Sudoku puzzles, flower pots and robots feature in some of the music University Percussion Ensemble students have worked on in a virtual residency with the New York-based Sō Percussion group this semester.
The four members of Sō Percussion have used Zoom to work with 16 percussion students in the ensemble — introducing them to new pieces, coaching them in their playing and collaborating on community involvement.
“[MU has] been a percussion department that’s really, really spectacular on the national stage,” Sō Percussion member Jason Treuting said. “It’s known nationwide. And I think it’s really neat to see what’s happening there, so we’re just really psyched to be involved.”
MU usually has percussion residencies once a year where professional musicians work with students for a few days. Dr. Megan Arns, assistant professor and director of percussion studies, said residencies expose students to new music and help them build personal connections with professional musicians.
“Sometimes when we see people playing music online in professional groups, we think that they’re unapproachable, that they’re kind of out there in the ether doing this really cool thing,” Arns said. “These residencies allow them to work hand in hand with the artists and realize that they’re human beings too, and really engage in meaningful conversation about shared music and create something together.”
Residencies are normally in person for a few days, but this year’s and last year’s went virtual because of the pandemic. Without the travel cost for residency groups, students used funding from the student-run Organization Resource Group for more lessons, which were spread out over several weeks on Zoom.
Graduate student Emily Miclon, president of the MU Percussion Society, said she appreciates Sō Percussion’s skill and contributions to percussion. She reached out to Sō Percussion in the fall semester and helped plan the residency. Composers write pieces specifically for Sō Percussion to play, so Miclon and other percussion students will be some of the first people to perform them besides the Sō Percussion members.
“The works [Sō Percussion] commissioned are really exciting — in my opinion, some of the coolest pieces in the percussion repertoire, but also some of the biggest standards,” Miclon said. “Things that we now call standards they have originally commissioned and they perform.”
In rehearsals twice a week, students play in Sinquefield Music Center with Sō Percussion members watching through Zoom. The pieces they’re working on cover a range of styles and ensemble sizes.
Treuting wrote one of the pieces, called “Nine Numbers VI.” Instead of sheet music, the six-player ensemble looks at a photo of a Sudoku puzzle. They read across the grid and play their corresponding parts based on notes and rhythms that go with each number and line.
Throughout the other pieces, students play standard percussion instruments like marimbas and vibraphones, but they also work with objects like pieces of wood, flower pots and Bricolo robots, which can attach to objects and tap rhythms.
Graduate percussion student Jordan Nielsen, vice president of the MU Percussion Society, said he likes the creativity that’s involved with percussion in songs like these.
“There’s so many different sounds and possibilities in percussion,” Nielsen said. “You only are limited by your imagination at some point. Sometimes you get stuck in a rut of using the same types of sounds or the same things that have worked for you in the past, but that doesn’t mean it’s exactly the best thing or the thing that fits that moment.”
Treuting said that while rehearsing with students over Zoom can’t truly fill in for playing together live, it opened up a successful way of working together that hadn’t been possible before.
Doing residencies in person and feeling the energy in the room is ideal for Nielsen as well, but he said having a longer period of time to work with Sō Percussion on Zoom and rehearse independently is an advantage. He said it’s been rewarding to get to know professionals in his field.
“Sometimes when you get in the academic calendar, it’s like, ‘Oh, my god, I got all this stuff going on, I have to learn all this music … What is this actually going to do for my life?’” Nielsen said. “It’s really refreshing to talk to people that want to have careers that you want to have. It’s really cool to have the confirmation that what you’re doing is the right thing to be doing and that there are so many options for you later in the future that you may not see now.”
In addition to rehearsals at MU, students are also working on community involvement. Treuting said partnering with people on events in New York is important to Sō Percussion. Miclon said the MU Percussion Society also values connecting with the community outside MU, so students have collaborated with the Missouri Contemporary Ballet, played for the Missouri Symphony Conservatory and performed at the Paxton Keeley Multicultural Night.
Students will perform five of the pieces at the combined University Percussion Ensemble and World Percussion Ensemble concert at 7 p.m. Thursday in Missouri Theatre.
Edited by Shannon Worley, sworley@themaneater.com
