News and Events
Meadows Percussion Ensemble Presents "Splendid Wood" November 6, Featuring Southwestern Premiere of "El Dia de los Muertos" by Noted Composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez
The Meadows Percussion Ensemble of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts will present its fall concert, “Splendid Wood,” at 8 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 6 in Caruth Auditorium of the Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd. on the SMU campus. Under the direction of Jon Lee, the group will perform eight works ranging from light and entertaining to serious and challenging. Admission is free and no tickets are required. Parking is available at Hillcrest and Binkley and in the garage beneath the Meadows Museum. For more information, please call the Division of Music at 214.768.1951.
The concert will open with Michael Daugherty’s Used Car Salesman, a tribute to the composer’s father. It follows the ups and downs of a used car salesman in the 1950s who is trying very hard to make a sale. The piece uses familiar instruments, as well as some literally taken from the scrap heap, and includes a text spoken by the performers. Next is a marimba quartet arrangement of Percy Grainger’s Molly on the Shore, based on an English folk song. Also featured are two works by Bill Cahn, a member of the percussion group Nexus. They include Changes, which uses only metals, primarily cymbals, playing in subtle combinations of tones and rhythmic patterns, and Cahn’s arrangement of the George Hamilton Green rag, Fluffy Ruffles, featuring student Scott Cooper on xylophone.
The second half of the concert opens with the southwestern premiere of a brand new work, El Dia de los Muertos, by the distinguished area composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez. Based on the Mexican folk holiday The Day of the Dead, it depicts the welcoming of the spirits out for a day, and the joyous fiesta that follows. El Dia de los Muertos was commissioned for the New England Conservatory and premiered in Boston last December; Rodriguez gave special permission to the Meadows Percussion Ensemble for the regional premiere. Following it is another new work, Splendid Wood, by Jennifer Higdon of the Curtis Institute of Music. The piece celebrates the diverse sounds of wood; though often taken for granted as one of nature’s most basic materials, it can be used thrillingly and gloriously in instruments. Next is a recent work by Peter Schickele, Percussion Sonata No. 2: Woodstock. Schickele, also known by his satirical alter-ego P.D.Q. Bach, has written a beautiful two-movement work for mallet keyboard instruments that uses various tuned wind chimes as a prominent element. The concert concludes with a new piece arranged in the style of a xylophone rag: Disney Medley. Written and performed by senior percussion student Kyle Henson, it treats more than a dozen familiar Disney melodies in a unique and entertaining way.
The Meadows Percussion Ensemble performs both new and traditional percussion works and has appeared at numerous national and international conferences. The ensemble has two CDs on Gasparo records: Contact and Strike, the Music of Motion.
The 2007-08 season sponsor of the Meadows School of the Arts is The Dallas Morning News.