Members of professor John Dorsey’s Percussion Studio will be performing a recital at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Alexander Recital Hall.
Thirteen members are scheduled to perform on a variety of percussive instruments including marimba, snare drum and vibraphone.
“Many of the pieces for marimba were written after 1960,” Dorsey said. “There was an explosion of literature written for solo marimba after that time.”
One of the junior members, Brad Bower, will be performing a multi-percussion piece involving drums and other instruments.
Freshman Jeff Brooks will be performing Mitchell Peters’ “Teardrops” for the solo three-mallet marimba. This piece, though often performed by beginning multi-mallet players, is in some ways more difficult to perform than more advanced pieces. There are a wide range of dynamic and tempo changes that force the player to have a good handle on their multi-mallet techniques.
Students in Dorsey’s studio take a class called “Applied Lessons,” which are one-on-one lessons where they learn different instruments and the skills to play them.
“The percussion recitals are used as a sort of ‘term paper’ for the class,” Dorsey said. “It’s an opportunity to perform and show what they’ve learned.”
Dorsey also teaches a techniques class for non-percussionists, a percussion ensemble course, an African ensemble course, and graduate-level classes in percussion literature and pedagogy. During the fall semester, he is also in charge of the EMU marching band drum line.
Percussion studio member Michael Hejka, will be performing Jacob Druckman’s “Reflections on the Nature of Water.”
The piece, a six-movement multi-mallet marimba solo, was commissioned for the National Endowment of the Arts back in the 1980s. A graduate student who returned to college after teaching band and choir classes in Mississippi for several years, Hejka has been working on his recital piece for months now.
“I love [“Reflections on the Nature of Water], because there is plenty of room for interpretation,” he said. “It is a really challenging piece to play but so rewarding.”
