This is Ozarks at Large. Let's consider percussion. It's hard to imagine most music without at least some assistance from drums or bells, vibraphones, castanets or gongs. The University of Arkansas will host its annual Day of Percussion on Saturday with six hours of performances on campus.
Chalon Ragsdale, director of percussion studies at the University of Arkansas, says a Day of Percussion gives musicians and audiences alike a chance to celebrate the entire spectrum of percussion, from drums to this year's featured instrument, the vibraphone.
"The instrument is laid out sort of like a piano. It's got natural keys and sharp keys, but the keys are made of metal. They're made of an aluminum alloy, and then they have resonating chambers underneath them to prolong and amplify the resonator. And then also the vibraphone has a motor that turns discs inside the resonators that create what we call an intensity vibrato. It's not pitch vibrato where it goes higher and lower, but the sound is muffled and it's open, muffled and open. It gives a sort of a sense of the same vibrato."
Fernando Valencia, an instructor at the University of Arkansas and director of the university's Latin Music Ensemble, says to help celebrate the vibraphone Saturday, the university is hosting composer and musician Brian Graiser from Arkansas State University.
"He created the Vibraphone Project, which is a nonprofit organization that he will extend more on that topic.”
“Its whole mission is to promote the vibraphone."
That's Vibraphone Project founder Brian Graiser.
"We value this instrument, not only as something that is increasingly relevant to professional performers all around the world, but it's also one of the few instruments that is American-made — it was invented in the United States. We try to do as much as we can to promote it in any and all avenues. We're just trying to be a force for good. We put on educational clinics and we put out educational materials. We host performance festivals, performance competitions. We solicit new music either through commissioning or doing calls for scores. We just finished our second call for scores a year ago."
That is Brian Graiser performing Gabriel Fauré's Impromptu for harp.
Fernando Valencia, who will become the next director of percussion studies at the University of Arkansas following Chalon Ragsdale's retirement this spring, says one of the goals of the annual Day of Percussion at the U of A is to provide connections for younger musicians.
"I can see how kids that attended the first ones — now they're becoming professional musicians. We know each other. We have created a network of people that love percussion. You'll find the whole spectrum of people that like that, and people that are just enjoying the performances."
Saturday's program on the University of Arkansas campus includes performances from Har-Ber High School, Springdale Arkansas Arts Academy, Siloam Springs High School, and the University of Arkansas Percussion Ensemble, featuring guest Brian Graiser under the direction of Fernando Valencia.
Graiser echoes what Valencia says about making connections. He says for percussionists, an event like Saturday is especially important.
"Percussionists are inherently soloists, right? There's only ever like one xylophone player or one triangle player, anything like that. Usually when we're in the back of a performing ensemble or the back of a classroom or rehearsal, we try to be supportive of each other, but usually we're sort of on our own on whatever it is that we're doing individually, and we don't really have people who are doubling with us — people that we can check our notes against or just confer with. Stuff like this is just immensely valuable because we're finally among our own people, and we're able to grouse about the same things, but we also learn about the same things. A lot of development happens in our field when stuff like this gets together."
The annual Day of Percussion at the University of Arkansas is Saturday. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center on campus. Musical performances begin at 10 a.m. Saturday morning with the Arkansas Arts Academy in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center, and those performances continue throughout the day both in Faulkner and in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall. The final performance of the day is scheduled to begin at 3:20 p.m. Saturday afternoon in Faulkner with the University of Arkansas Percussion Ensemble.
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