Juilliard Percussion Ensemble, Led by Daniel Druckman, Presents "Bell and Drum: Percussion Music From China" on Monday, December 11, 2017, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

NEW YORK –– The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble, led by director Daniel Druckman, presents “Bell and Drum: Percussion Music From China” on Monday, December 11, 2017, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. The ensemble will perform Guo Wenjing’s Parade (2003); Zhou Long’s Wu Ji (2006) with Juilliard pianist Christopher Staknys; Lei Liang’s Inkscape (2014) with Juilliard pianist Daniel Joseph Parker; Chou Wen-chung’s Echoes From the Gorge (1989); and Tan Dun’s Elegy: Snow in June (1991) with Juilliard cellist Zlatomir Fung.  

The roster includes Juilliard percussionists Sae Hashimoto, Evan Saddler, and David Yoon in Guo Wenjing’s Parade; Benjamin Cornovaca and Leo Simon in Zhou Long’s Wu Ji;
Tyler Cunningham, Jake Darnell, Omar El-Abidin, and Euijin Jung in Lei Liang’s Inkscape; Joseph Bricker, Taylor Hampton, Harrison Honor, and John Martin Thenell in
Chou Wen-chung’s Echoes From the Gorge; and Omar El-Abidin, Benjamin Cornovaca,Toby Grace, and Leo Simon in Tan Dun’s Elegy: Snow in June.

According to the program notes: “The music on this program – all written by Chinese-born composers, all but one of whom now live in the U.S. – illustrates both the contrasting music traditions of East and West and the increasing inspiration that each has provided the other in recent decades. Percussion is an especially appropriate and interesting medium for these points of contrast and contact. It has played a hugely prominent part in Chinese music and the country’s social and religious culture for thousands of years, yet it has been an underutilized resource in Western music for most of its history. But in the last several decades, percussion has become a foundational and transformational means of expression for modern Western composers – due in no small part to Eastern influences – and has led them to the discovery and exploration of a whole new world of sonic possibilities.”

Free tickets are available at the Juilliard or Alice Tully Hall box offices. For more information, go to Juilliard.edu/calendar.

About Daniel Druckman

Percussionist Daniel Druckman is active as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and recording artist. He has appeared in concert throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan; in recital in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Tokyo; and as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic’s Horizons concerts, and the San Francisco Symphony’s New and Unusual Music series. He has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1991, serving as associate principal percussionist, and he has made numerous guest appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Capo Chamber Players, American Brass Quintet, Orpheus, Steve Reich and Musicians, and the Group for Contemporary Music. Mr. Druckman has also participated in chamber music festivals in Santa Fe, Ravinia, Saratoga, Caramoor, Bridgehampton, Tanglewood, and Aspen. An integral part of New York’s new music community, both as soloist and as a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Mr. Druckman has premiered works by Steve Reich, Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Oliver Knussen, Poul Ruders, Milton Babbitt, Ralph Shapey, and Charles Wuorinen, among many others. He has also collaborated with Gilbert Kalish and Wu Han at the Chamber Music Society, Leif Ove Andsnes at Zankel Hall, and Colin Currie at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Druckman is chair of Juilliard’s percussion department and director of the Percussion Ensemble. Born and raised in New York City, he is the son of composer Jacob Druckman, and attended Juilliard receiving both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music in 1980. He undertook additional studies at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.

About Zlatomir Fung

Eighteen-year-old cellist Zlatomir Fung won first prize at the 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition, the 2015 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players, the 2014 Stulberg International String Competition, and the 2014 Irving Klein International Competition. He was selected as a 2016 Presidential Scholar for the Arts, was awarded the 2016 Landgrave von Hesse Prize at the Kronberg Academy Cello Master Classes, and is a winner of the 2017 Astral National Auditions. A regular member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players for its 2016–17 season, he has been featured on NPR’s From the Top series six times, and has also appeared on the station’s Performance Today program. Mr Fung has been a soloist with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Santa Cruz Symphony, Boston Pops, Lausanne Sinfonietta, Grand Rapids Symphony, State Philharmonic of Sibiu, and New England Philharmonic, among others. His teachers include Julie Albers, Emmanuel Feldman, and Nancy Hair. He is in his first year at Juilliard where he is a student of Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy. He is a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.

