"Finally the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble gave a hugely exciting performance of Percussion Quartet. . ."
- New York Times - June 9, 1998

New Jersey Percussion Ensemble
featured guests of the
Bergen Community College
Distinguished Artists Series
directors
Ron Mazurek and Linda Marcel
in the
Anna Maria Ciccone Theater

February 21, 2005 7:30PM
Admission is Free

Program

Percussion Quartet (1993-1994) - Charles Wuorinen
                                            I.
                                            II.

Thomas Kolor, John Ferrari, Kenneth Piascik, Michael Aberback
Peter Jarvis - Conductor

Masked Dances (2004) - Ron Mazurek
    for Solo Vibraphone, Dancers and Electronic Sound

Peter Jarvis - Vibraphone
Priscilla Brownlee - Choreographer
Dancers
Melanie Ax, Thecla Hoeberechts, Kaya Nakamura,
Ewelina Taszyniec, Jennifer Silvestre

The Character of American Sunlight (1996) - Jerome Kitzke
    for Percussion Quartet, Piano and Vocals

April McCloskey, Michael Sperone, Justin Wolf, Joseph Bergen - Percussion, Vocals
David Weisberg - Piano, Vocals
Peter Jarvis - Conductor, Vocals

Ionisation (1931) - Edgard Varese
    for Percussion Ensemble

April McCloskey, Joseph Bergen, Peter Jarvis, Thomas Kolor,
Michael Sperone, Justin Wolf, Alex Bocchino, Kenneth Piascik,
Michael Aberback, Al Cerulo, John Ferrari, Gary Van Dyke, David Weisberg

Program notes: 

    Charles Wuorinen is one of the most prolific composers of our time.  He has won virtually every major international composition prize in existence, and has garnered worldwide praise by critics and audiences alike.  He was the youngest composer to receive the Pulitzer Prize and he has remained active as a composer and performer.  His oeuvre covers every genre of composition, from solo pieces and chamber works, to symphonies, ballets and operas.  The Percussion Symphony of 1976 is a milestone in the evolution of percussion music.  In his liner notes for that work, Wuorinen identified with other mavericks of composition, specifically Stravinsky and Varèse, who, like Wuorinen, were looking for new sounds and a more prominent role for percussion.  The Percussion Quartet, completed in 1994, is more representative of Wuorinen’s later style, which masterfully blends the possibilities of serial music with unabashed and scintillating tonal inferences.  Various groupings of the instruments alternately produce opposition and collaboration during this work.  While the marimbas and vibraphones often have the foreground material, the auxiliary instruments frequently capture the spotlight.  Wuorinen weaves an intricate dance between these groups, while maximizing the acoustic possibilities of combining instruments that are composed of such diverse materials (metals, wood, membranes, etc.). 
                                                                                                                                                                              - David J. Weisberg   
                                
    Masked Dances consists of four short continuous dances as incidental music to one of W. B. Yeats’ plays entitled Calvary. In the performance of the story all the characters were to wear masks or have their faces made up to resemble masks including the musicians. This seems to have served as a ritual element in expressing the emotions of the characters in the play. Each of the four dances incorporates electronic elements that create rhythmic dialogues with the vibraphone. There are several brief interludes separating each dance which then lead into varying rhythmic elements which define each of the four dances.
                                                                                                                                                                               - Ron Mazurek

     The epigraph running through the score of this work for my friends in Essential Music reads:
    A ghost comes to catch a train to the place where it can see the character of American sunlight. That light, which “long ago gave up its claim on innocence”, now searches, as it must, to illuminate the darkness of the American human nature. Recognizing this, the spirit is pleased and catches the train back home to everywhere.
    The essence of these words comes from the historian Patricia Nelson Limerick, writer Henry James and Drex Brooks’ Sweet Medicine, a photographic essay of Indian massacre, battlefield, and treaty sites. In 1887, James said, speaking of America, “the light of sun seems fresh and innocent, as if it knew as yet but few of the secrets of the world and none of the weariness of shinning . . . A large juvenility is stamped upon the face of things, and in vividness of the present, the past, which died so young and had time to produce so little, attracts but scanty attention.”  Native nations then and now reject this Eurocentric view, as should all Americans.  In 1995, Ms. Limerick said of the same light, “Shinning on North America, the sun that now lights Brook’s photographs long ago gave up its claim of innocence.  Illuminating the events of the Indian/White wars, the sun came to know quite a few of the most unsettling ‘secrets’ of human nature. To try to forget those secrets diminishes the human spirit . . .”
    My work is a simple dance and prayer that we never forget. The title is Ms. Limerick’s. Thanks to her, Henry James, and Drex Brooks. Special thanks to John Kennedy and Charles Wood.
                                                                                                                                                                                - Jerome Kitzke

    Ionisation, completed in 1931, is the result of Edgard Varèse’s search for untapped resources of the orchestra.  During his pursuit of new sounds and timbres, Varèse established himself as a true pioneer in the exploration of uncharted musical territory.  His contributions to the expansion of the musical language have rightfully secured his place as one of the most important composers of the 20^th century.
    During this period, Varèse embarked on a fuller exploration of the acoustic possibilities of the percussion family – a section of the orchestra which he recognized had resources which had not yet been fully explored.  He also added instruments not normally found in musical ensembles, such as the siren, highlighted toward the beginning of this work. 
    Ionisation represents one of the first compositions for percussion ensemble in musical literature.  Written for 13 percussionists, it utilizes instruments of indefinite pitch (drums, cymbals and the like) to create melody and foreground structures, while relegating instruments of definite pitch (piano and bells, for example) to the background – a clear reversal of their typical roles.
    Many of Varèse’s works are named for scientific phenomena and processes.  Varèse had been trained as an engineer, and had a great deal of expertise in math and science, although he was ultimately swayed by his passion for music.  However, these pieces do not simply reflect his training and other interests, they represent the impact of technology on society in the 20^th century.
                                                                                                                                                                                - David J. Weisberg

 Biographical Information

    The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble directed by Peter Jarvis was founded in 1968 by Raymond DesRoches, who co-directed the group with Peter Jarvis and Gary Van Dyke until 2004. The highly acclaimed ensemble is made up of professionals and students from William Paterson University, where it has been in residence since 1972. Because of an ongoing commitment to the proliferation of percussion repertoire, numerous pieces have been written for, premiered by and recorded by the ensemble. The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble has appeared in the United States and Europe as guests of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Composers Guild of New Jersey, the San Francisco Symphony, the Gaudeamus Foundation, Radio Denmark, and countless others. The group can be heard on Nonesuch, Composer's Recording Inc., Music and Arts, Koch International, Desoto, New World, NAXOS, the Composers Guild of New Jersey and Capstone recording labels.

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