Purdue percussionists to stage 'The Great Marimba Race'

"The Great Marimba Race," a percussion concert, will be held at 2:30 p.m. April 30 in Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse. Admission to the concert is free and open to the public.

The annual percussion showcase puts everything on the racetrack from offbeat, innovative works in the style of "Stomp" to classical pieces by Mozart and Stravinsky. It features the "All-American" Marching Band drum line and percussionists from Purdue University Bands performing in ensembles and solos.

Director Pamela J. Nave is proud of the fact that the marimba earned the pole position in this year's show.

"When I started here six years ago, no one played marimba," she said. Instead, Purdue approached percussion in more of a meat-and-potatoes or drum-and-cymbal way. Nave, who is an award-winning marimba performer, was determined to change things.

Marimbas are an important part of the percussion family because they narrow the wide gulf separating traditional percussion instruments and the strings and woodwinds, she said.

"The marimba builds a bridge between those two groups because it's melodic, and audiences respond to that, too," Nave said.

Six different marimba solos are planned, including Ned Rosauro's "Suite Popular Brasileira" and Minoru Miki's "Marimba Spiritual." Tenor drummer Matt Bowers, a sophomore in the College of Science from Elizabethton, Tenn., also earns a race day spotlight with "Green Lightning."

"Matt is amazing," she said. "He's a member of the best competition drum line in the world, the Cadets of Bergen County who won the DCI (Drum Corps International) percussion caption award last year."

During the years, Nave's show has become known for its splashy openings and this year will be no exception with Queen's "Bicycle Race" as the tune of choice.

"It's like a rock concert piece and it's loud," she said. "Every mallet instrument that we own is going to be used."

Among the other fun-loving pieces is "Blue Plate Special" which features the senior percussionists. Set in a restaurant, the waiter and guests use their feet, plates, table and everything else available to create percussive rhythms.

"'Cymbalectomy' is kind of serious but kind of not because the musicians come out in scrubs," Nave said. "It's actually a very intricate piece that requires lots of counting. Then there's 'Rockin' Ricki Rocket,' which is just bizarre. It's basically mouth percussion. I don't want to give away exactly what they're doing, but it's not easy."

The program hits more serious notes in pieces like Mozart's "Alla Turca," a xylophone solo performed by Craig Ziolkowski, a senior from South Bend in the College of Engineering, and Stravinsky's "Devil's Dance."

Written in the early 1900s, "'Devil's Dance' was a milestone for multiple percussionists because it was the first piece written for them," she said. "Today it's no big deal for one person to play four or five percussion instruments in one piece but you didn't do it back then, so it's significant historically."

"The Great Marimba Race" is the final concert event of Purdue University Bands' 2005-06 season. For information, call (765) 496-6785 or go online.

Writer: Kathy Matter, Purdue Bands public relations director, (765) 496-6785, kcmatter@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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