Ouachita Baptist University Percussion Ensemble to perform
ARKADELPHIA — Ouachita Baptist University will host the OBU Percussion Ensemble in concert at 7:30 p.m. April 10 in McBeth Recital Hall in Mabee Fine Arts Center on Ouachita’s campus. The concert is free and open to the public.
The OBU Percussion Ensemble will perform four pieces, each adapted to highlight Ouachita’s percussion students and alternating between drum-based pieces and keyboard-based pieces. The ensemble is directed by Ryan Lewis, associate professor of percussion.
The concert will begin with “Trio per Uno” by Nebosia Zivkovic. For this three-movement work, different trios will perform each section to allow more student musicians the opportunity to participate.
The concert will continue with student musicians accompanying the silent film “The Balloonatic” by director Buster Keaton. This piece will consist of nine students playing in a ragtime band while five students will perform live sound effects, just like Foley artists in Hollywood. Lewis anticipates that audiences will find this approach “unique and interesting … especially considering today’s technologically advanced movies.”
The next piece on the program is “Strange Loops” by Patrick Long and will be conducted by Van O’Rorke, a senior instrumental music education major from Hot Springs. This piece for percussion quartet, each with two drums and a cymbal, “includes the unusual feature of having the conductor play a woodblock throughout (who is also responsible for a surprise at the very end),” Lewis noted.
The concert will conclude with David Mancini’s “Suite for Solo Drum Set and Percussion Ensemble.” This piece typically features a single solo drum set player, but “we have three seniors, each with terrific drum set skills, so we will feature all three of them at the same time on the piece,” Lewis said. He added that this selection promises to be “a terrific way to end the concert.”
Contact Lewis at lewisr@obu.edu or 870-245-5421 or visit http://www.obu.edu/ percussion for more information on the percussion ensemble.