Michael Craden (1941 – 1982) was one of the original members of NEXUS until his passing in 1982. He was formally educated in the visual arts – painting and sculpture – but he was entirely self-taught as a musician. When NEXUS was in its formative period in the late 1960s, Michael was living in Toronto,… Read more »
The following recent email exchanges took place upon my receiving an email question regarding my earlier blog posting – “Instruments You Can’t Buy (Part 1 – Orchestra Repertoire).” Email: I appreciate your posting about the metal castanets in the Saint-Saens “Bacchanale” from “Samson and Dalila.” Is that part playable if the metal castanets aren’t mounted… Read more »
One of the wonderful aspects of being a musician is the ability to meet musicians from other places and to share ideas. I first met Ritsuko Matsumoto in August,1998 when she traveled from her home in Japan to participate as a contestant in the Leigh Howard Stevens International Marimba Competition and Festival at the Eastman… Read more »
On Wednesday, October 24 I facilitated the second of two “Creative Music Making” workshops at Buffalo State College. The 2-1/2- hour afternoon session took place at the Burchfield-Penney Performing Art Center. There were 16 partticipants on a variety of instruments – electric bass, trumpets, flutes, violin, viola, banjo, oboe and percussion, including a homemade amadinda… Read more »
On Wednesday, October 17 I had the pleasure of presenting the first of two “Creative Music Making” workshops at Buffalo State College. The 2-1/2- hour session on freeform improvisation was based on my book “Creative Music Making” (Routledge, 2005) and it was the result of an invitation from Bradley Fuster, a member of the BSC… Read more »
One of the advantages of being associated with a major conservatory like the Eastman School is the ability to regularly connect with visiting guest artists from all over the world. Such a visit occurred on Thursday, September 20, 2012 when Tim Genis, the timpanist of the Boston Symphony came to Eastman to present a two-hour… Read more »
For many years I have thought about attending a New England Fife and Drum muster, but it wasn’t until I was personally invited to one that I made a place on my calendar to do it. The invitation to attend the 59th Annual Deep River Ancient Muster came from Jim Smith, the founder of the… Read more »
A Short History of the Percussion Section of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra – 1922 to 1995 By William L. Cahn Part 2 – 1930 to 1959 The 1930s By the year 1930, the medium of silent movies encountered a rapid decline in popularity due to the advent of “talking” pictures with sound tracks. The Eastman… Read more »
A Short History of the Percussion Section of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra – 1922 to 1995 By William L. Cahn Part 3 – 1960 to 1979 The 1960s The 1960s was a decade of many changes in the orchestra’s percussion section. In 1962 John H. Beck became the timpanist of the Civic and Philharmonic orchestra’s… Read more »
A Short History of the Percussion Section of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra – 1922 to 1995 By William L. Cahn Part 4 – 1980 to (1995) The 1980s By the year 1980, the Rochester Philharmonic orchestra was presenting the following programs: a classical subscription series (broadcast regularly on local radio and occasionally on local television),… Read more »
A Short History of the Percussion Section of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra – 1922 to 1995 By William L. Cahn This article was originally published in “Percussive Notes” magazine, Vol.30, No. 8, June, 1992. New opportunities for NEXUS, including a new major work for NEXUS by Toru Takemitsu, “From me flows what you call Time,”… Read more »
NEXUS has gone through years of repertoire for solo percussion, ensemble percussion, band and orchestra with percussion, and percussion with chamber groups of all sizes. To this day, virtually every piece has presented problems to solve requiring the construction of instrument support stands or even of instruments themselves, not to mention special kinds of sticks… Read more »
Much of the time that I have spent as a percussionist, even dating back to high school days in the 1960s, has been devoted to problem solving – not “how do I play that?” but rather, “how do I make it easier to play that?” Addressing this problem has often required more than simply practicing… Read more »
The Story of George Washington’s Drummer Boy Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York is the burial place of Alexander Millener, who served in the Continental Army as a drummer boy attached to George Washington’s Life Guard. After the War he was a farmer living at Adam’s Basin [now, Ogden, NY]. He died at… Read more »
On May 5, 2012, as part of the new “Percussion Rochester” festival, NEXUS performed Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s “Rituals for Five Percussionists and Orchestra” with the Eastman Philharmonia, conducted by Neil Varon. The Zwilich piece was premiered by NEXUS in 2005 and shortly thereafter recorded by NEXUS with the IRIS Orchestra under the direction of Michael… Read more »
