To begin with, the three works on today’s program probably have the most intriguing titles of any of the compositions we’ve ever presented.

Ta and Clap, a roughly seven-minute piece written in 2005, has been described by its composer as follows: “Ta-ing and Clapping is a method of teaching rhythms wherein all beats are accounted for, resulting in fully-rendered moto perpetuo that only implies empty spaces naturally found in rhythmic pattern. In Ta and Clap, scored for percussion quartet, I wrote dense marimba music and then subjected this music to several processes of subtraction, resulting in a rhythmic cycle that is sometimes presented in its entirety, sometimes filled with holes, and sometimes completely rendered out such that there are no holes at all. Although there is a lot of math at work, Ta and Clap is meant to be fun to play and challenging to learn. It is scored for two marimbas and any number of assorted percussion instruments at the discretion of the performers, written for a flexible set of instruments to be drawn from the instrumentation of John Cage’s Third Construction.”

Nico Muhly (b. 1981) is a graduate of Columbia University and The Juilliard School, with undergraduate degrees in both English and Music Composition. He studied with composers John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse. He has also worked with the eclectic Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk, and with Philip Glass, as an editor, conductor, and keyboardist. His musical inspiration spans the gamut from English Renaissance composers through rockers such as Prince and the experimental band Antony and the Johnsons. His interests and his projects are wide-ranging, and they include incidental music, works for films, solo and choral vocal music, and a diversity of solo, small ensemble, and orchestral instrumental compositions. To say that his compositions bear intriguing titles is to understate that description.

An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Images III), a roughly ten-minute piece dating from 1986, composed for amplified flute and three percussion players, takes its title from the composer’s belief that, quote, “‘Misbegotten’ well describes the fateful and melancholy predicament of the species homo sapiens at the present moment in time. Mankind has become ever more ‘illegitimate’ in the natural world of plants and animals. The ancient sense of brotherhood with all life-forms (so poignantly expressed in the poetry of St. Francis of Assisi) has gradually and relentlessly eroded, and consequently we find ourselves monarchs of a dying world. We share the hope that humankind will embrace anew nature’s ‘moral imperative.’”

Crumb has suggested, admittedly “impractically,” that the music be “heard from afar, over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August.” (Well, it’s almost August!) His intention is to conjure up a primitive, timeless aura. There is quote within it from Debussy’s Syrinx (originally for solo flute), which is interpolated into a passage for the flute that also has the performer speak a few lines by the 8^th Century Chinese poet Ssu-K’ung Shu, while still playing the instrument: “The moon goes down. There are shivering birds and withering grasses.”

George Crumb (b. 1929) has a webpage which accurately describes his music as “hauntingly beautiful scores (which have) made him one of the most frequently performed composers in today’s musical world. Festivals of his music have been given in places as diverse as Los Angeles, Moscow, Scandinavia, and South America. His music often juxtaposes contrasting musical styles. The references range from music of the Western art-music tradition, to hymns and folk music, to non-Western musics. Many of Crumb’s works include programmatic, symbolic, mystical and theatrical elements.” His scoring is as inventively varied as are the wide-ranging types of works he writes.

In Contact, some eight minutes in length and first performed in 2006, is titled from the following musings of its composer: “I think composers are sometimes bewitched by the limitless number of instruments at a percussionist’s disposal. While a stage full of percussion instruments can be very exciting, it can also be distracting. So with ‘In Contact,’ I wanted to create a piece that focuses on a limited number of instruments. Each performer in this piece has three drums and two pieces of metal. The interest (I hope) is created not only by what instrument is being struck, but how the instruments are struck. There should be a direct connection between the energy of the performers and the energy of the audience…without a wall of instruments getting in the way.”

David Skidmore (b. 1982), is a founding member of the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, the Lucerne Festival Percussion Group, and the Collide Trio. (He premièred more than three dozen works with these groups over a space of just two years.) He is active as both a performer and composer of percussion music, and his works are presented regularly in concert halls and universities across the country. He has received many commissions, and was awarded First Prize in the 2005 Percussive Arts Society Composition Contest. He completed his Bachelor of Music degree at Northwestern University, where he studied with Michael Burritt and James Ross, with work on a Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music as a student of Robert Van Sice.