As a part of the Christopher U. Light Lectureship II modernist percussion group Sō Percussion and fiddler Dan Trueman will be performing this Friday, April 8, 2016 at the Concert Hall at 8:00 PM.
Sō Percussion has redefined the scope of the modern percussion ensemble by performing multi-genre original productions, sensational interpretations of modern classics, and, what New York Times labeled an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam.” Their repertoire ranges from “classics” of the 20th century by the likes of John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, to works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Steve Mackey, and Paul Lansky, to distinctively modern collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall.
Carleton alum Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddler, and electronic musician who currently teaches music and composition at Princeton University. He began studying violin at the age of 4, and decades later, after a chance encounter, fell in love with the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, an instrument and tradition that have deeply affected his work as fiddler and explorer. Dan’s compositional work explores rhythmic connections between traditional dance music and machines, engaging with the unusual phrasing, tuning and ornamentation of the traditional Norwegian music while trying to discover new music that is singularly inspired by, and only possible with, new digital instruments that he designs and constructs.
Besides having what Carleton music professor Andrea Mazzariello calls a “voracious and omnivorous musical appetites”, Sō and Dan are longtime collaborators in the creation of new work. Their working method is perhaps atypical; this is not a situation in which Dan sits in his studio and dreams up a completely fleshed-out piece and then sends it to Sō. Rather, it’s a hands-on affair between the artists, full of collaboration and play.
The sheer number of diverse skills and interests that both bring to bear on music is staggering. Dan alone is highly proficient in traditions/practices that are allegedly worlds removed from each other: computer programming, 16th-century counterpoint, hardanger fiddle. Similarly, Sō, while being first-rate concert musicians, also have their hands in many other approaches, like drum set, steel drums, electronics, keyboards, and spoken word.
Mazzariello, coordinator of the concert, hopes that the collaboration between Sō and Trueman will help the audience define music broadly more for themselves, and dismantle some of the anxiety that many may feel about what belongs up on a concert stage. Because, as this concert will demonstrate, it is possible to “honor many of the traditions of this particular musical community in a rigorous, genre-bending, exciting way.”