The Wichita State University Percussion Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 4, in Wilner Auditorium with guest artists John Harrison and Hack.Art.Lab. Highlights of the program will include Mary Ellen Childs' “Still Life” and Lou Harrison's “Suite for the American Gamelan and Solo Violin.”
Tickets are $7, $3 students for the performance “WSU Percussion Goes Beyond Boundaries,” a name that percussion director Gerald Scholl could apply to most of WSU’s percussion concerts.
“The WSU Percussion Ensemble promises not concerts, but inspiring events,” said Scholl, “and on May 4 we will deliver the goods with ‘Still Life’ and ‘Suite for the American Gamelan and Solo Violin.’”
For this concert, Wichita-based Hack.Art.Lab worked with Childs, a Minnesota composer, extending her work “Still Life” to include non-deterministic synthetically generated animation.
Scholl said that Harrison, concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and an electrical and computer engineer who teaches in WSU’s College of Engineering, wrote the software that generates the video.
“For the first time in the history of percussion ensemble music, ‘Still Life’ will bring together both live music and computer-generated animation used in such a way that the animation will react to the sound produced by the instruments as well as the movement of the sticks the musicians are using,” Scholl said.
“Together, we have joined forces to create this new, inventive and one-of-a-kind piece.”
The “Suite for American Gamelan and Solo Violin” by Lou Harrison features the American Gamelan, a set of instruments he invented. Although well received by audiences, this work has been performed only six times in the past 30 years, said Scholl, because of the rarity of the instruments and the difficulty of the work. John Harrison (not related to Lou) will perform the solo violin part.
In 1991, Scholl had the honor of performing the Japanese premiere of the piece under the direction of Lou Harrison himself.
Music from WSU alum Kevin Bobo, Bach and Chavez are also on the program.