. Sept. 18, 2011 at WCAF

The FREE Waco Cultural Arts Fest 2011 starts in just 14 days at Indian Spring Park.

A unique percussion ensemble composed of 12 Baylor music students will present a composition written in 2009 by Alaskan composer John Luther Adams entitled Inuksuit on Sun. Sept. 18, 2011 at the WCAF.    The percussionists will not perform on the stage. They will be dispersed throughout the park playing for about an hour starting at 12:30 pm.  It is an interactive performance.

Inuksuit is intended to be played outdoors, designed to heighten our awareness of the sights and sounds that surround us every day and to energize our experience of our own environment. It is written for an incredible array of percussion instruments—conch shells, airhorns, sirens, gongs, maracas, drums, cymbals, and glockenspiels— and may use 9-99 musicians in its performance.

This summer the Baylor Percussion Group traveled to New York to
participate in a 99-person performance  ensemble of Inuksuit in Morningside Park in Manhattan.

Inuksuit was first performed in the forests of Banff, Canada and has only been performed a handful of times in the United States. The title Inuksuit refers to a type of stone marker used by Inuit and other native peoples to orient themselves in Arctic spaces.  In a program note, the composer writes, "This work is haunted by the vision of the melting of the polar ice, the rising of the seas, and what may remain of humanity's presence after the waters recede."

Baylor Percussion Professor Todd Meehan,D.M.A., is the director of the Baylor Percussion Group. He tells us more about what to expect at the performance in Waco.

“Listeners should be ready to hear an ever-evolving piece of music. Starting with barely audible sounds of wind, the piece slowly develops through different 'stages' of sound, reaching a climactic peak in the middle of the piece and then receding into the audible distance. The stages are as follows: 'Breathing/Wind' (rubbed stones, maracas, whirly tubes), 'Calls' (conch and trumpet blasts), 'Waves' (blaring sirens, thunderous drums, and soaring cymbal sounds), 'Clangs' (bell tones), and finally another stage of 'Wind/Birdsongs' (triangles, cymbals, glockenspiels, toy piano). The work ends with sporadic birdsongs played by four of the performers. Because the piece has been performed once before in Texas, the composer was able to provide us with specific musical notation for Central Texas birds. Audiences will hear the songs of the Cardinal, the Purple Martin, and the Tufted Titmouse, in this particular performance.

The percussionists 'travel' during the piece, moving to different stations set up throughout the park. The audience should feel absolutely free to walk around the performance area and experience the sounds from different vantage points. As the composer states, there is no 'best seat in the house'. Walk amongst the musicians and take in the music you are hearing as you would take in the sounds of nature.”

More information about the WCAF can be found at:

www.wacoartsfest.org/artists.html