Adams, John Luther - Mathematics of Resonant Bodies for percussion and electronics

“All noise contains pure tone. And the complex sonorities of percussion instruments conceal choirs of inner voices. In The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies my search is to find and reveal those voices.” - John Luther Adams

| Percussion―Process―Pellucidity | University of Alaska Fairbanks || Charles Davis Concert Hall Fall, 2014

Adler, Christopher - Strata for solo extended range glockenspiel

Strata is an homage to the artistic imagination of geological time and the inevitable accumulation of entropy and decay, inspired in part by the works of artist Robert Smithson. His materials were of the earth but his subject was the immensity of geologic time. His works are a hallucinatory meditation on imagining the unimaginable. Here I have attempted musical composition as a geologic ‘sedimentation of the mind’. Structures arrayed in crystalline perfection comprise an inclined basement overlaid by layers of derived materials. Musical crystals erode, conglomerate and metamorphose under the pressure of surrounding materials and the relentless entropic forward progression of time. - Chrisopher Adler

Performed at UC San Diego, 2017

…NO LONGER A FAITHFUL IMITATION OF ETERNITY, BUT A CONSTANT STATE OF EROSION

…LANGUAGE AND SOIL BLOWN AWAY

…SEA BUTTERFLIES FALL INTO A NAMELESS OCEAN

…MEMORY AT THE CHTHONIC LEVEL

…THE PILING UP OF DEBRIS

…STALE TIME

…THE PILING UP OF DEBRIS

From STRATA: A GEOPHOTOGRAPHIC FICTION, by Robert Smithson (1970)

Adler, Christopher - Motetus for solo extended range glockenspiel

Performed at the Oberlin Conservatory, 2013

Adler, Christopher - Signals Intelligence for solo percussion

Broekman, Jesse - Body of Unseen Beings for percussion and electronics

Performed as part of S. Dowgray’s UAF faculty recital, Spring 2024

Burtner, Matthew - Ecotones for percussion and electronics

“An ecotone is a transition area between distinct ecosystems. For example, a marshland is an ecotone between land and aquatic ecosystems. Such ecosystem transitions may gradually blend or sharply abut. This composition explores sonic ecotones through acoustic likeness of distinct bioregions. The piece couples recorded soundscapes with ecoacoustic percussion music, forming sonic ecotones between glaciers, volcanoes, forests, coasts, fire and coral reefs.Each section of the piece features an amazing soundscape recording, and a unique instrument combination. The percussionist plays traditional percussion instruments such as drums, rattles and cymbals, and also plays amplified natural materials such as dirt, leaves, water, shells, etc.” -Matthew Burtner

The soundscapes were recorded by Burtner with support from the EcoSono Institute in Guatemala, the West Indies, Alaska, and along the U.S. East Coast.

Performed as part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology and Music Department Collaborative Residency in March 2023.

Cole, Amanda — Vibraphone Theories for vibraphone and sine tones

Vibraphone Theories is a set of three rhythmic pieces for vibraphone and sine tones that are played from a stereo CD during a live performance. Microtonal intervals in the sine tone part create amplitude beats, which have been sequenced to create the rhythms notated in the score. When the vibraphone plays notes close in pitch to notes in the sine tone part, additional beating is created. During a live performance the sine tone and vibraphone parts blend together to sound like one instrument.

Deyoe, Nicholas - Fantasia IIIb for vibraphone

performed live at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2023

Donatoni, Franco - Omar I, II for vibraphone

Donatoni, Franco - Mari I, II for solo marimba

Dowgray, Sean — WHEN for percussion and field recordings

Dowgray, Sean — Time Bound & Timeless for solo piano

View/Purchase Album on Bandcamp Here

Dowgray, Sean - Moving Through the Boreal Forest (2022)

Moving Through the Boreal Forest (2022) presents a sonic ecosystem of field recordings throughout Alaska, found sounds from my explorations throughout In A Time of Change: Boreal Forest Stories (ITOC), and performed sounds of my own creation. The timbral diversity of various percussion instruments combined with the many sounds of the boreal forest presents a sonic dialogue that has been of primary interest to me throughout ITOC, as both a music performer and as a listener and learner of this particular biome. The field recordings reorient the percussion instruments back to their original material state: wood, metal, stone, earth, and skin. In turn, the performed sounds open up the expressive aspects of the forest itself. At times the field recordings are most prominent, other times the performed sounds are heard alone, and occasionally the two are indistinguishable.

