Boom, ding, clang! The sound of drums, glockenspiels, vibraphones and triangles will soon resonate through the air on the Edinburg and Brownsville campuses with performances by the UTRGV Percussion Ensemble.
Last Sunday, the ensemble played at the Texas Southmost College Performing Arts Center in Brownsville, featuring an array of songs. Its next performances will commence at 7 p.m. Thursday and Nov. 26 in the Performing Arts Complex on the Edinburg campus.
Mark Ramirez, associate director and percussion professor of the School of Music and area coordinator for percussion, said the performances are free and open to the public.
Ramirez said the event will last about an hour and a half, featuring the songs, “The Sound of Japanese Drumming,” “Constellations,” “Rythmus IV,” “Still Life,” “Afro-Cuban Ensemble,” “Marimba Ensemble” and “Brazilian Ensemble.”
The performance will also exhibit a routine by four soloists and a quartet in preparation for the ensemble’s competition in the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in Indianapolis from Nov. 13-16.
He said Thursday’s concert will be made up of an “abridged version” of the program but will also feature the Roma High School Percussion ensemble as a special guest.
“The Sound of Japanese Drumming” is a non-traditional version, due to the lack of use of the customary taiko drumming. Instead, other types of drums, such as tom toms, bass drums and bongo will be used.
The soloists Ricky Vela, Billy Sotuyo and Ian Charlton will perform using marimbas and Joe Moreno will utilize a prepared snare drum piece.
Vela will perform “Prism”; Moreno, “Complexus”; Sotuyo, “Scirocco”; and Charlton, “Etude No. 1.”
The competing marimba quartet consists of players Jose Guerrero, Rosalinda Ramirez, Armando Vasquez and Anthony Flores, and will play “Vespertine Formations.”
Music education senior Guerrero said in previous years, the group has won second place and, individually, he has placed first.
Guerrero said the coolest thing about PASIC are the people presenting lectures who he views as “celebrities” in his eyes.
He said people from all over the world attend the convention, and students can make many connections and meet new people.
“[PASIC is] about networking, meeting people, asking … whatever questions you may have to whoever you see, trying to grab as much information as possible so that you can share with whoever you want to,” Guerrero said. “And so, the competing thing, yeah, it’s super awesome, super important. We’re trying to do really well but that’s not the end.”
He said he personally wanted to get as much information from the conference as possible.
“These people are professionals,” Guerrero said. “They’re doing what we dream of doing, so whatever information they have is like gold to us.”
He said they’ve been preparing since the beginning of the fall semester, practicing five nights out of the week for the upcoming performances and competition.
Ramirez said he encourages students to come by and listen to the UTRGV Percussion Ensemble’s upcoming performances.
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