Contact: Dr. Andrew Bliss
Office: 865-974-4882
Email: abliss@utk.edu
For Immediate Release
October 26, 2016
UT PERCUSSION ON CAMPUS AND IN THE COMMUNITY: A 2-CONCERT WEEK FEATURING GUEST ARTIST COLLABORATION AND AN EXCITING PREMIERE OF KNOXVILLE’S NEWEST CHAMBER ENSEMBLE
The University of Tennessee Percussion Studies area will showcase its two major ensembles in Fall concerts soon, both directed by Andrew Bliss: the UT Percussion Ensemble (November 2nd; Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall at 8PM) and the program’s newly-launched contemporary chamber group, Ensemble Knox (November 6th; Emporium Arts Center at 4PM, 100 S Gay St., Knoxville, TN 37902).
Wednesday, November 2nd’s concert will feature repertoire both timeless and new. Edgard Varèse’s Ionisation (1931), acclaimed as the first significant composition ever written for percussion ensemble, received its premiere in Carnegie Hall. Using a plethora of instruments such as snare drums, chimes, air raid sirens, and anvils, this masterwork changed the role of the percussionist as an artist and was critical to the development of repertoire that the UT Percussion Ensemble is privileged to share with the community each season. This concert will also present more recent works such as Robert Honstein’s Patter and Impulse by Anna Meadors.
On Sunday, November 6th at 4PM, the Knoxville area will be introduced to Ensemble Knox, the new resident graduate chamber group in the UT Percussion Studies area. The ensemble will begin its debut concert with b, by Simon Løffler, using an array of guitar pedals, an open jack cable, and fluorescent lights as their medium. Specific objects, aptly named, by Michael Maierhof, explores the use of electric toothbrushes as a sound inducer among various membranophones, placed around the listening audience. Sunday afternoon’s concert will be anchored by guest artist Greg Stuart (University of South Carolina) leading a performance of Michael Pisaro’s Hearing Metal 3, alongside UT students, Bliss, and European guest artists Henrik Knarborg Larsen (Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Denmark), andBrian Archinal (Bern, Switzerland). Pisaro’s work features a 4 x 4 grid of percussionists seated at cymbals, who excite these metallic forces for nearly 45 minutes, using bowing and various “gravity excitation” via dropped grains of various texture. The result is a slowly shifting field of sound unlike any other.
For more information, please visit percussion.utk.edu or contact Dr. Andrew Bliss, UT’s Director of Percussion Studies at abliss@utk.edu. Both concerts are free and open to the public. Regular news surrounding UT Percussion can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/UTPercussion, Instagram @utperc, and on Twitter @UTPercussion.