Support Album Here: https://seandowgray.bandcamp.com/album/moving-through-the-boreal-forest

In a Time of Change: https://itoc.alaska.edu/boreal-forest-stories/

Daryl Farmer, poetry - https://darylfarmer.com/bio/

Maïté Agopian, light/shadow/images - https://www.chakpuppetry.org/

(0:00) Introduction (11:37) Winter, Part I (21:00) Winter, Part II (32:00) Winter, Part III - Daryl Farmer, poetry (40:22) Spring into Summer (49:42) Fire - Daryl Farmer, poetry (55:49) Cycles, Fall, Preserve - Daryl Farmer, poety (1:09:12) For (the) Time Being

Original Field Recordings Include: -UAF trail system, January 2021-March 2022 -Walking, large snow plow, and raven call, January 2021 -Ballaine Lake, February 2021 -Snow falling from trees (various locations), March 2021 -Some streams and creeks in Northern Sweden, Summer 2021 -Snow on leaves, grass, and pavement, November 2021 -Cranes in late summer, August 2022 -Rain in late summer, August 2022 -Burning lumber and charcoal, October 2022 -Along Chena River, September 2022-April 2023 -Under the Old Steese Highway, October 2022 -Snow on the ground, November-December 2022 -Under the Parks Highway along the Chena, April 2023 -Running water near Loftus Road, April 2023

Guest Field Recordings: -Utena, Lithuania, emergency alarm system test, alas23/sala (public domain) -Urban thunderstorm with siren (Ohio), fluxmonk (public domain) -AlbertaWaveringTonesjunu96mono, SPMcGreevy (public domain)

Druckman, Jacob — Reflections on the Nature of Water for solo marimba

Eckardt, Jason — Transience for solo marimba

In Transience, time is presented as an insurmountable task, a cartographic mapping in an intensely elaborate manner. It is a work that demands the highest order of time keeping, pressing up against the limits of human capability. Moreover, set on top the rhythms is a system of constantly changing articulations consisting of staccato, marcato, accented, tenuto, and slurred markings. Lastly, a dynamic layer similarly undergoes constant change, whether gradually through swells or in a terraced fashion. Over the course of the piece, the percussionist moves both away and towards a single F-sharp which begins the piece. At times, the percussionist’s arms are stretched in at the far ends of the marimba.

thirty-second notes | 7 notes over the period of 6 thirty-second notes (7:6) | quintuplet | 3 notes over the period of 4 (3:4) nested in a grouping of septuplets | 4 notes over the period of 3 sixteenth notes (4:3)| 11 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes (11:8) | sextuplet | 5 notes over the period of 4 (5:4) | 7 notes over the period of 6 notes (7:6) nested in a grouping of 11 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes (11:8) | 13 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes (13:8) | 4 notes over the period of 3 (4:3) nested in a grouping of quintuplets | 5 notes over the period of 3 thirty-second notes | 5 notes over the period of 4 notes (5:4) nested in a grouping of 11 notes over the period of 8 notes (11:8) | 3 notes over the period of 2 notes (3:2) nested in a grouping of 7 notes over the period of 6 thirty second notes (7:6) | septuplet | 11 notes over the period of 6 thirty-second notes (11:6) | 4 notes over the period of 3 notes (4:3) nested in a grouping of 11 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes | 3 notes over the period of 2 notes (3:2) nested in a grouping of quintuplets | 5 notes over the period of 4 notes nested within a grouping of sextuplets | 7 notes over the period of 6 notes (7:6) nested in a grouping of 13 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes (13:8) | 5 notes over the period of 3 notes (5:3) nested in a grouping of 7 notes over the period of 6 thirty-second notes (7:6) | sixty-fourth notes | 5 notes over the period of four notes nested in a grouping of 13 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes (13:8) | 5 notes over the period of 3 (5:3) notes nested in a grouping of 5 notes (a quintuplet) | 4 notes over the period of 3 notes nested in a grouping of 13 notes over the period of 8 thirty-second notes (13:8) | 3 notes over the period of 2 sextuplet notes | 4 notes over the period of 3 septuplets | one-hundred-twenty-eighth notes

Performed live at the University of California San Diego, These Machines… These Mechanisms…, 2016

