Glenn Schaft & YPC - 4/26/13 - ILR

Youngstown State University
Institute for Learning In Retirement
& YSU Metro College present
Dr. Glenn Schaft and the
Youngstown Percussion Collective

FRI, 04/26/2013 - 10:00AM-12PM, Bliss Hall 2326

Special thanksto Avedis Zildijian, Remo, ProMark. Dynasty, and Black Swamp Percussion for their product and artist support.

About YPC The Youngstown Percussion Collective is a non-profit student organization in residence at the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University in Youngstown Ohio. YPC’s mission is to advance the percussive arts through performance, recordings, composition, composer commission projects, educational outreach events targeting people of all ages, research, fundraising, and other related activities. Membership is open to YSU students, alumni, and faculty. Glenn Schaft, director of percussion studies at YSU, serves as the YPC faculty advisor. 

YPC was co-founded in the late 1990's by Ron Coulter, Nathan Douds, and Craig Hill, as a collaborative initiative with Dr. Glenn Schaft. YPC performed at the 2003 Percussive Arts Society International Convention New Music Day Feature Concert in Louisville, Kentucky where they collaborated with Tim Strelau, George Kiteley, and other Cleveland area percussionists and the Dance Theater Collective of Cleveland to present the music of Lou Harrison.

In 2003 YPC’s founding members Ron Coulter, Nathan Douds, and Craig Hill commissioned, premiered, and recorded composer Till Meyn's percussion trio Groovelocity, which features marimba soloist Ron Coulter and is available on the YPC disc Dark Wood.

YPC hosted the 2006 Percussive Arts Society Ohio Chapter Day of Percussion at YSU that attracted hundreds of attendees. This event included a percussion retail expo, clinics, performances by university and high school percussion ensembles, and renowned guest artists such as Michael Burritt, John Riley, Michael Rosen, Ruben Alvarez, Tom Freer, and Mike McIntosh.

In 2007 YPC released their first compact disc Dark Wood that contains six previously unrecorded works including four commissions by Glenn Schaft and YPC. Dark Wood is available at www.ysu.edu/percussion and has received critical acclaim from the Percussive Arts Society and others.

In 2007 YPC commissioned a piece for five percussion and four saxophones by percussionist/composer John Hollenbeck, entitled Ziggurat (exterior). YPC performed the world premiere at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City in 2007, the Youngstown premiere at the DeYor Center for the Performing Arts in 2007, and their recording of the work was released on the 2008 John Hollenbeck disc, Rainbow Jimmies which has received critical acclaim.

Forms Of Things Unknown, is the Youngstown Percussion Collective's most recording and represents the work of a two-year commission project with YSU jazz faculty member Dr. Morgan, who composed a one-hour tour de force percussion extravaganza. Premiered in 2011, YPC recorded the work at the Dana School of Music and performed it at the Ohio Music Education Association Professional Conference in Columbus and the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown. Available at I-Tunes and CDBaby.com

What the critics are saying...

...Morgan brilliantly references ritual music of Northern Brazil, the Congo and Egypt and capitalizes on the numerous musical possibilities that are inherent to the percussion ensemble: pitched and non-pitched instrument, wood and metal, sticks and hands. Above all, the performance by the Youngstown Percussion Collective is spectacular.Mike Telin - clevelandclassical.com 7/19/12

 

...The 12 movements in Dave Morgan’s "Forms Of Things Unknown" inhabit a gumut of sonic worlds. From Asian to African sources and beyond, the music entrances through percussion writing of melodic delicacy and grandeur, rhythmic inventiveness, and diverse colors. The members of the Youngstown Percussion Collective momentarily speak in their own voices in the movement titled “Unknown Unknowns.” Mostly, they apply exquisite artistry to the vast collection of instruments at their fingertips. Grade: A - Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 7/8/12

 

...Question: What happens when a composer/jazz musician meets a percussion ensemble? Answer: Forms of Things Unknown.

An interesting concept, this latest release by the Youngstown Percussion Collective—a collaborative ensemble of percussion studio members and faculty of Youngstown State University—is an album-length composition by composer Dave Morgan. The Collective was founded in the 1990s and has steadily pursued collaborative work with composers and other interdisciplinary areas.

The music here is a wandering menagerie of styles and sounds, thoughtfully and sensitively performed by the Collective. Alternately conservative and experimental, the work is more often centered by tonal mallet percussion (mostly marimba and vibes) playing toe-tapping ostinati or lilting melodies. There are unexpected moments, too, such as the movement for guiros, “Kundalini,” the shimmering resonance of metallic percussion in “Amulent,” and—perhaps the most unexpected—the title movement, “Unknown Unknowns,” which begins with spoken word and continues to a very hip groove (think Mike Mainieri meets Stomp!). The work ends with a rousing samba/hip-hop groove, played on traditional Brazilian percussion instruments and plastic buckets/junk instruments. I have to say that, taken in context, this movement works and lends cred[ence] to the work’s title.

Composer Dave Morgan is an interesting hybrid of an academically trained composer with degrees in composition and theory, but who has strongly focused those skills in the jazz idiom. His compositions, however, are decidedly not “jazz.” This work (and recording) aims at being audience friendly and will likely have wide appeal. Bravo to the Youngstown Percussion Collective for pursuing and putting their stamp on an altogether unique project. — John Lane, PERCUSSIVE NOTES, November 2012