Rebels, Renegades, African Drums, Samba and Steel Band Dance Music

The all-percussion program at Van Duzer Theatre on December 2 begins with the HSU Percussion Ensemble playing famous but rarely heard pieces by 20th century composers “who are all in the history books now,” said HSU Professor of Music and Ensemble director Eugene Novotney, “but they were the rebels and renegades of their day.”

Edgard Varese was one of the earliest of those revolutionaries, coming of musical age in the era of Futurism, Dada and Surrealism. The HSU Percussion Ensemble’s main piece for this concert is Varese’s 1931 composition, Ionization, which Novotney (who received the Edgard Varese Percussion Award from the University of Illinois) calls the “the most important composition in the entire percussion ensemble repertoire.”

“It was written between the world wars, when a lot of people thought society was breaking down,” Novotney said. “This piece evokes that era, especially with the signature sound of the siren. We’ve got the authentic siren called for in the score.”

But that won’t be the only unusual instrument used by the Ensemble. “John Cage used all kinds of found objects as musical instruments,” Novotney observed. “One that we’re using s actually the jawbone of a donkey, with its teeth rattling.” The Cage piece is “Third Construction for Percussion Instruments.”

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