Greg Stuart with the University of Alabama Percussion Ensemble
Sunday April 17 7:30pm
University of Alabama School of Music - Moody Recital Hall
Free Admission

Sonic Frontiers welcomes percussionist and improviser, Greg Stuart, who performs music of his frequent collaborator, Michael Pisaro. Stuart performs Pisaro’s solo Closed Categories in Cartesian Worlds, for crotales and sine tones. He also collaborates with members of the University of Alabama Percussion Ensemble in staging Hearing Metal 3, for sixteen suspended cymbals and sine tones.

Pisaro writes:

"The ensemble for this piece was suggested by Greg Stuart, and I immediately went for it. The image of 16 suspended cymbals was really striking (even before one heard anything).

After writing fields have ears (4) I wanted to work again with the idea of change. In this case the basic change that takes place over the 45 minutes is from the vibration of a solid (i.e., the cymbal bowed) to a kind of physical “evaporation” as the mode of excitation changes to gravity (beans, rice and then finally, millet falling on the cymbals).

Like ricefall and some of the pieces from the fields have ears series, the ground is laid out as a grid prepared with other surfaces (including tile, metal, wood, paper, ceramic, dry leaves and even four drums in the center), which can be heard as the various grains fall from the cymbals. The ground comes to the fore in the center of the piece (when “the beans begin to fall”) and gradually disappears as the grain changes (in several stages and combinations) to the very light millet. The sine tones accompany, and at times instigate the change."

More information about Greg Stuart

More information about Michael Pisaro