Creative Percussion Concert

by Katie Achilli
edited by Nalina Shapiro

The Franklin Pierce Percussion Ensemble performed for family, friends, students and faculty on Monday, April 26 in Cheney Hall.

The percussion ensemble is a small group that experiments and improvises with percussion instruments. The students in the group are Michael Bender, Elizabeth Clark, Lucas DeFelice, Joe Desilets, John Fahey, Brittany Gilman, Tristan McCarthy, Mat Overdeput, Brian St Pierre and Will Wright.

Douglas Perkins is the director of the percussion ensemble. “These events are always fun,” he said. “We all come together to create constructive pieces.” Each of the members of the band wrote and performed their own percussion pieces. There were 11 separate compositions.

The first piece was “New Work” by, John Fahey. It was upbeat and loud, and it included a slew of different percussion instruments, as all of the pieces did. These instruments included xylophones, snare and bass drums, cymbals, maracas, bongos, a gong, metal cans, a rain stick, and a cow bell.

The second piece was “A Windy Day” by, Lucas DeFelice. This piece captured the essence of a calm, breezy, rainy day. It was quiet and it used instruments with serene sounds such as a rain stick, xylophone and even a piano. This was similar to the piece, “African Storm” by, Mat Overdeput. His piece also included the calm feeling of rain, but the song developed into an intense “thunder storm” by adding in heavy drum sounds and a gong to make it sound like thunder and lightning.

The rest of the pieces were just as unique. “Monster Machismo” by, Will Wright created sounds that depicted metal machinery and maybe even robots. “Desert Dance” by, Joe Desilets created the image of a tribal belly dancer, and “I Need a Hiro, A Hero” by, Michael Bender created sounds that would be heard in an epic battle scene, and it even included sounds from cell phones.

The line-up also included a piece written by Professor Lou Bunk, the Assistant Director of Music. The piece is called “Etude: Being and Becoming,” and it was written over a course of eight years. “It takes a formal structure of music, but it repeats some of the sections,” he said, “But it uses most of the laws of composition.” It was originally written for bass clarinet, but Bunk decided to write a percussion section for it. “Etude: Being and Becoming” was performed by the ensemble, and it included many repeated sections of bongos and xylophones.

According to Bunk, the ensemble made each of the pieces work and come together as distinctive compositions. “With all of the content, they are able to create and improvise,” he said.