Whereas it'd seem to be the humblest of devices, the tambourine is definitely amongst music’s most cosmopolitan percussion implements. Recognized by greater than no less than two dozen completely different names, from Indonesia’s rapa’i and Egypt’s mazhar to India’s daff and Eire’s bodhrán, the spherical body drum performs a necessary function accompanying rituals, celebrations, and dances throughout the globe.
Brian Rice, the Oakland percussionist dedicated to the Brazilian tambourine, or pandeiro, felt just like the time was ripe to present the instrument its due, an ambition that involves fruition Could 14 at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Middle for the Arts. Carried out by Matilda Hofman, the Diablo Symphony Orchestra presents the world premiere of São Paulo composer Felipe Senna’s “Concerto for Pandeiro and Orchestra.”
A co-director of the Berkeley Choro Ensemble with flutist Jane Lenoir, Rice “at all times thought there might or needs to be a pandeiro concerto,” he stated. Senna had already collaborated with the Choro Ensemble and when Rice approached him in regards to the concerto thought, “he was form of intrigued. We acquired collectively after I was down in Brazil and introduced out 5 or 6 completely different tambourines, a riq, and Mexican and Galician panderos. I assumed we might mess around with all of them.”
The Could 14 program, “Sounds of the Americas: Sounds of Brazil,” additionally options the world premiere of Jean Ahn’s “Many Hues of Inexperienced,” a Diablo Valley Symphony fee celebrating the ensemble’s sixtieth anniversary, and Darius Milhaud’s “Le Bœuf sur le Toit” (accompanying Charlie Chaplin’s “The Adventurer,” the 1917 brief movie for which Milhaud initially wrote the piece).
The Southern hemisphere facet of the invoice consists of Clarice Assad’s “Brazilian Fanfare” (2005) and “The Brazilian Choro Suite” (2017), a three-movement piece by reed participant Harvey Wainapel and Rio-born guitarist Ricardo Peixoto, who're additionally members of the Berkeley Choro Ensemble. Rice and his ensemble bandmates will be part of the symphony for the suite, which was organized and orchestrated by Felipe Senna.
Dedicated to the virtuosic Afro-Brazilian instrumental type that has undergone quite a few artistic revivals since rising in late Nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, the Berkeley Choro Ensemble has cast deep bonds with main Brazilian choro musicians and composers over the previous decade, like esteemed Brazilian pianist/composer Léa Freire. When the group was in search of somebody to create string preparations for a number of authentic tunes, she advisable Senna.
The founder and creative director of the groundbreaking Câmaranóva ensemble, he plunged into the task weaving three Berkeley Choro Ensemble originals into “The Brazilian Choro Suite.” The piece premiered at a 2017 Echo Chamber Orchestra live performance at San Anselmo’s First Presbyterian Church.
“Harvey and Ricardo’s originals have been lovely to start out with, and Felipe’s lush arranging with strings made them that rather more putting,” Rice stated.
One in every of Brazil’s main up to date composers, Senna embraced the problem of Rice’s fee (which was coated partly by a GoFundMe marketing campaign). In a rustic recognized for percussionists with fluency in a multitudinous menagerie of drums and varied metallic implements, Senna was impressed by the dogged focus required for the challenge.
“The percussion universe is so huge, and it’s so uncommon that a percussionist will get to say, ‘I’m doing this,’” Senna stated. “Brian can obtain a stage of specialism not attainable if it is advisable play 150 devices.”
Often held like a plate and performed horizontally, pandeiros have metallic jingles alongside the body, however produce a distinct timbre than tambourines, the place “the jingles are splayed aside extra loosely to ring extra,” Rice stated. “On the pandeiro the jingles are two concave components dealing with one another, like a hi-hat cymbal, and are tight within the body to supply sharp, crisp sound.”
Decided to keep away from the lure of “having pandeiro in entrance of orchestra doing all these wonderful issues and the orchestra is uninteresting,” Senna needed as vast an array of sounds and pitches as attainable, he stated on a latest video name from his São Paulo studio.
“The problem is how do you create this sense of dialogue between an instrument and an orchestra,” Senna stated. “You need the area to indicate the approach, the circus half, but it surely must be a dialog. Lots may be finished by rubbing the pores and skin, muting the jingles, working solely the jingles, taking part in a glissando with the pores and skin, altering the pitch. Brian does all of it amazingly.”
Senna’s isn’t the primary concerto for pandeiro. Caito Marcondes, a pandeiro maestro who’s collaborated with Turtle Island Quartet, wrote a concerto for pandeiro and orchestra that premiered in São Paulo final Could (carried out by Rice’s trainer, Luiz Guello).
“After I first fell in love with the pandeiro I noticed the potential, that it might be performed on any kind of music,” Rice stated. “Since then I’ve used it in Irish and Center Japanese band and funk and jazz settings. It’s nice for odd meters. However a concerto? That is actually uncommon within the pandeiro world.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol..com.
DIABLO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
presents the world premiere of Concerto for Pandeiro and Orchestra, by Felipe Senna
When: 2 p.m. Could 14
The place: Lesher Middle for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek
Tickets: $40; 925-295-1400, www.lesherartscenter.org