Dear Friends,
I’ve been hard at work on a number of longer-form projects, ranging from leveraging AI to redesign our percussion curriculum here at Arizona State University to developing checklists to better manage our percussion studio.
In the meantime, I wanted to share news of upcoming concerts.
This week, the Percussion Collective, our ensemble of Yale alumni, is performing Chris Theofanidis’ Drum Circles with the Phoenix Symphony.
The piece, a concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra, is a tour de force of percussive chamber music running the gamut from delicately poetic to quirky to bombastic. I’m so proud to share the stage with such esteemed and dynamic collaborators: Svet Stoyanov, Ji Su Jung, Jeff Stern, and conductor Lina Gonzalez-Granados.
It’s also opening weekend, with a program featuring The Planets. If you are nearby, we’d love to see you there
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After that, I’m rejoining my podcast/music partner Mike Truesdell for a performance in Nicosia, Cyprus, as part of the International Pharos Contemporary Music Festival in Nicosia Cyprus.
It’s not a destination wedding and we don’t expect our superfan (hi mom!) to join us there, But, Mike and I did play our program of theatrical and quizzical chamber music at Arizona State last week. The video is available here:
In October, I’m excited for the release of Christopher Stark’s The Language of Landscapes, one of New Morse Code’s most beloved projects. Chris paired the long-form work for cello, percussion, and electronics with radical remixes of the work from a diverse subset of artists working in different genres: Malitzin Cortes (CNDSD), Mvstermind, Chris P. Thompson, and Adult Fur. We’re going to celebrate in November with an event in ASU’s ambisonic dome. Details are coming soon!
Hope to see some of you soon here in AZ!
-Mike
What’s fascinating me now
My wonderful duo partner Hannah Collins shared this miraculous org chart from Disney, shared by @Issue Journal. What is Ruff Timing?
I’ve been obsessed with the BBC’s Gardener’s World, a sort of Reading Rainbow meets This Old House show for British amateur gardeners. Each week, the dapper Monty Don (and his disinterested dogs) showers his miraculous garden with love, sharing tidbits on pruning and propagating everything from herbaceous borders to soft fruit. It’s eminently calming.
