RAM Presents: “Realms of Darkness and Light”

Ikuts Perucssion & pianist Julia Den Boer

In this program of music for drums, metals, mallets, electronics and piano, the composers of RAM team up with Iktus Percussion and pianist Julia Den Boer to present new works which delve into the concepts, sounds, and energies of light and dark. In the festive light, Stephen Cabell describes his work Han for tom-toms, tuned pipes, non-pitched resonant metals, and tubular bells as a "celebratory ode to an exuberant and righteous spirit" that is an "ambiversive grooving of drums and metals." In Anti-gravitational Amplification (Homage to Goya and His Joy of Up Up Up!) for vibraphone and piano, Wang Jie seeks to call out her inspiration's name, "Francisco Goya - his timeless drawings that defy everything we know about gravity." Reflecting opposing realms, Frances White's The root of the wind for shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), percussion, and electronic sound evokes the elemental power of a diverse group of natural and musical phenomena, in particular the drumming of woodpeckers in the spring, as they challenge each other for territory, and a tientos flamenco rhythm (tientos is also a kind of challenge). In Not the light, but the fire that burns for tamtam, gongs, tom-toms, mallets, and piano, Gilbert Galindo aims to give the listener a journey through varying intensities of energy, from an effervescent buoyant opening, to low piano and dark gong soundings evocative of deep longings, to a relentless closing of toms, gongs, and piano going full force. Also to be heard is ...dall'infinito del sogno for percussion duo by this year's RAM call for scores winner, Gaetano Lorandi, of Villaverla, Italy and then Julia Den Boer goes solo in a performance of Beat Furrer's ethereal Voicelessness (The Snow Has No Voice).