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Percussion Ensembles
A percussion ensemble is a musical ensemble consisting of only percussion instruments. Although the term can be used to describe any such group, it commonly refers to groups of classically trained percussionists performing primarily classical music. In America, percussion ensembles are most commonly found at conservatories, though some professional groups, such as Nexus and So Percussion exist. Drumlines and groups who regularly meet for drum circles are two other forms of the percussion ensemble. Early literature George Antheil's ''Ballet Mécanique'' (1923) is one of the earliest examples of composition for percussion, written originally as a film score and exemplifying the ideals of the Italian futurist movement. Antheil originally called for sixteen synchronized player pianos, as well as airplane engines, alongside more traditional percussion instruments. Another early example, Cuban composer Amadeo Roldán's ''Rítmicas'' nos. 5 and 6 of 1930, made use of Cuban percussi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percujove Concierto En El Teatro Jovellanos Gijon 2006
Percujove ({{IPA-va, ˌpeɾkuˈdʒove) is a youth percussion instrument, percussion orchestra. Created in June 2003, today it is composed of 25 young musicians, students of the José Iturbi Conservatorium of Valencia, Spain. The ensemble's conductor is Salvador Pelejero, of the Conservatorium. Percujove is perhaps the only youth percussion orchestra in Europe. They have offered performances all around Europe, with concerts in Montpellier, Lyon, Copenhagen, Brussels, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, at the European Space Agency in Noorwijk (Netherlands), and other concerts in Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Slovakia, Belgium, Poland and Spain. Percujove has also participated at the following music festivals: *14th Festival des Musiques d'Ici et d'Ailleurs de Châlons-en-Champagne (France*11th Festival "Musique en vacances" de La Ciotat (France) *"Les Dimanches de l'Ile Barbe" de Lyon (France) *"Teatre,Música i Dansa a la Fresca" de Figueres (Giron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ionisation (Varèse)
''Ionisation'' (1929–1931) is a musical composition by Edgard Varèse written for thirteen percussionists. It was among the first concert hall compositions for percussion ensemble alone, although Alexander Tcherepnin had composed an entire movement for percussion alone in his Symphony No. 1 from 1927. In the journal ''Tempo'', percussionist Brian Holder writes, "The work presented the important notion that unpitched percussion (with piano and other pitched instruments coming in at the end) could stand alone as a serious form of concert music – a relatively unexplored concept at the time." The premiere was at Carnegie Chapter Hall, an annex to New York City's Carnegie Hall, on March 6, 1933, conducted by Nicolas Slonimsky, to whom the piece was later dedicated. One critic described the performance as "a sock in the jaw". Music ''Ionisation'' features the expansion and variation of rhythmic cells, and the title refers to the ionization of molecules. As the composer later d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tambuco (Chávez)
''Tambuco'' is a percussion-ensemble work for six players, written by the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez in 1964. The score is dedicated to Clare Boothe Luce, and a performance of it lasts approximately thirteen minutes. History The impulse to compose ''Tambuco'' came about in an unusual way. In 1950, Clare Boothe Luce had commissioned Chávez's Third Symphony, completed in 1954. Their unlikely friendship continued for nearly three decades and, after Luce began working in mosaics in 1963, they agreed to exchange commissions for works from each other. For Chávez, Luce created a 4' x 5' mosaic titled ''Golden Tiger'', which he hung in his Lomas de Chapultepec studio in Mexico City. In return, he created ''Tambuco''.A photograph of the mosaic is reproduced in . The premiere took place on 11 October 1965 in the Leo S. Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, performed by the Los Angeles Percussion Ensemble conducted by William Kraft. Both Chávez and Luce wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (; April 11, 1916June 25, 1983) was an Argentinian composer of classical music. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Biography Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires to a Spanish father and an Italian mother. During his later years, he preferred to use the Catalan and Italian pronunciation of his surname – , with an initial soft 'G' like that of English 'George' – rather than with a Spanish 'J' sound (). Ginastera studied at the Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. As a young professor, he taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín. After a visit to the United States in 1945–47, where he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, he returned to Buenos Aires. He held a number of teaching posts. Among his notable students were Ástor Piazzolla (who studied with him in 1941), Alcides Lanza, Jorge Antunes, Waldo de los Ríos, Jacqueline Nova and Rafael Aponte-Ledé ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toccata For Percussion Instruments (Chávez)
The Toccata for Percussion Instruments (1942), was written by the twentieth-century Mexican composer Carlos Chávez. It is among his most popular compositions. The composition is written for six musicians playing a number of percussion instruments. Background Chávez was approached in the 1930s by the avant-garde composer John Cage, who asked whether Chávez could compose a piece for the percussion ensemble that was touring with Cage. The 12-minute piece was completed in 1942, in time for Cage's West Coast tour. However, the ensemble was unable to perform the piece, due to the challenging sustained drum rolls in the opening measures. The Toccata was eventually premiered in 1948 by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, the orchestra which Chávez founded and conducted. Eduardo Hernández Moncada, however, had already conducted a premiere on October 31, 1947, with members of the orchestra of the National Conservatory. Roberto García Morillo, ''Carlos Chávez: Vida y obra'', Tier ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlos Chávez
Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez (13 June 1899 – 2 August 1978) was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six symphonies, the second, or '' Sinfonía india'', which uses native Yaqui percussion instruments, is probably the most popular. Biography The seventh child of a criollo family, Chávez was born on Tacuba Avenue in Mexico City, near the suburb of Popotla. His paternal grandfather, José María Chávez Alonso, a former governor of the state of Aguascalientes, had been executed by the French Army in April 1864. His father, Augustín Chávez, who died when Carlos was barely three years old, invented a plough that was produced and used in the United States. Carlos had his first piano lessons from his brother Manuel, and later on he was taught piano by Asunción Parra, Manuel Ponce, and Pedro Luis Ozagón, and har ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonata For Two Pianos And Percussion
The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115, is a musical piece written by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in 1937. The sonata was premiered by Bartók and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, with the percussionists Fritz Schiesser and Philipp Rühlig at the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) anniversary concert of 16 January 1938 in Basel, Switzerland,Kárpáti, János; MacNicol, Fred; Steiner, Maria (1994). , pp. 393–432 () contains material relevant to this article. where it received enthusiastic reviews. Bartók and his wife also played the piano parts for the American premiere which took place in New York City's Town Hall in 1940, with the percussionists Saul Goodman and Henry Deneke. It has since become one of Bartók's most performed works. The score requires four performers: two pianists and two percussionists, who play seven instruments between them: timpani, bass drum (gran cassa), cymbals, triangle, snare drum (both on- and off- sn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. Biography Childhood and early years (1881–98) Bartók was born in the Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a Catholic of Bunjevci origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók's father (1855–1888) was also named Béla. Bartók's mother, Paula (née Voit) (1857–1939), also spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmárton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Construction (Cage)
''Construction'' is the title of several pieces by American composer John Cage, all scored for unorthodox percussion instruments. The pieces were composed in 1939–42 while Cage was working at the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, and touring the West Coast with a percussion ensemble he and Lou Harrison had founded. The series comprises three ''Constructions''. A piece titled ''Fourth Construction'', mentioned in several sources, is apparently either an unfinished work from 1942 or, more likely, an early title of the work we now know as ''Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March No. 1)''. ''First Construction (in Metal)'' ''First Construction (in Metal)'' was composed in 1939; its first title was ''Construction in Metal''. It is scored for six percussionists and an assistant. Instruments include, among other things, Japanese and Balinese gongs, Chinese and Turkish cymbals, automobile drum brakes , anvils and a water gong (a gong lowered into water while vibrating, or stru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johanna Beyer
Johanna Magdalena Beyer (July 11, 1888 – January 9, 1944) was a German-American composer and pianist. Biography Johanna Beyer was born in Leipzig, Germany, but very little is known about her life prior to her move to the United States in 1923. She sang for three years at the Leipziger Singakademie and graduated from the Deutscher Konservatorien and Musikseminare, having studied piano, harmony, theory, counterpoint, singing, and dancing. Colleagues in New York recalled that her pianism and musicianship were excellent and that her musical training seemed traditional and solid. She spent 1911–1914 in America, though nothing is known of her activities during those years. Returning to the U.S. in 1923 (according to the biographical notes she provided in a Composers' Forum concert program), she studied at the Mannes College of Music, receiving two degrees by 1928. She taught piano to support herself, and may have taught at Greenwich House Music School, but struggled to make end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his former teacher and contemporary, Henry Cowell, but later moved toward incorporating elements of non-Western cultures into his work. Notable examples include a number of pieces written for Javanese style gamelan instruments, inspired after studying with noted gamelan musician Kanjeng Notoprojo in Indonesia. Harrison would create his own musical ensembles and instruments with his partner, William Colvig, who are now both considered founders of the American gamelan movement and world music; along with composers Harry Partch and Claude Vivier, and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee. The majority of Harrison's works and custom instruments are written for just intonation rather than the more widespread equal temperament, making him one of the most p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ''4′33″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
