October 13, 2013
by Elaine Schmidt

Present Music opened Saturday evening’s performance with a Vogel Hall stage filled with percussion curiosities.

Featuring the Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion Ensemble, the program began with a completely fascinating performance of “Prayer — Star Dust Orbits” from Augusta Read Thomas’s “Resounding Earth.”

The four Third Coast players created an enormous palette of sounds using standing bells (think Tibetan singing bowls). The resonant sounds of the standing bells created such vivid sounds that one could almost imagine seeing the sound waves moving through the air and bouncing off of one another.

Present Music members presented Timothy Andres’s 2010 “Trade Winds,” providing a fascinating juxtaposition of sounds and effects from clarinet and bass clarinet, string quartet, piano and percussion. The performance was a bit too loosely knit in terms of pitch and balance.

The members of Third Coast returned for an animated performance of John Cage’s 1941 “Third Construction.” They used bells, various shakers and rattles, several types of drums, including a log drum, a line up of what appeared to be empty paint cans and a couple of “lion’s roar” drum-with-rope contraptions that were a treat to see and hear.

The four percussionists moved among this battery of instruments in what amounted to frenetic choreography that produced its own accompaniment — all in all great fun to watch and hear.

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