SU's Percussion Ensemble Opens Salisbury Percussion Festival

SALISBURY, MD---The Salisbury University Percussion Ensemble opens this year’s Salisbury Percussion Festival with “An Evening of Percussion” 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 12, in the Black Box Theatre of Fulton Hall.

“This is not a concert. A more useful word for this event would be ‘performance,’” said director Eric Shuster, noting that, in this case, visuals are just as important as sound. “What you hear and see work on an equal playing field.”

Making its debut during the show is “Good Work,” a new piece by Los Angeles composer Carolyn Chen, commissioned for the ensemble. According to Shuster, the work “explores what happens when you take the instruments away, replacing musical themes and symbols with kinetic ones and musical dialogue with social dynamics.”

The program also includes Rrrrrrr… by Mauricio Kagel, representing a series of short musical scenes beginning with the letter “R”; LaMonte Young’s minimalist “Poem: For Chairs, Tables, Benches, Etc.”; and percussion luminary John Cage’s “Living Room Music.”

Sponsored by the Music, Theatre and Dance Department, admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-548-5588 or visit the SU website at www.salisbury.edu.