Left Edge Percussion and the SOU Percussion Ensemble will perform at the 2022 Bang on a Can Long Play Festival in New York City April 29–May 1. Both performances will take place at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn.
The SOU Percussion Ensemble, directed by Bryan Jeffs, will perform Michael Pisaro’s ricefall on Friday, April 29, at 7:30pm.
Left Edge Percussion, directed by Terry Longshore, will perform John Luther Adams’ epic sonic masterpiece, Strange and Sacred Noise at 7:30pm on Saturday, April 30.
Photo: Tatjana Luce
Strange and Sacred Noise:
“Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise…in most cultures, the theme of noise lies at the origin of the religious idea…Music, then, constitutes communication with this primordial, threatening noise – prayer.”—Jacques Attali
Lasting about 75 minutes and scored in six parts for six sets of like instruments, Adams writes about Strange and Sacred Noise:
“Noise – complex, aperiodic sound – touches and moves us in profound and mysterious ways. Strange and Sacred Noise is a celebration of noise as a metaphor for turbulent phenomena in the world around us, and a gateway to ecstatic experience.
Grounded in the elemental violence of nature and the self-similar forms of linear fractals, this music is a convergence of sonic geography and sonic geometry. Each piece in the cycle is conceived as its own distinct and separate sound world, evoking the immediacy and presence of a place.”
The titles of the movements evoke the complex relationships between nature, mathematics, and the wondrous noise created by their instrumental configurations:
I. …dust into dust… for 2 snare drums and 2 field drums
II. solitary and time-breaking waves for 4 tam-tams (gongs)
III. velocities crossing in phase space for 6 tom-toms and 4 bass drums
IV. triadic iteration lattices for four sirens
V. clusters on a quadrilateral grid for four marimbas, four vibraphones, and four glockenspiels
VI. …and dust rising… for 2 snare drums and 2 field drums
Photo: Kim Budd
ricefall:
In Michael Pisaro’s ricefall, rice falls, like a gentle rain, from the hands of the performers, onto a variety of objects and surfaces. Ricefall is part sonic environment, part visual installation, part intensely quiet and dramatic performance.
Originally scheduled for May of 2020, the Long Play Festival is back on! When the 2020 festival was canceled, we recorded a virtual version Pisaro’s ricefall, and I interviewed Michael for the release. Here’s that interview and performance:
