ACC Music
Faculty Percussion Recital
Dr. Jordan Walsh
Wednesday, February 19th
7:00 PM
Highland Recital Hall
Embedded Files
Program
Program
Emma O'Halloran
b. 1985
How Sweet the Thought of You as Infinite
Marimba + Electronics
This year has been one of incredible change. At points in my life where everything seems in flux, I find myself trying to freeze moments in time so I don’t lose them.
This piece is about the longing we have for certain moments to last forever.
In a way, it’s a love letter to the special people in our lives.
-Emma O'Halloran
Elainie Lillios
b 1968
After Long Drought
Vibraphone + Electronics
After Long Drought (2016) for vibraphone and live, interactive electroacoustics takes its inspiration from a poem with the same title by Wally Swist:
"The sky rips open
after days of grinding heat, waves of meadow grass
shift in the blowing rain, and floating on the breadth of its extended wings,
as bright as a vision,
the great blue heron strokes through the storm."
The percussionist’s virtuosic foray through Swist’s evocative work conjures images of an aggressive summer squall, with its torrential driving rain and gusting wind reflecting life’s unpredictability and tumult. As the piece progresses, the storm fades into the background as our focus is directed to a peaceful calm discovered amidst the storm – a heron majestically gliding through the gale. After Long Drought was commissioned by Scott Deal. After Long appears with the author’s permission and is published in Winding Paths Worn through Grass (Chicago, IL: Virtual Artists Collective, 2012).
-Elainie Lillios
Jennifer Jolley
b. 1981
How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angele
Multi-Percussion + Voice
At the beginning of 2009, I wanted to write a solo percussion piece, and to ease my way into
it, I decided to use spoken text. Kendall A. wrote a sestina called How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angeles, and with permission I was able to use it.
A sestina is a highly-structured poem form consisting of six six-lined stanzas followed by a tercet for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the
six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time. These six words then appear in the tercet as well.
This structure creates a cyclical poem, and therefore, the poem creates a cyclical piece. Each percussion instrument is specifically used to match certain events in the poem, and the listener can track the rotations.
-Jennifer Jolley
Sam Wheeler
b. 1995
Waves (World Premiere)
Drumset + Electronics
The rhythmic ideas in Waves (2025) emerge from a phenomenon known as binaural beating. This refers to the “beats” that are created by two pure tones that are extremely close in frequency. The ear naturally perceives a “third tone” below two notes being played together. For most conventional harmony this third tone is heard as a color - as the smoothness of crunchiness of a harmony. However, when the two tones are pure enough and close enough together the “third tone” begins to emerge as a perceptible pulse - a beat. The rate of this beat is simply the difference of the two frequencies (90hz - 89hz = binaural beat at 1hz or 60bpm).
In Waves three or more tones are playing at the same time, creating a dense, undulating texture of many different beats. Each drum silences one of the frequencies momentarily, thus simplifying the texture down to a recognizable rhythm for a fleeting instant. In this way the drum’s role in noise making is flipped on its head - rather than adding sound it silences part of it.
-Sam Wheeler
Aida Shirazi
b. 1987
whatever it is that we do
Dr. Aida Shirazi, electronics
Tombak + Electronics
man who knows
-Jordan Walsh
Ancel Neeley
b. 2000
37 Down, 39 Across
Drumset + Fixed Media
My second piece translating crossword puzzles to Drumset. My approach to the fixed media was very similar to my last piece, 63 Across 81 Down. Made from snippets of pronunciation videos and other random media that includes the more evocative words in this particular crossword.
-Ancel Neeley
J Andrew Wright-Smith
b. 1992
Rage/Remit
Multi-Percussion + Electronics
“Rage/Remit” is part of a longer cycle of pieces called Utterances, a body of pieces interested in simultaneously showcasing the subtle and beautiful timbral qualities of each instrument and the implications of a fundamental human action given shape and form. The totality of Utterances attempts to engage with acousmatic ideas in mixed music and find a meaningful praxis for people-centered music.
This movement is an outlet for rage and for finding forgiveness for others. This piece sees rage as a formless entity, akin to the desire to break things, and as determination, an anger driven force to channel that energy into something meaningful and sustaining.
-J Andrew Wright-Smith
Thomas Kotcheff
b. 1988
Obbligato Snare Drum Music No.1: The Power of Love
Obbligato Snare Drum Music No.1: The Power of Love
Snare Drum + Fixed Media
Y'all know what it is.
-Jordan Walsh
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