William Paterson University Percussion

On Monday, November 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Shea Auditorium we have our first New Music Concert of the year.  My colleague Peter Jarvis directs this series and he does a fabulous job with it.  This will be an amazing concert, with lots of great music, including works by Levitan, Hause, Ligeti, Morris, and Peter Jarvis himself.  Pete’s piece is a very cool vibraphone concerto featuring one of our other stellar faculty members, John Ferrari.  I’ll be performing Robert Morris’s Stream Runner, a tour-de-force for solo marimba and percussion ensemble.  The composer will be with us, as will Evan Hause, the composer of a piece that our freshmen are performing.  Don’t miss this amazing event!

Our New Music Series (directed by Peter Jarvis) gets off to a strong start on Monday, October 29.  We’ve got a stellar line up of performers who will present a variety of music, including the world premiere of Pete Jarvis’s new work for vibraphone and percussion ensemble.  Pete will be conducting and John Ferrari will perform the very difficult vibe part.  Then, we’ve got another concert on Monday, November 26.  I will perform Robert Morris’s Stream Runner for solo marimba and percussion and piano.  Morris will be there, which will be cool to have a composer in house.  I hope you’ll join us for these concerts.

I always think the summer is endless, until it ends!  I got a ton of work done this summer, including a lot of practicing.  Many of our students were off doing great things musically, including studying at Chosen Vale, digging in to internships as sound engineers, playing various gigs, and running marching band sections.  Now we’re back and ready to rock.  We’ve got a great season of concerts planned, check out the schedule page.  Hope to see you soon!

Things quiet down a bit here at WP over the summer, but the percussion rooms are still pretty active.  Many of the students live close to campus and will be here practicing.  We have one of the best percussion programs in the state (if not the nation) and that is largely because of our dedication to quality literature and an intense work ethic.

Some of the students will be directing marching bands and some of them will travel to camps and seminars.  Anthony Fabrizio (BM, Music Education) was accepted to the prestigious Chosen Vale percussion seminar.  He will be there with some of the other leading percussionists from schools like Eastman, Julliard, Manhattan, Michigan, etc.  We know he’ll represent us well.

Next week we start making our recording. This will feature all William Paterson composers, and will include the WP Percussion Ensemble and New Jersey Percussion Ensemble.  I’m really excited to be working with Dave Kerzner again, our Sound Engineering Arts (SEA) guru.  Go HERE for more information about his SEA program.  It is one of the most popular programs at WP, and for good reason.  All of his graduates get jobs and all of them like working in the state-of-the-art studios.  This recording project will be a great way to showcase both the WP percussion studio, our composers, and the SEA program.

Wow, this semester is going fast.  We were busy with the ISIM conference last week (International Society of Improvised Music), which included over 100 participants from as far away as Germany, England, Canada, and Siberia (!).  Now we’re getting down to business with some serious new music concerts coming up.  We’re also getting ready to make the first-ever recording featuring WP percussion and composers.  More on that later . . .

Wow, that was over in a flash.  We had a busy semester with two New Music Concerts, two Genre Non! concerts, two sophomore recitals and a senior recital.  We bid farewell to Victor Goldinak, who has been a great member of the department for four years now.  Vic is graduating with a BM in Music Education.  I’m confident he will end up being one of the most effective band directors in the area.

Next semester we’ll be even busier with lots of New Music concerts, including a big John Cage bash to celebrate the centennial of Cage’s birthday.  More on that soon!

So last week I broke my ankle.  Now I’m hobbling around with crutches and a walker (!).  But you know what?  It hasn’t been too bad.  The students here have been unbelievably helpful, and so have John, Pete, and Gary, my percussion colleagues.  I’m lucky indeed to work at place where we play things at a high level and are dedicated to cutting-edge music, but people are also nice. 

Dr. MacDonald