Youngstown State University Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Glenn Schaft
Stambaugh Auditorium
Personnel
Nathaniel Adams- Petersburg, OH
Terence Boggs - Warren, OH
Michael Daniels - Fostoria, OH
Owen Davis - Vienna, OH
Stephen Dorbish - Canfield, OH
Jo’El Harrison - Farrell, PA,
Brandon Maffitt - Warren, OH,
Evan McCreary - Poland, OH,
About the Director
GLENN SCHAFT is Professor and Director of Percussion Studies at Youngstown State University, performs with the Faculty Jazz Group, is founder and faculty advisor of the Youngstown Percussion Collective - a student organization and a longstanding member of the Percussive Arts Society. Please visit glennschaft.com Glenn wishes to thank his artist endorsement partners Avedis Zildjian Co. (cymbals), Remo Inc. (drumheads and world percussion), Vic Firth Inc. (sticks and mallets), and Black Swamp Percussion (accessory percussion) for their product and artist support.
About the YSU Percussion Ensemble
Notable performances include the Percussive Arts Society 2018 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. An important 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.
Traditional Rudimental Snare Drum Pieces
Traditional/arr. Guy Gauthreux (b.1956)
The Three Camps
The Downfall of Paris
Connecticut Halftime
The relationship between drums and military organizations goes back many centuries, including the Jannissary music of the ancient Turks, and is widespread throughout Europe and beyond. Such military drumming traditions were perhaps most highly developed in Britain and Switzerland and were brought to early America. During the Revolutionary and Civil War periods, part of the drummers' responsibilities was to play particular pieces that contained sections knows as "beats." The beats, or "duty," were heard by all members of the camp. Three such duty's are heard in "The Three Camps." Soldiers were responsible for knowing and understanding the different beats and were expected to act upon these commands.
Because rudimental drumming originated as an outdoor activity it is loud and the particular "open" style of executing the patterns or "rudiments" needed to be clearly audible at great distances. The large rope-tensioned snare drums of such traditions are a direct precursor to the contemporary marching band and drum corps instruments now so widespread throughout America and beyond. In Early America, snare drums also accompanied fifes that played melodies on numerous pieces and such a tradition is still evident in Williamsburg, Virginia. We use the xylophone and glockenspiel to play such melodies here. Notes by Glenn Schaft
Akadinda Trio (2002)
Emmanuel Sejourne (b. 1961)
Inspired by the percussive xylophone music of Uganda, each player in Sejourne's trio utilizes two mallets and all play on a single 5-octave marimba. Numerous melo-rhythmic lines interlock to form an interesting polyrhythmic (3:2, etc.) texture. Emmanuel Sejourne is one of the world's leading mallet percussionists, active as a teacher, performer, and composer. He is a member of the music faculty at the Strasbourg Conservatory in France where he has developed a unique course of study for advanced mallet percussionists. Notes by Glenn Schaft
Dining Room Music (1983)
Rupert Kettle (1940)
Dining Room Music was written as counterpoint to John Cage's 1940 composition Living Room Music. No instruments are specified , only suggestions made as to objects found in an ordinary dining room. "Fable" sets in rhythmic speech the Phyllis Stein text:
Happily ever after the world is flat
Don't you fall off and go ker-splat.
Rupert Kettle was raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan then studied and worked in New York City from 1958 to 1968. He studied percussion with numerous respected teachers and composition and arranging with John Cage, Richard Cone and others. Since 1965, Kettle has devoted himself primarily to private teaching, first in New York and then in Grand Rapids. He also teaches at Aquinas College, where he founded the Aquinas College Percussion Group in 1979. Kettle is the author of countless articles on percussion which have appeared in Downbeat, Modern Drummer, Percussive Notes, and other magazines. His book, Drum Set Reading Method, established a standardized drum set notation in 1968. Since 2003, his work is also being disseminated by the composers' collective, Frog Peak Music, a prestigious group of experimental composers including Larry Polansky, Jody Diamond, James Tenney, Phillip Corner, Anthony Braxton, the late Lou Harrison, and others. Kettle's graphic scores have been exhibited along with concerts of his music at various museums in Michigan. Notes by Ruppert Kettle and Glenn Schaft
Omphalo Centric Lecture (1984)
Nigel Westlake (b. 1958)
The title comes from a painting by Paul Klee - the direct & centered simplicity of which was an inspiration to me during the writing of this piece. The piece also owes much to African Balofon (or xylophone) music, with its persistent ostinati, cross-rhythms & variations on simple melodic fragments. Like African music it seeks to celebrate life through rhythm, energy & movement. It was originally composed for the Sydney based percussion quartet Synergy.
Nigel Westlake studied the clarinet with his father, Donald Westlake (principal clarinetist, Sydney Symphony Orchestra 1961-1979) and left school early to pursue a performance career in music. From the age of 17 he was touring Australia and the world, performing as a freelance clarinetist, bass clarinetist and saxophonist with ballet companies, a circus troupe, chamber music ensembles, fusion bands and orchestras. In 1983 he studied bass clarinet and composition in the Netherlands and was appointed composer in residence for ABC Radio National the following year. From 1987 to 1992 he was resident clarinetist with Australia's leading chamber group the Australia Ensemble, and went on to join guitarist John Williams' group Attacca as a composer and performer.
His compositions have earned numerous accolades, including the Gold Medal at the New York International Radio Festival and 15 APRA awards (Australasian Performing Right assoc.) in the screen and art music categories. As a composer, his film credits include the feature films Ali's Wedding (2017), Paper Planes, Miss Potter, Babe, Babe: Pig in the City, Children of the Revolution, and The Nugget, plus the Imax films Antarctica, The Edge, Imagine, Solarmax and numerous others. His television credits include documentaries, telemovies, news themes and station idents. The feature film Babe won the Golden Globe Award in 1996 for best feature musical/comedy, and his romantic score for Miss Potterwon Feature Film Score of the Year and Best Soundtrack Album at the 2007 APRA / AGSC Screen Music Awards.
His secular mass Missa Solis - Requiem for Eli was winner of the prestigious 2013 Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize, won the 2011 Limelight Award for Best New Composition, was named Orchestral Work of the Year at the 2012 APRA Art Music Awards, and was released to critical acclaim on the ABC Classics label by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer. Compassion, a song cycle for solo voice & orchestra, co-written with singer songwriter Lior, based on ancient Hebrew & Arabic texts, won the 2014 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album.
In 2004 he was awarded the HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University. He holds an honorary Doctorate in Music, awarded by the University of New South Wales in 2012. Notes by composer.
