UW-Green Bay to host guest concert featuring Madison Graduate Percussion Group
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay will host a guest artist concert featuring the UW-Madison Graduate Percussion Group at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3 in University Theatre in Theatre Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.
The Graduate Percussion Group is a student-run chamber ensemble that performs occasional concerts at UW-Madison and elsewhere. The ensemble, made up of members Dave Alcorn, Sean Kleve, Joe Murfin and Brett Walter, explores a variety of Western and non-Western percussion repertoire. Joining the group for Friday’s concert will be fellow UW-Madison percussionists Michael Koszewski, Neil Sisauyhoat and Elena Wittneben.
The concert is a rare opportunity for the public to hear the music of Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), a brilliant musician and an architect and mathematician by training, said UW-Green Bay Prof. Cheryl Grosso, herself an accomplished percussionist. “Pleiades,” one of the pieces to be performed, requires the performers to make some of the instruments used. It includes six pairs of sixxen, a type of metallophone with specialized tuning requirements. Each set of sixxen are different, built within Xenakis’ guidelines, and the Graduate Percussion Group’s sixxen are made from 3-inch aluminum channeling. Graduate Percussion students including Walter, who is a 2009 graduate of UW-Green Bay, devoted summer 2011 to making the sixxen. Because of the challenge and time consuming nature of this task, “Pleiades” is rarely performed, Grosso said.
The Graduate Percussion Group guest concert is UW-Green Bay Music’s 20th of the 2011-12 season. The University is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music. UW-Green Bay’s Theatre Hall is located on campus at 2420 Nicolet Drive.
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