Feldman, Morton — For Bunita Marcus; Palais de Mari

Ignatowicz-Glińska, Anna - Stone Mosaic for vibraphone solo

Kulenty, Hanna — Arci for solo percussion

“I have been exploring the phenomenon of time in music for many years. Why in music?  Because I’ve been educated as a musician, but also because, in my opinion, music is the most perfect language of expressing time, the so-called “time” – expressing it in the most appropriate way. Let me put it this way: The art that I’m engaged in is a search for the metaphysical. Through controlling and taming the phenomenon of time I seek to purify both the soul – through catharsis, and the body – through emotions.” - Hanna Kulenty

Hanna Kulenty’s Arci for solo percussion is an ambitious work for an all-encompassing percussion setup consisting of almost forty percussion instruments. The visual nature of the setup and the manner in which the performer must navigate it (often playing in sweeping circles) is certainly a part of the work’s experience that cannot go unnoticed. However, the setup as well as the performer’s traversal of it is the result of Kulenty’s interest in developing “three sonoristic layers, each shaped in the form of an arch.” Kulenty also adds that each layer should be “maintained in different climates, so, the change of an arch will bring a new mood.”

Performed live at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2021

Lang, David — String of Pearls for solo marimba

Listen to String of Pearls Here

Levine, Josh — Les yeux ouverts for solo vibraphone

"Les yeux ouverts (“Eyes open”) articulates superimposed layers of musical material through the intricate grammar typical of much of my work. Written for David Shively, it is an intensely demanding piece. I thought of it while composing as homologous with an imaginary trio whose members play found-object percussion, Les yeux fermés (“Eyes closed”), titled in reference to an enigmatic directive: ‘Regarde également les yeux fermés, pour mieux te voir regarder’ (“Look, too through closed eyes, the better to see yourself looking”). I imagined two incarnations of the “same” music being presented simultaneously, with the extreme virtuosity, precise detail, and carefully controlled chromatic pitch world of the solo vibraphone blurred by a vaguer, more supple and timbrally variegated exploration of similar materials in the ensemble. The vibraphone piece ends up reflecting this speculative situation—as it progresses, its edges soften and its colors diversify, as if its gentle twin, the unheard ensemble version of the piece, had been glimpsed through closed eyes." -Josh Levine

View score at: Music — Josh Levine (joshlevine-composer.com)

Performed live at the University of California San Diego as part of the Josh Levine Residency

Levine, Josh — Shrinking world/expanding for solo percussion

Watch Shrinking world/expanding Here

At the root of this piece’s conception was noticing how my parents’ worlds changed as they got old, how some things seemed to close in on them but time somehow opened up. Such thoughts manifest themselves in the piece through various interlaced processes of compression and rarefaction, and the changing weights of silence and resonance.

The piece unfolds in two distinct sections, the first (measures 1-137) implementing a set of diverse instruments selected from Sean Dowgray’s personal collection, and the second played entirely on a Thai gong. The sections sound radically different from each other, but the second one is, in fact, a revisiting of the first, laying bare its predecessor’s core temporal structure (formerly articulated by the crotales) in shrunken form. The second part uses different points and modes of attack in place of the original three layers of metal, stone and wood sounds; it also echoes much of the first section’s activity profile, albeit in extremely approximate ways. It is as if we have seen an image up close, but in memory can only imagine it at a great distance. -Josh Levine, program note

View score at: Music — Josh Levine (joshlevine-composer.com)

Performed live at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cartographies of Time | Premiered at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Learning

Murphy-Mancini, Justin — Sic itur ad astra for harpsichord & percussion

(0:00) Prelude | (5:52) Allemande | (9:14) Courante | (13:45) Sarabande | 18:55) Gigue | (23:05) Chaconne | (29:05) Postludium Arpeggiando | (38:50) Final Tutti | (44:18) Coda

Premiered November 29th, 2018 as part of S. Dowgray's D.M.A. recital, "Musica Mundana, Musica Humana, Musica Instrumentis"

Recorded in December 2018 at UC San Diego Justin J. Murphy-Mancini, harpsichord Sean Dowgray, percussion

Program Note: This piece represents my personal attempt to make the harpsichord coexist with the family of percussion instruments. I have posed the first in dialogue to explore themes of resonance, sustain, and decay before settling on certain possibilities of their simultaneous sounding. To bring a certain level of coherence to my thinking, I have imagined each stage in the conversation as successive movements of an extremely abstracted "baroque suite:" in turn, the percussionist and harpsichordist play an arpeggiated prelude, followed by the traditional allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, They arrive together at the chaconne and subsequently a postludium arpeggiando, attempting to push the harpsichord to employ the technique that maximizes continuous sound before it dissipates into emptiness. The percussion then takes up the possibility of continuity through endless impulse, moving gradually from instrument to instrument in a distorted mirror of the opening dialogue. -Justin Murphy-Mancini

