Princeton

So Percussion performing ‘Dusk’

Last July I wrote my first percussion piece Dusk for the So Percussion’s Summer Institute. I’ve written about the festival at length in another post but suffice to say I had an amazing time, meet lots of interesting people and heard tons of percussion music. As part of the festival So Percussion performed Dusk at Princeton University and this week the Vic Firth featured a video of the performance on their YouTube. It was a load of fun working with those guys and Evan Chapman, the videographer, did a great job capturing the concert. Hope you enjoy.

So Percussion Summer Institute

At the beginning of August I got back from the So Percussion Summer Institute (SoSI) at Princeton University. I’d applied to the course not really knowing what to expect. I’d never written for percussion before, been on a course in the States or worked with American musicians. There was a lot of unknowns. At the very least I’d certainly never expected to be performing blindfolded with Matmos in a Brooklyn bar…

The course was a mix of performance, lecturers practice and demonstrations and the theme of the course was percussion and electronics. The faculty and speakers were peppered with people who are straddling the electronic and acoustic worlds. Princeton composers such as Dan Trueman showed us examples of the electronics playing an active role in the musical performance. Each of his piano etudes causing the performer to work within the framework of the electronics and adapt to them in a different way. Read more