Double Percussion Concerto (2023) 18'
Concerto for two percussionists and orchestra (2, 2, 2, 2 - 2, 2, 0, 0 - timp, 1 perc, hp, str).
Jointly commissioned by arx duo and Symphony Tacoma (Sarah Ioannides, Music Director). Premiered on April 22, 2024 by Symphony Tacoma at Pantages Theater, Tacoma by Garrett Arney and Mari Yoshinaga, percussion, Sarah Ioannides conducting.
My Double Percussion Concerto for arx duo has been a dream project for many years. I have known arx for almost a decade and love many things about them: the energy in their playing, their infectiously engaging personalities, and their habit of imagining percussion instruments as seamlessly integrated members of the orchestra. Above all, I admire arx for their commitment to drawing together everyone in the room – for their desire to engage with as many communities as possible in their music-making, which is a passion we share. My concerto is inspired by all these qualities.
I wanted to deliver the goods in this music, leaning into some of the things percussion does best. This music grooves, pulses, and above all, dances. There are moments of rhythmic trickery in this piece that were influenced by my favorite contemporary dance music—work by composers like Anna Meredith and Squarepusher. The rhythmic language in these passages trades on expectation and surprise, emphasizing repeated patterns before subverting expectations.
I think of this piece as a syncopated, slithering way for the orchestra to move together with the percussion soloists. That idea of togetherness is centrally important to the piece. Instead of engaging with the traditional soloist vs. orchestra dynamic of a typical concerto, I imagined this work as a concerto for percussion duo and orchestra, with both parties working together. The phasing section of this piece captures that kind of virtuosity: it foregrounds the artistry of how two musicians interact with one another, and with the orchestra, rather than emphasizing their technical ability as solo players.
For a percussion concerto, this piece is also very much obsessed with pitch. In that domain, my Double Percussion Concerto has an especially close kinship with Beethoven. Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that Beethoven’s favorite musical patterns have influenced composers for centuries. I suppose I’m now joining those ranks, except that in this piece I’ve worked towards an aesthetic that twists Beethoven’s turns of phrase. This concerto is partly comprised of stolen elements of Beethoven’s vocabulary, ones that have been distorted into somewhat deranged progressions that I think sound fresh. They certainly make me smile, and I hope they’ll do the same for you.
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