PE - 4/5/17 Spotlight Theater

YSU Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Glenn Schaft
Spotlight Theater
Personnel
Edward Butcher, Salem, OH
Joel Gillespie, East Liverpool, OH
Brandon Maffitt, Warren, OH
Evan McCreary, Poland, OH
Elexis Moore, Warren, OH
Marino November, McDonald, OH
Tracy Rusk, Brookfield, OH
Tommy Starr, Pittsburgh, PA
Anthony Tresky, Pittsburgh, PA
Nathan Weingart, Canfield, OH
About the Director
GLENN SCHAFT is Professor and Director of Percussion Studies at Youngstown State University. He is the advisor/co-founder of the Youngstown Percussion Collective and an artist with Avedis Zildjian Co., Innovative Percussion Inc., Remo Inc., and a member of the Black Swamp Percussion Educators Network. Glenn earned the DMA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the MA from Eastern Illinois University, and the BM from Baldwin Wallace University. He pursued post doctoral studies in contemporary music and orchestral percussion at Cleveland State University, Afro-Cuban music in Havana, Cuba and world percussion at the Berklee School of Music World Percussion Festival. Glenn’s teachers include John Hollenbeck, John Riley, Tom Freer, Jay Burnham, Lewis Nash, Ted Piltzecker, Tom Siwe, Johnny Lee Lane, George Kiteley, Harold Damas, Linda Pimentel, and Ruben Alvarez. A member of the Percussive Arts Society, Glenn serves on the Drumset Committee and has appeared as performer, lecturer, and panelist at PAS international conventions.

Glenn’s career spans idioms such as classical, new music, world music, jazz, blues, rock, reggae, funk, Brazilian, West African, and Afro-Cuban. Glenn has recorded and served as executive producer with the Youngstown Percussion Collective, Dave Morgan, Ron Coulter, John Hollenbeck, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Scott Wyatt, Amanda Powell, Air Force Band of Mid-America, Youngstown State University Wind Ensemble, and myriad jingles.

His credits include conductors Giora Bernstein, Jeffery Siegel, Anton Coppola, Edwin London, Gunther Schuller, Paul Martin Zonn, Peter Schickele, aka P.D.Q. Bach ensembles such as Colorado Music Festival, Skaneateles (NY) Chamber Music Festival, "Artist In Residence" at Baldwin-Wallace University with BATTU contemporary/world percussion group, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Cleveland Ballet, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Opera, Robert Page Singers, Akron Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Springfield (IL) Symphony, Youngstown Symphony, Duluth-Superior Symphony, Champaign-Urbana Symphony, Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, Dance Theater of Harlem, Cleveland Dance Collective, and artists such as Paul Sperry, Julie Newell, Robert Weirich, Robert Van Sice, Peter Erskine, and Ben Toth.

Glenn drumset and world music credits include Ruben Alvarez, American Jazz Orchestra, Chuck Berry, Nick Brignola, Freddie Bryant, Ndugu Chancellor, Sarah Jane Cion, Stewart Copeland, Anthony Cox, 1940's Radio Hour Show-US Tour, Todd Coolman, Harold Danko, Paquito D’Rivera, Larry Elgart, Raul Esparza, John Fedchock, Five By Design, Reynaldo Gonzales, Taku Hirano, Laurence Hobgood, Engelbert Humperdink, Randy Johnston, Sean Jones, Mike Kocour, Alison Krauss, Victor Krauss, Ralph Lalama, Tony Leonardi, Robert Lockwood Jr., Bryan Lynch, Jim McNeely, Hank Marr, Phil Palombi, Ken Peplowski, Chita Rivera, Trichy Sankaran, Michael Spiro, Marvin Stamm, Chip Stephens, The Texas Tenors, Alan Vizzutti, Dan Wall, James Weidman, Michael Weiss, Mike Wofford, Women of the Phantom, Andrea Zonn, and Youngstown State University Faculty Jazz Group.
About the YSU Percussion Ensemble

Notable performances include the 2018 Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Indianapolis, Percussive Arts Society Ohio Chapter Days of Percussion at Capital University, Ohio Northern University, Youngstown State University, and Ohio Music Education Association Conferences in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. A central part of our mission involves collaborations with composers in the commissioning, premiering, and critically acclaimed recording of their works. Our 2005 release "Dark Wood" includes six premiere recordings and commissions. Our commission project with New York City-based percussionist/composer John Hollenbeck on his "Ziggurat" for five percussionists and four saxophonists, was premiered at the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, and is available on his 2008 release "Rainbow Jimmies." The Youngstown Percussion Collective's 2012 release "Forms Of Things Unknown" is a concert-length suite by YSU professor of jazz studies, bass, and composition, Dr. Dave Morgan. Our 2012 recording of Ron Coulter's "Cajon Trio" will appear on an upcoming 2019 Coulter CD release. 

Gymel (1973)
William Duckworth (b. 1943)

Gymel is a marimba quartet of a different color - by mixing minimalism and indeterminacy (chance), this piece always sounds similar but never the same. The notation, a diamond shaped collection of short motives, functions as a map of players' choice pathways. Each player starts on a different corner of the diamond and gradually weaves their way toward a common center block (longer phrase), and then out to a different ending position by playing each motive 6-12 times.

Sonata Ico (1995)
Michael R. Adams (b. 1951)
Drumming Part One (1971)
Steve Reich (b. 1936)

Steve Reich has been called “America’s greatest living composer” (The Village VOICE), “...the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker), and “...among the great composers of the century” (New York Times). His music has been influential to composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. He is a leading pioneer of Minimalism, having in his youth broken away from the “establishment” that was serialism. His music is known for steady pulse, repetition and a fascination with canons; it combines rigorous structures with propulsive rhythms and seductive instrumental color. It also embraces harmonies of non-Western and American vernacular music (especially jazz). His studies have included the Gamelan, African drumming (at the University of Ghana), and traditional forms of chanting the Hebrew scriptures.

— Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

Passage (1994)
Lynn Glassock (b.1946)

Lynn Glassock is a native of Dallas, Texas and received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Percussion Performance from the University of North Texas. His teachers have included Paul Guerrero, Ron Fink, Kalman Cherry, Ed Soph and Leigh Howard Stevens. Mr. Glassock teaches Percussion, Introduction to Music Technology and conducts the UNC Percussion Ensemble. Professional experiences include performances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, musical shows and commercial bands. He has written articles for the Instrumentalist and music reviews for Percussive Notes. He is currently a member of the Composition Committee, the Contest and Auditions Procedures Committee, and the Board of Directors for the Percussive Arts Society. 

Nagoya Marimbas (1994)
Steve Reich (b.1936)

Nagoya Marimbas was commissioned by Sekar Sakura at the Nagoya College of Music in Japan in honor of the opening of Shirakawa Hall. It was premiered in 1994 by Sekar Sakura and Yukie Kurihara, marimbas.

Argentinian Tangos (1996) - arr.  Werner Thomas-Mifune

1.     La vi llegar - Enrique Fancini

2.     Cafetin de Buenos Aires – Mariano Mores

3.     Cristal – Mariano Mores

Werner Thomas-Mifune’s arrangements of Argentinean Tangos are published for string quartet and are performed from the original quartet parts. The Tango is an Argentine genre of urban song and dance that has remained popular throughout the 20th century but which originated in the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires in the late 19th century. The dance, for couples in a tight embrace, is characterized by very sensual movement. The music is frequently in a minor mode and includes dramatic rhythmic and dynamic contracts. Notes by Glenn Schaft.