Students of Movement
Students of movement play in front of mirrors all day
Students of movement revel in tranquil river babblings daydreaming how they can make those patterns their own
Students of movement have a love-hate relationship with floors, walls, and gravity
Students of movement study pigeons, worms, dogs, turtles, fishes, snakes, swans...
Students of movement strive to understand their bodies and how their muscles and limbs can transform raw emotion into physical expression
Students of movement respect all genres of dance, martial arts, meditations, and interpretations
Students of movement
Nod to rhythms echoing through hollow stairways
envisioning
fluid patterns
and gravity-defying poses...
...training to each
Subway bus passing
Leaves rattling
Book pages flapping
Audience clapping...
Searching their souls
for the spontaneous
sequence that will
set them free
subsequently
freeing others
fascinating in
the freedom set forth
By
syncopated high-hats
stage shaking stomps
three-second jumps
frictionless spins
and the sheer
beauty of
pure
Movement...
Photo credit: Ronen Zilberman
MEET THE TEAM
Noquestionwho Productions
Video Editing
Grayson Mackenzie
Headshots
Yao Xiao, Russell Baker & Patrick Strain
Venue Staff
Dylan Lindsay and Lucas Rosen
Technical Support
Jade Jacques and Megumi Varghese
Stage Managers
Brian Jones & Allison Balcetis
Everything...
COSONI
by Alexej Gerassimez
for Body and Soul
"As a percussionist I have always been fascinated by discovering as many different tone colors in each instrument as possible. In this case, using just my own body as the instrument was a difficult, but inspiring challenge. The first step was to find the right colors for my 'paint box'. All sounds flow into the color palette used to create my music."
- Gerassimez
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​Gerassimez allows the performer to find their own 'palette' of sounds, and discover their body as an instrument during an improvised cadenza. This mix of dancelike groove and prepared choreography is the true test of any percussionist, developing patterns to their movement and expanding on almost melodic ideas from their created timbres.
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COSONI is a very intimate and almost meditative work, allowing the performer incredible freedom to interact with the space and their body. This piece uses the fundamentals of the performers movement to create an encapsulating performance in any space.
念3
by Pius Cheung (b. 1982)
Bass Drum Trio
Ft. Jia Lopez & Madison Wagner
念3, or Nian 3, is the third in a series of works for solo percussionist by composer Pius Cheung. Cheung writes: "The word 念 (pronounced Nian) has multiple meanings depending on the context the word is used in or the prefix it follows. Examples of what it could mean are reminisce, meditation, meaning and sense." Cheung has written three pieces in his Nian series; the first for mallet sextet, the second for multi-percussion, and the third for Bass Drum Solo.
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Cheung ended up writing two versions of 念3. Alongside Jia Lopez and Madison Wagner, I will be performing the trio version. This is an extended arrangement of the solo piece, which uses three interpretations of the tones of a bass drum throughout the performance.
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As 念 is defined as meditation and reminiscence, one should listen to 念3 with movements of the past in mind. I invite you to meditate on the path you've taken to this moment, while also focussing on the movement of the performers. Cheung's composition is deeply rooted in Asian culture and heritage, where performance on the drum is equal music to martial arts.
Wire and Wood
by Hope Salmonson
*world premiere
Wire and Wood, by Hope Salmonson is a commission by Ethan De Souza and Jann Santiago during the summer of 2024. It was composed with the intention of both performers to be multi-instrumentalists, with the ability to perform a bit on both percussion and piano. The setup for this piece requires just that, an interaction between both musicians to move between the two different instruments, or sets of instruments.
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"Composer-tubist Hope Salmonson is queering her music through a cross-genre style and a burning desire to help performers represent themselves. With a focus on process over product, Hope seeks to ensure that every voice in the room is valued, on and off the stage. Hope is always chasing opportunities to connect with others through music, valuing community first and foremost."
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Hope and Ethan met in the summer of 2021 through the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance. Here, Ethan met and worked with Hope on her piece, Breathe, which he later recorded and released here. Enamoured by Hope's unique writing style, Ethan and Jann are proud to bring this brand new work to life!
Distractions
by Jensen Thomassie
Snare drum with electronics
I can't stop looking at my phone.
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We​ can't stop looking at our phones. You're probably reading this on a phone. Thomassie comments on the addiction we have to cellular devices with "samples from computers, phones, and a variety of apps to create a sonic environment that encapsulates the distracted state we find ourselves in within our lives due to the abundance of social media and other technological advances."
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This piece, for two snare drums and electronic accompaniment, is written in three parts. The first, an interplay between words and samples, features an incessant rudimental snare drum. The next section uses a second snare drum, flipped to reveal the snare guts, which is played using a credit card. The resultant sound mimics the vibration of a phone, bringing the electronics to life. Finally, the third section features the metallic sound of a splash cymbal which bounces on the drum, distracting the performer in the race to the end.
Surface Tension
by Scott Smallwood
Prepared Bass Drum
Scott Smallwood is a Professor of music composition and sonic arts at the University of Alberta, and currently directs the Sound Studies Institute. His work Surface Tension was commissioned by Canadian Percussionist David Schotzko. It was inspired by Smallwood's travellings on a ferry, witnessing the vibrations from the boat's engine travel through the objects on the boat. He mentions the sounds of plates rattling as the inspiration for the sonic content in the piece.
