Doors open at 4:30 pm
Students $10
Please note: concert start time has changed to 5 pm to avoid conflicts with events at neighboring downtown venues.
WMS’s principal percussionist is back with a program featuring music by Steve Reich, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Igor Stravinsky, among others. Joining Matthew Beck will be CMU faculty member and former WMS timpanist Andrew Spencer; along with pianists Patrick Johnson from MSU and Zhao Wang from CMU.
As its name implies, Reich’s Clapping Music features Beck and Spencer using nothing but their hands. Wang and Johnson will perform an arrangement of Scheherazade, 3rd movement, for four-hand piano. Ivan Trevino’s Catching Shadows brings the two percussionists together again, this time for a marimba duo. Trevino is a composer and faculty member at the University of Texas—Austin. The first half closes with all four musicians performing Matre’s Dance by John Psathas, one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed composers.
But the major work on the program—making up the entire second half of the performance—is Matt Beck’s own piano and percussion arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking Rite of Spring. Beck has a natural affinity for the Rite, which is essentially a percussion concerto from beginning to end in which rhythmic development replaces traditional melodic development. Its orchestral version is awe-inspiring. Reduced for four-hand piano and percussion, its savagery is even more pronounced.
“Despite its benign-sounding name, this ballet has nothing to do with birds, flowers and Bambi,” says CEO Andy Buelow. “It is a gripping, primeval work that changed classical music forever. Audiences rioted at its 1913 Paris premiere—who knows what will happen at The Block?”
PROGRAM
Steve Reich Clapping Music (Beck, Spencer)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade mvt 3 (Wang, Johnson) piano duo
Ivan Trevino Catching Shadows (Beck, Spencer) marimba duo
John Psathas Matre’s Dance (Wang, Spencer) multiple percussion with piano
INTERMISSION
Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring (Wang, Johnson, Beck, Spencer)
Matthew Beck currently serves as Principal Percussionist with four orchestras: the West Michigan Symphony, Lansing Symphony, Battle Creek Symphony, and Canton Symphony (OH). He has appeared as an extra percussionist with over a dozen other orchestras throughout the Midwest. Mr. Beck received his BM from the Cleveland Institute of Music and he graduated with a MM from DePaul University. His primary teachers performed with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. Beck has performed on five continents and spent his summers at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Pacific Music Festival (Japan), and the Spoleto USA Festival.
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Students $10
Please note: concert start time has changed to 5 pm to avoid conflicts with events at neighboring downtown venues.
WMS’s principal percussionist is back with a program featuring music by Steve Reich, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Igor Stravinsky, among others. Joining Matthew Beck will be CMU faculty member and former WMS timpanist Andrew Spencer; along with pianists Patrick Johnson from MSU and Zhao Wang from CMU.
As its name implies, Reich’s Clapping Music features Beck and Spencer using nothing but their hands. Wang and Johnson will perform an arrangement of Scheherazade, 3rd movement, for four-hand piano. Ivan Trevino’s Catching Shadows brings the two percussionists together again, this time for a marimba duo. Trevino is a composer and faculty member at the University of Texas—Austin. The first half closes with all four musicians performing Matre’s Dance by John Psathas, one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed composers.
But the major work on the program—making up the entire second half of the performance—is Matt Beck’s own piano and percussion arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking Rite of Spring. Beck has a natural affinity for the Rite, which is essentially a percussion concerto from beginning to end in which rhythmic development replaces traditional melodic development. Its orchestral version is awe-inspiring. Reduced for four-hand piano and percussion, its savagery is even more pronounced.
“Despite its benign-sounding name, this ballet has nothing to do with birds, flowers and Bambi,” says CEO Andy Buelow. “It is a gripping, primeval work that changed classical music forever. Audiences rioted at its 1913 Paris premiere—who knows what will happen at The Block?”
PROGRAM
Steve Reich Clapping Music (Beck, Spencer)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade mvt 3 (Wang, Johnson) piano duo
Ivan Trevino Catching Shadows (Beck, Spencer) marimba duo
John Psathas Matre’s Dance (Wang, Spencer) multiple percussion with piano
INTERMISSION
Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring (Wang, Johnson, Beck, Spencer)