Juilliard Percussion Festival presents the debut of The Marticians, a percussion-based ensemble, performing works by Boulez, Stockhausen, and Xenakis on Wednesday, July 30 at 8 PM

Concert on Thursday, July 31 features faculty and guest artists of the 2008 Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar performing works by Keiko Abe, Nigel Westlake, Joseph Tompkins, Kevin Volans, and a commissioned work by John Link

The Juilliard Percussion Festival presents the debut of The Marticians, a percussion-based ensemble, performing three classic modernist works by leading titans of contemporary music: Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis. The concert on Wednesday, July 30 at 8 PM takes place in The Juilliard School’s Bruno Walter Studio (Room 309), 140 West 66th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam). Admission is FREE for this concert, and seating is limited.
       
Each of the three watershed works on the program, Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître (The Master without a Hammer) (1953-5), Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kreuzspiel (Crossplay) (1951) and Xenakis’ Okho (1989) feature three percussionists. Okho is a virtuoso exploration of the African Djembe in the context of modern western music. Le marteau sans maître is a feast of orchestral color. Scored for alto flute, viola, guitar as well as the above-mentioned trio of exotic percussion, it evokes the sound worlds of jazz, African and Asian music without yielding its rigorous integrated serialist aesthetic. Stockhausen’s Kreuzspiel was premiered at Darmstadt in the summer of 1952 where, according to Stockhausen, the work "was violently interrupted by the public." With characteristic bravado, he claimed, "I knew when I wrote it that it would sound like nothing else in the world." It is scored for the three percussion, oboe, bass clarinet, and piano, and features a unique terraced staging (several small stages for various instruments) as well a rigorous organization of instrumental register, previously unexplored by any composer, including Webern.

The Marticians are a percussion-based ensemble, the brainchild of young percussionist Alexander Lipowski, a protégé of Pierre Boulez and Steve Schick, and the new music catalyst and conductor/composer Michel Galante. In May, these two musicians launched a project of assembling an excellent and complimentary cast of dedicated virtuosi to diligently workshop and rehearse Pierre Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître, the group’s debut concert in July. Mezzo-soprano Bo Chang will sing the René Char text, accompanied by an ensemble led by Michel Galante: percussionists Alexander Lipowski, Matt Gold, Gregory Beyer, guitarist Oren Fader, violist Miranda Sielaff, and flutist Erin Lesser. Members of the ensemble worked closely with Pierre Boulez and the Argento Chamber Ensemble, and have been participants at the Lucerne Academy. In addition to the Stockhausen and Xenakis works performed at this concert, future projects include Pierre Boulez’s sur Incises (on Incises), Ligeti’s Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel (With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles) and concerts of large scale premieres for electronics and percussion by emerging international composers.

On Thursday, July 31 at 8 PM, faculty and guest artists of the 2008 Juilliard Seminar Percussion Seminar will be featured in solo works and chamber music by composers Joseph Schwantner, Alejandro Viñao, Keiko Abe, Nigel Westlake, and a commissioned work by John Link. Presented as part of the Juilliard Percussion Festival and the 2008 Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar, the concert takes place in Juilliard’s Bruno Walter Studio (Room 309), 140 West 66th Street. Admission is FREE, and seating is limited.

Juilliard faculty member Gregory Zuber performs works of Joseph Schwantner and Alejandro Viñao. Joseph Gramley, Director of the Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar, will be joined by Haruka Fujii, David Stevens, and Jeffrey Irving in Keiko Abe’s Conversation in the Forest for marimba and three percussionists. John Ostrowski, Chihiro Shibayama, David Stevens, and Michael Caterisano perform Nigel Westlake’s Omphalo Centric Lecture for four marimbas. Messrs. Irving and Caterisano present solo works by Joseph Tompkins and Kevin Volans; and Mr. Irving will be joined by guitarist and collaborator Daniel Lippel for a commissioned work for their duo, the Irving Lippel Duo. The work, For Irving Lippel, was composed in 2004 by John Link for the Duo and is a fantasia that explores the remarkable rich and suggestive combination of vibraphone and guitar.

The Juilliard Percussion Festival is hosted by the 2008 Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar, designed for the advanced high school percussionist. The Seminar offers 13 intensive days of hands-on study of all of the major percussion instruments, as well as introductions to frame drums, percussion chamber music, multi-percussion and solo percussion literature. Joseph Gramley is Director of the Juilliard’s Summer Percussion Seminar, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer. The Seminar was founded by marimba artist Janis Potter in 1998 and in addition to prominent guest artists, the Seminar features the four principal Juilliard Percussion Faculty:  Daniel Druckman, Chair, Gordon Gottlieb, Joseph Pereira and Gregory Zuber.