The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Two percussion concerts — by Clocks in Motion and Madison native Nathaniel Bartlett — take place on Sunday afternoon. This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale features vocal music by many composers.

ALERT: This Friday’s FREE Noon Musicale, from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features Rachel Eve Holmes (below), soprano; Christopher Apfelbach, baritone and Michael Keller, piano, in the music of Carlisle Floyd, Reynaldo Hahn, Amy Beach, Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten, Gabriel Faure, Paul Bowles and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

By Jacob Stockinger

As I wrote and posted on Monday and Tuesday, Friday night is a major “train wreck” of competing concerts.

But Sunday is busy also and brings potential conflicts, particularly for percussion fans, though there is time to get from one concert to the other.

CLOCKS IN MOTION

On Sunday at NOON — NOT 1 p.m. as previously stated — in Mills Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, the percussion group Clocks in Motion (below), will give a FREE concert. The program features world premieres as well as music by Frank Zappa, Edgard Varèse and John Cage. (Free parking is available on Sundays in nearby Grainger Hall in the basement of the UW-Madison Business School.)

Here is a press release from the group, which includes Dave Alcorn, Jennifer Hedstrom, Sean Kleve, Michael Koszewski and James McKenzie:

“Contemporary chamber ensemble Clocks in Motion blends the classical concert hall with the rock n’ roll venue in a bold performance on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 26, at 1 p.m. in Mills Hall.

The program will pair one of the first pieces written for percussion ensemble with music by iconoclast Frank Zappa.

Zappa listed Edgard Varèse’s groundbreaking work, Ionisation, as one of his fundamental inspirations in becoming a composer.

Clocks will juxtapose this influential piece with Zappa’s Black Page, a drum solo that was later expanded to a full-band tune.  Black Page’s uniquely virtuosic sound blends rock, contemporary, and experimental avant-garde music.

Guitarist Anthony Lanman joins the program as a guest performer on the world premiere of his 8-string electric guitar concerto, Automaton.

A lush quartet for mallet percussion, piano, and cello by Joseph Diedrich will also receive its world premiere.

Rounding out the program is John Cage’s Second Construction, a grooving classic in the percussion literature.

Here are more specifics about the program:

Ionisation: Although it is only 5 minutes long, Edgard Varèse’s seminal percussion piece laid the groundwork for 90-plus years of composition for the genre (and beyond, as displayed by Frank Zappa). Varèse (below) explores the coloristic possibilities of percussion with unique instruments including drums, woodblocks, sirens, cymbals, chimes, maracas, slapsticks, and more.

Black Page: Originally constructed as a drum solo in a style unique to Frank Zappa (below), Black Page is known for its impressive rhythmic complexity and polyrhythms. This meticulous, thrilling piece is in two parts: No. 1, a full-ensemble percussion unison featuring a “statistical density”; and No. 2, the “Easy Teenage New York Version,” which grooves through the same material with a full band.

Automaton: Says Anthony Lanman (below): “When Clocks in Motion asked me to write a piece for them, immediately their name set off a series of images in my head. I saw a lonely watchmaker — an unappreciated genius — who had a vision in his mind of a great automaton. I saw him slaving away in his workshop, creating the massive creature, and then, finally, releasing it (with the best of intentions) upon the world. Unfortunately, the automaton didn’t function as planned…

“This all broke down into a concerto for electric guitar and percussion, and was organized into three movements: I. Watchmaker’s Daydream – II. Workshop/Steam – III. …In Motion.”

Saturation: Writes Joseph Diedrich: Composed in 2013, Saturation combines the distinct timbral subtleties of mallet percussion, strings, and piano. Using UW-Madison composer Stephen Dembski’s constellation protocol, the piece embarks on an evolutionary journey, culminating in the discovery of tonality. Starting with distant, sparse reverberations, Saturation quickly becomes a wild musical adventure.

Second Construction: The 1940 work by John Cage (below) is scored for four players, and features piano prepared with cardboard, screws, and a metal cylinder carefully placed inside the instrument. The instrumentation is fascinating — water gong, temple bowls, almglocken, maracas and tam-tam are heard.

New music, new instruments and new sounds define Clocks in Motion’s fresh and innovative approach to contemporary classical performance. Hailed as “nothing short of remarkable” (ClevelandClassical.com), Clocks in Motion is a group that performs new music, builds its own instruments and breaks down the boundaries of the traditional concert program. Clocks in Motion consistently performs groundbreaking concerts involving performance art, theater, and computer technology.

Featuring world premieres alongside rarely performed classic works, this ensemble strives to create a new canon of percussion repertoire. You can hear how they make music on found objects in a YouTube video at the bottom.

Clocks in Motion works passionately to educate young audiences through master classes, residencies, presentations and school assemblies.

The ensemble’s unique skill sets and specialties contain an impressive mix of rock, jazz, contemporary classical, orchestral, marching and world styles.

Clocks in Motion has served as resident performers and educators at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Casper College, the University of Michigan, Baldwin-Wallace University, VIBES Fine and Performing Arts, Traverse City West High School, Traverse City East Middle School, Rhapsody Arts Center, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Formed in 2011, Clocks in Motion began as an extension of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Graduate Percussion Group, and now serves as the affiliate ensemble of the UW-Madison percussion studio.

NATHANIEL BARTLETT

At 6:30 p.m. in Promenade Hall of Overture Hall, the Madison-born percussionist and marimba-player Nathaniel Bartlett (below), who uses complex computer technology in his music, will perform an unusual concert.

Tickets are $16.

Here is a link to the full description of the artist and the concert:

http://www.overturecenter.org/events/nathaniel-bartlett