About Daniel Parker

Pianist Daniel Parker, a native of Johnson City, New York, is a student of Matti Raekallio at Juilliard, and is scheduled to receive his master’s degree from the school in 2018. Mr. Parker received his BS in music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2016 and was the recipient of the 2016 Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts and held the Emerson Fellowship throughout two years of piano study with Sergey Schepkin. As the winner of the 2016 MIT Concerto Competition, he performed in Kresge Auditorium with the MIT Symphony Orchestra. He has presented solo recitals in MIT’s Killian Hall and Juilliard’s Paul Hall and appeared in master classes in the Aspen Music Festival’s Harris Concert Hall. During the 2015–16 season he was a fellow of the Quaker Voluntary Service. Mr. Parker is president of the Juilliard Student Council and cofounder of the Improv You Are Enough! collective. As a composer, his works have been presented in concert at Juilliard. He holds the Louise Chisholm Moran Scholarship as well as the Helen and Martin Kaltman Scholarship.

About Christopher Staknys

Pianist and composer Christopher Staknys is in his fourth year at Juilliard where he studies with Hung-Kuan Chen. He has appeared as performer and composer internationally in major cities including New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and Paris and he has won numerous competitions including first prize in the Steinway Society of Massachusetts Piano Competition and the Rivers School Concerto Competition. He has studied with Sergei Babayan, Robert Levin, Peter Serkin, David Finckel, Joseph Kalichstein, and Fred Sherry. His orchestral work, Congo, was premiered and given two performances by the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He frequently performs with Juilliard’s two contemporary ensembles, AXIOM and the New Juilliard Ensemble, in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater and at Alice Tully Hall. This past summer his work for electronics, Gulf, was presented at the 2017 Atlantic Music Festival. He holds the Abraham and Ruth Turkenich Piano Scholarship as well as Josef and Rosina Lhévinne Scholarship.

About the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble

The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble was founded in the late 1960s by Saul Goodman and has since been led by Roland Kohloff, and its current music director Daniel Druckman. The ensemble appears annually in two concerts at Alice Tully Hall, where in recent seasons it has explored works by Gerard Grisley, Beat Furrer, and Rolf Wallin; celebrated the 85th birthday of George Crumb; surveyed the works of the founders of Bang on a Can: Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe; and honored the 50th anniversary of the influential percussion group, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, by performing three seminal works from its extensive repertoire. The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble has appeared in concert throughout the New York area, including guest appearances at the Danish Wave festival at Merkin Hall, the New Works/October series at the Miller Theatre, the Cutting Edge series at Greenwich House, and at Carnegie Hall in several performances of the Perspectives series curated by Maurizio Pollini and Leif Ove Andsnes. it also performed Steve Reich’s Drumming with Colin Currie in 2014 and last season joined forces with Juilliard’s AXIOM ensemble for a celebration of Mr. Reich’s 80 birthday performing Double Sextet, Mallet Quartet, City Life, and Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ.

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PROGRAM LISTING:

Monday, December 11, 2017, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

Juilliard Percussion Ensemble

Daniel Druckman, director

Daniel Joseph Parker and Christopher Staknys, pianos

Zlatomir Fung, cello

 

GUO WENJING Parade (2003)

ZHOU LONG Wu Ji (2006)

LEI LIANG Inkscape (2014)

CHOU WEN-CHUNG Echoes From the Gorge (1989)

TAN DUN Elegy: Snow in June (1991)

 

Free tickets are available at the Juilliard or Alice Tully Hall box offices. For more information, go to Juilliard.edu/calendar.