Nielson, Lewis — Lengua Encubierto for solo percussion

Watch Lengua Encubierto Here

Nielson’s Lengua Encubierto sets Roque Dalton’s poem, “Sobre Nuestra Moral Poética” (“Concerning Our Poetic Morality”) to a small arrangement of percussion instruments including triangles, almglocken, woodblocks, tin can, cooking pan, bongos, kick drum, and most distinctively, the autoharp. In an urgent rhythmic stuttering, words are initially imperceptible as vocalizations of strangled consonants blend with the sharp attacks, quick scrapes, and rubbing of the percussion instruments. Consonants form into words, and the text of Dalton's poem appears as fragmented melodies emerge. The autoharp, initially treated percussively via rubbing and scraping, transforms its material to that of pitch and harmony by way of plucking and strumming. Dalton's poem⏤at first veiled by a percussive nature⏤is revealed through the connection of melodic line, development of harmony, and outright song in the latter portion.

Sobre Nuestra Moral Poética | Concerning our Poetic Morality

Not to be confusing, but we are poets who write

Clandestinely, being still alive.

We are not, then, anonymously comfortable and unaffected:

We are facing the enemy

And ride next to him on the same trail.

And the system and its creatures

We attack through our poetry,

With [through] our lives we give them the opportunity to convert, Day after day. - Roque Dalton (Lewis Nielson, trans.)

Nielson, Lewis — Connections & Moments for solo percussion

Rojahn, Rudolph — Deus ex Machina for solo percussion

Watch Deus ex Machina Here

Tacke, Daniel — Vorrücken for solo vibraphone

Listen to Vorrücken Here

“Certain sounds, certain hums tell what ‘past’ is presently within us.” -Pascal Quignard

Daniel Tacke’s Vorrücken is for vibraphone and phantom vibraphone built of plain steel flat bars tuned very approximately (and intentionally so) to the vibraphone. An “unnaturally long sustain” as Tacke described it was the seed of the work. Tacke and I originally planned to install electromagnetic actuators with magnets that would activate the vibraphone without the need of a percussion mallet, a development originally taken on by Cameron Britt in his creation of the EM vibraphone. This was ultimately rendered unfeasible given our circumstances, and the phantom instrument became the primary means of generating a sense of unnaturally long sustain. Vorrücken consists primarily of sustained tones activated by a bow as well as the scraping or rubbing of both the vibraphone and phantom instruments using thimbles. For Tacke, the title expresses the following:

"Vorrücken," however, captures the same sense of progressive and retrospective orientation, meaning "to move forward" but with chronological (and perhaps military) connotations as well, yet also connected to the idea of looking backward from old age, with all of the implications of wearing out that may come with this.

Tacke, Daniel — einsamkeit for solo percussion

Watch einsamkeit Here

In Daniel Tacke’s einsamkeit (2009), the score presents rhythms alone across a series of otherwise blank pages. Meter is completely absent, tempo is approximated (roughly 12 seconds per page), and rhythm can be discerned only by the spatial representation of the notes themselves rather than discrete notational values. Moreover, Tacke created an elaborate layering of musical materials, each of which operates within its own tempo. Therefore, it can be said that Tacke seeks to overcome the limitations arising from the strict measurement of time. The performer must rely on other mechanisms in order to work out the time of the piece. Aspects such as gesture, physical motion, and intuited groupings of events direct the progress of the work rather than any firm system of counting. This work is not the sole expedition in Tacke’s investigation of such matters, as he describes more broadly in consideration of his creative practice:

[Notation] is also a process that is not without certain resistances, simultaneously freeing and limiting one’s imaginative capacities.  On the one hand, musical expression and meaning might be compromised by the visual concreteness that is necessarily a part of notational processes; on the other hand, notational images might carry the potential for previously unimaginable musical possibilities.

In the case of einsamkeit, the concealment of the underlying systems of temporal measurement requires that the performer consider alternate ways of internalizing time. Suddenly, the performer is not fixed within the lanes of meter, pulse, and subdivision. A more immediate, less metronomic approach must be taken. The designation of numbers to the passing of beats no longer holds its effectiveness, rather, broader gestures and perceptions of motion must be pursued. 

Tallon, Tina - Excision No. 1 for percussion and electronics

Volans, Kevin - She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket for solo percussion

Xenakis, Iannis— rebonds ab for solo percussion

Performed live at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2014