Rituals is a four-movement concerto for percussion and orchestra composed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. The piece was co-commissioned in 2003 by NEXUS, the IRIS Orchestra, the Pearl Corporation, Kathleen Holt and Stephen Lurie, and Adams Musical Instruments. The recording is available from NAXOS. Rituals has received high praise. New Music Box calls it “one of… Read more »
“Paul Horn + NEXUS” is an album that has been long out of print. It was originally released in 1975 (one of NEXUS’ earliest recordings) on Epic (KE33561). Through inspired improvisations, NEXUS with Paul Horn on flutes and alto sax created an emotionally potent and stylistically diverse album merging rhythms and cultural influences from South… Read more »
How is your New Year? Everyone at NEXUS is busy. Ray has been lining up the many logistics for a very busy Spring that will take NEXUS from California to Arkansas, then Georgia, Ohio and Rochester NY.
At Holiday time I usually write about the great Family and Pops concerts that NEXUS has available, or I remind you of their choral repertoire. (If you are not familiar, click here and here!) But Garry Kvistad just sent me an article from the American Bell Association that has me thinking about the many winter… Read more »
Last night, I had a wonderful meal at a great little Toronto restaurant called Southern Accent. A couple of friends remember performing Zydeco at that restaurant, some years back. It reminded me that I had some notes put away for a blog post! Zydeco is a form of American roots music that evolved from the… Read more »
The musical Chess recently completed its run here in Toronto, and I just finished reading The Eight by Katherine Neville. The latter is a fascinating romp of a novel featuring a mystical chess set and a tapestry of historical characters scouring the world for it. Not least among them is the opera composer Francois-Andre Danican… Read more »
NEXUS has just returned home from the whirlwind that is the Percussive Arts Society’s International Conference (PASIC) in Indianapolis. Garry Kvistad found an interesting email in his in-box from his cousin in Chicago: a great article from the Arizona Republic. Do you think the triangle is a “no-brainer” kind of percussion instrument? Check out this… Read more »
The last two weeks of October have been rich in concerts and unexpected percussion influences. It kicked off mid-month with the wonderful SFJazz Collective presenting their take on the rhythmic-rich Stevie Wonder repertoire as well as a selection of new compositions at Koerner Hall here in Toronto. A couple days later, NEXUS presented their glorious… Read more »
The NEXUS and 2X10 concert last week in Toronto was wonderful. Bill Cahn’s hypnotic new arrangement of Takemitsu’s From me flows what you call Time opened wide skies of sound. The two ensembles took us from the world premiere of Alice Ping Yee Ho’s elegant Heart to Heart, through the Canadian premiere of Steve Reich’s… Read more »
The Toronto Arts Foundation has announced its 2011 awards finalists, and we are pleased to congratulate our dear friend and fellow percussionist Trichy Sankaran. He has been named as a finalist, along with Andrew Burashko and Rita Chiarelli, for the Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Music. Winners of the 2011 Toronto Arts Foundation… Read more »
View photos of rehearsals for this concert . Get ready for another fabulous evening of music with NEXUS and the piano duo 2X10, in Toronto on October 17th. On the heels of their critically acclaimed Series debut last season,
For a long while, NEXUS has owned two five octave marimbas and a vibraphone from Adams Musical Instruments . Adams, based in the Netherlands, manufactures timpani, marimbas, bass drums, chimes, mallets, temple blocks and many other percussion instruments.
The DRUM BOOGIE FESTIVAL is just around the corner! It’s on SATURDAY, September 17th, 9:30am – 8pm at CORNELL PARK, in Kingston, New York. (rain date: Sunday Sep 18th).
We are all back at our desks and in our studios, refreshed. The kids are back at school and that includes NEXUS! They are Ensemble In Residence at the University of Toronto. Russell is on faculty at U of T, Bill is on faculty at Eastman, and Garry and Bob have busy upcoming schedules in… Read more »
In my last blog post about summer festivals, I suspected I had missed some – and I certainly did! NEXUS’ own Bob Becker is in Fairbanks, Alaska, this week for the Alaska Midnight Sun Chamber Percussion Intensive. Morris Palter is co-faculty with Bob. It’s part of the two-week long Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.
