Langston Hughes Library Hosts Music World Premiere

Members of the Percussia ensemble with one of the instruments featured in the musical selections performed by the group at Queens Library at Langston Hughes, 100-01 Northern Blvd., Corona on Saturday, November 10.

Percussia, a contemporary chamber music ensemble with percussion as its driving force, performed the world premiere of a new work and three additional pieces in a concert at Queens Library at Langston Hughes, 100-01 Northern Blvd., Corona on Saturday, November 10 at 3 p.m.

Percussia is a New York City-based chamber music ensemble that makes percussion the foundation for a new sound. Playing both world and Western percussion instruments, the group melds the music of different lands into its own contemporary soundscape. The resulting international music crosses genres, styles, and cultural boundaries, connecting people through music's common thread of percussion. Percussia's varied repertoire is a mixture of contemporary chamber music, world and folk music styles, and original arrangements. While percussion takes center stage, the group blends its rhythm with melodic instruments for added dimension.

In this concert, Percussia premiered "Starfish at Pescadero" by Dennis Tobenski, an emerging composer based in New York City. The sixmovement piece is inspired by, and features the poetry of, San Francisco poet Idris Anderson. "The poem, on the surface, is a trip to the beach- little vignettes of a couple," Tobenski said. "Underneath, it's about the inexplicable sadness that can accompany even the happiest times, and an inability to communicate our feelings to one another, particularly to those we love most."

"I am thrilled to present the world premiere of this brand new work by one of New York's most promising young composers," Percussia Artistic Director Ingrid Gordon said.

In addition to percussion, harp, viola and flute, the piece featured versatile soprano Melissa Fogarty of Jackson Heights, who has a longstanding working relationship with Tobenski. Hailed as "outstanding" by the New York Times and given "high marks" by the Wall Street Journal, Fogarty's wide range of experience has taken her from leading child performer at the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera to the stage, where she has been a featured soloist with orchestras and ensembles, including the New York Collegium, Concert Royal, ARTEK and Seattle Baroque Orchestra. The performance also included Gordon, who besides serving as Percussia's artistic director is also a percussionist with the group; percussionist Andrea Pryor of Jackson Heights; harpist Susan Jolles of Forest Hills; flutist Margaret Lancaster of Manhattan, and violist Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin, also of Manhattan.

In addition to Tobenski's piece, Percussia performed another work written specifically for the ensemble. "Serenade", a Peruvian-inspired piece, featured Gordon on drums, tambourine, finger cymbals and triangle, Lancaster on flute and Jolles on harp, was composed by Marga Richter of Huntington, Long Island.

Percussia also played "Calliope: The Muse of Eloquence" by George Cork Maul of New Suffolk, Long Island, a composer, pianist and performance-art specialist. The piece was inspired by Calliope, the muse of epic poetry in Greek mythology. "Calliope is the eldest and most distinguished of the nine muses and was initially identified with philosophy," Maul said. "Calliope means 'beautiful voice.'" Maul originally wrote the song for his mother 30 years ago, but Percussia is the first group to perform it.

The concert included an existing work called "Ekivvulu Ky' Endere" by Ugandan composer Justinian Tamusuza. The title means "The African Festivity of the Flute" and includes three movements- "Okwanjula Kw' Endere" (Introduction of the Flute), "Okujaganya" (Rejoicing) and "Akayisanyo" (Finale)- and depicts an African celebratory procession, led by the flute, the focal point of the festival, the host and main celebrant. The first movement is a dramatic seven-minute solo flute soliloquy. In the second movement, the flute is joined by other instruments as secondary participants in the festival, who each come out in turn to display their skills. In the finale, all of the characters have drunk themselves silly and go crazy as portrayed through the music's fast tempo. The piece featured Gordon and Andrea Pryor on marimba and maracas; Jolles on harp; Lancaster on flute, and Zhurbin on viola.

The last work on the program was "Suling Degung", an arrangement of a traditional West Javanese gamelan work for Percussia. This work showcases the virtuosic, yet florid and free-flowing piccolo voice, floating above a shimmering, tightly knit rhythmically intricate tapestry woven by the harp, viola and keyboard percussion. "I spent several years of my life immersed in the study of Javanese gamelan music under the tutelage of the venerable dancer-musician Sumaryono of Yogyakarta," Gordon explained. "Gamelan music is some of the most intricate and beautiful percussion music in the world, and I feel very passionately about it. Creating this adaptation of Sundanese Suling Degung work for Percussia is my way of sharing my love for this music with American musicians and audiences."

This concert was made possible by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, and with funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

The Queens Borough Public Library is an independent, not-for-profit corporation and is not affiliated with any other library. The library serves a population of 2.2 million in the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. With a record 21 million items in circulation for FY 2007, the library has the highest circulation of any public library system in the U.S. and one of the highest circulations in the world. For more information about programs, services, locations, events and news, visit the www.queenslibrary.org or phone 1-718-990- 0700. Queens Library. Enrich Your Life®.