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Matre's Dance For Percussion Ensemble (Preview)

  • Text
  • Quartet
  • Percussion
  • Psathas
  • Psathas
By John Psathas | Arranged for Solo Percussion and Mallet Quartet (Arr. Omar Camenates)

concerto, Zahara, which

concerto, Zahara, which he first performed with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Atherton, at the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand on 22 September 2006. In 2008, Chamber Music New Zealand commissioned Psathas to write a string quartet, A Cool Wind, for the world renown Takács Quartet, who presented the first performance in the Auckland Town Hall, Auckland, New Zealand on 23 July 2008. Psathas’ recent career highlights include the creation of key ceremonial music for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and more recently Zeibekiko, an entire programme of music celebrating the heritage of Greek music from antiquity and the present day. Zeibekiko was commissioned by the Eduard van Beinum Foundation at the request of the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and toured Holland in 2004. It was a highlight of both the 2004 Bath Festival (UK) and the 2006 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. Psathas’ inclination to work in a collaborative capacity with artists from a wide range of musical genres and backgrounds has resulted in projects such as Elect the Dead Symphony with Serj Tankian, and Pounamu with New Zealand roots musician Warren Maxwell. In 2011, Psathas produced his first film score for the feature-film, Good for Nothing, and further film music followed with White Lies in 2013. Psathas’ involvement with Booktrack—a company focused on developing synchronised soundtracks for eBooks—saw the opportunity to write music for the Salman Rushdie novel, In the South. Psathas has received a number of awards and honours, including twice winning the SOUNZ Contemporary APRA Silver Scroll Award (2002 and 2004) for individual works and taking three Classical CD of the Year awards (2000, 2004 and 2007) in the NZ Music Awards. In 2003 he was made a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate and in 2005 was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM). In 2014 Victoria University of Wellington awarded Psathas a Higher Doctorate in the degree of Doctor of Music (DMus) for the immense body of work he has contributed to his field. Latest information about the composer may be found at www.johnpsathas.com. PE182S – iv

Matre’s Dance for Percussion Ensemble (2015) Psathas’ Matre’s Dance (PE027) is a standard in the repertoire for piano and percussion. Bursting with the high energy that typifies much of Psathas’ work, Matre’s Dance maintains relentless rhythmic tension courtesy of unpredictable accents and syncopation. It has received numerous international performances from percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, including broadcasts for the BBC, German television and a recording for Glennie’s studio albums. The composer writes: The title refers to a dance performed by a group of fanatics in one of Frank Herbert’s Dune books. The dance was non-repeating and exhausting for the dancer, who often collapsed or died before completing the extremely long, complex routine. Created during an intense eight days, and actually commissioned as a violin solo, this was the first piece which suggested to me I might have some future in composing. Following its premiere, Matre’s Dance passed from my hands into Evelyn Glennie’s and has now seen much more of the world than I will ever manage to. This arrangement by Dr. Omar Carmenates, Associate Professor of Percussion, Furman University, USA, is one of seven works comprising the first volume of The John Psathas Percussion Project, in which works from Psathas’ are arranged for the modern percussion ensemble. The technical and syncopated piano part in Matre’s Dance (PE027) has been distributed across four mallet players utilising four marimbas, two vibraphones and a xylophone. The solo percussion part remains unchanged from the original version for percussion and piano. The arranger writes: This arrangement of Matre’s Dance for percussion ensemble seeks to maintain the stark colour palette of the original version by keeping the percussion part and primarily PE182S – v

Score Library

Mallet Quartet Solo Percussion John Psathas Psathas