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Surface Tension is entrenched in environmental considerations, as Smallwood is passionate in the often negative interaction between humans and the Earth. The percussionist interacts with the surface of the bass drum, creating volatile and chaotic tensions that results in sonic production.
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Smallwood encourages the audience to enjoy not only the sounds that are produced by the musician, but the movements of both the performer and the found percussion on the surface of the bass drum.
INTERMISSION
Ghoul Theatre
by Casey Cangelosi
Timpani with Piano ft. Raphael Jahnert
Ghoul Theatre by Casey Cangelosi is written in three movements. The first movement, Act, is a dramatic presentation of melodic and harmonic content that Cangelosi expands on through the remainder of the piece. He focuses on irregular meter, glissandi, and polyrhythms, resulting in an eerie and unstable sound.
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The second movement, Poem, features an analogue metronome that the performers manipulate. Additionally, a pedal tone persists throughout the movement. Gestures alternate from extremely rhythmic statements, to completely ametered ideas from the pianist. The timpanist plays DJ, controlling each element of sound from their chair.
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Dance punctuates the piece with a racing finale, returning to the irregular meter, and increasing in speed throughout.
The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies... shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes
by Mari Alice Conrad
Prepared Marimba and Piano
Ft. Jann Santiago
"On February 18, 2021, the world excitedly watched as the rover, Perseverance, landed inside the Jezero Crater on the planet Mars. Fifty-five years ago in 1966, with similar excitement regarding the moon and other celestial land to explore, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution to monitor Space exploration for the good of humankind. This document promotes accessing Space exclusively for peaceful purposes and outlines objectives of global friendship, understanding, co-operation, the refusal of state ownership or military occupation, and the freedom to explore without discrimination. Space, to me, is a symbol of hope that unites nations together through peaceful purpose. As such, the moon and other celestial bodies do not belong to anyone or any country. In this document, there is evidence that supersedes the human desire to persistently pursue and carelessly encroach; it exhibits a restraint in humanity’s tenacious pattern to set out, discover, and then conquer. This composition, written on the extraordinary cusp of discovering a new Martian land, is about the peace, expansiveness, and freedom found in Space but also grieves the inevitable human tendency to destruct, dominate, and develop."
- From the composer
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​Mari Alice Conrad is an award-winning composer and arranger based in Edmonton, Alberta. She is in high demand as a composer featuring performances with various ensembles across Canada, USA, and Europe.
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Mari Alice presented this piece to Ethan and Jann as an option to present locally composed works. The piece, written for the SHHH!! Ensemble for the 2021 East Chamber Music Emerging Composer Festival, Toronto, features piano and prepared Marimba.
Babel by Zack Wilson
*world premiere
Euphonium and Marimba ft. Nick Botelho
Babel by Zack Wilson was written in 2017 for the composer and his friend. Unfortunately, it was unable to be performed at the time of completion, which means this performance is the World Premiere!
From the composer: "The inspiration for Babel is Babylon. I've always been enamoured with the hazy, ethereal image I have in my head for the forsaken kingdom and the long-forgotten people who inhabited it."
The opening of the piece is a cloudy statement of harmonic material from the Marimba, coloured in the second reprise with long Euphonium tones. The piece carries on with a high energy dance-like groove, and a syncopated melody in the Euphonium. This returns after a melodic introverted section lead by arpeggios in a marimba.
Tiny Dancer
by Jennifer Jolley
Multi-percussion
Legendary Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie is best known as a powerhouse performer, but she is also an esteemed speaker and writer. Her “Hearing Essay” was critical in realizing my piece. She wrote it to correct the constant critical mischaracterizations as a profoundly deaf performer. Glennie offers a definition of hearing that goes beyond a rigid aural perception to an embodied faculty that overlaps with haptic and visual sensations. She states that:
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“Hearing is basically a specialized form of touch. Sound is simply vibrating air which the ear picks up and converts to electrical signals, which are then interpreted by the brain. The sense of hearing is not the only sense that can do this, touch can do this too. If you are standing by the road and a large truck goes by, do you hear or feel the vibration? The answer is both.”
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In the early 1990s, Jennifer Jolley’s parents took her downtown to the LA Convention Center for a Korean culture festival. There were various performances of traditional Korean music, and I remembered there was a lot of drumming. I was introduced to the traditional dance called samgomu, or three-drum dance. I was transfixed by their bright costumes and graceful coordinated movements. But most of all, I was enthralled by the booms emanating from the trio of membranophones and the clacking of the wooden beaters. Because of this, I initially believed samgomu was a musical work, not a dance. However, it is a dance. I remembered vividly how samgomu brought together the visual and the auditory in a manner I could never fully articulate. The performer's body made a sound, then danced in response to that sound which led to the next strike of the drum. As the piece progressed, I began to anticipate sounds not yet made simply by following the performer's movements.
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Tiny Dancer adapts aspects of samgomu with the aim of exploring Glennie’s embodied hearing. I use many different types of membranophones and increasingly dynamic and complex rhythms to build excitement and indirectly create a dance for the percussionist.