Inuksuit
Morningside Park (at W. 110th St, Manhattan)
5PM

Columbia University's Miller Theatre presents a true highlight of Make Music New York: composer John Luther Adams's Inuksuit in the dramatic setting of Harlem's Morningside Park.

Using a small army of 99 percussionists from across the country, playing conch shells, airhorns, sirens, gongs, maracas, drums, cymbals, and glockenspiels, the 70-minute work is designed to heighten New Yorkers' awareness of the sights and sounds that surround us every day. This performance marks Inuksuit's first outdoor performance in New York.

Led by percussionist Douglas Perkins, who organized last summer's MMNY performance of Iannis Xenakis's Persephassa on the Central Park Lake, Inuksuit will combine the talents of professional percussion ensembles such as So Percussion and Percussion Group Cincinnati alongside students from conservatories and university music departments throughout North America.

The event can be accessed via the southwestern entrance to Morningside Park, located at the intersection of 110 Street and Morningside Drive. Performers will be dispersed throughout the park, in the area bounded by 116 Street, 113 Street, Morningside Drive, and Manhattan Avenue.

The performance is co-sponsored by Columbia University in the City of New York and the Friends of Morningside Park.

Film screening: Strange and Sacred Noise

In conjunction with this MMNY performance, Miller Theatre will host the premiere of Leonard Kamerling's film Strange and Sacred Noise, a documentary about a performance on the arctic tundra of John Luther Adams' music, on Monday, June 20 at 7pm, at 116th St and Broadway.

This film documents a rare wilderness performance of Strange and Sacred Noise by five acclaimed percussionists (including Doug Perkins, who is music director for Miller Theatre's production of Inuksuit) over the span of an Arctic midsummer night. This epic work is performed in the place that inspired its creation. The screening will be followed by a talk-back with the film director, composer John Luther Adams, and percussionist Doug Perkins.

The screening will be free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

Above photographs from Round Top Percussion Festival performance of Inuksuit. Round Top, Texas, April 17, 2010.

ARTISTS:
Douglas Perkins, music director
So Percussion
Percussion Group Cincinnati
The Proper Glue Duo
Mantra Percussion

And students from:
Baylor University, The Boston Conservatory, Brooklyn College of Music, Dartmouth Contemporary Music Lab, Eastman School of Music, Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, The Hartt School at University of Hartford, McGill Percussion Ensemble (Aiyun Huang, director), New York University, Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music, So Percussion Summer Institute, Stony Brook University, Texas A & M University - Corpus Christi, University of Central Florida (Thad Anderson, director of percussion), University of Cincinnati, College - Conservatory of Music, Yale University.

Village Voice critic Kyle Gann describes John Luther Adams's music as "beautiful, shimmering, vast, luminous, ecstatic." Originally from New Jersey, Adams has been living and composing in Alaska for more than 30 years. His most celebrated pieces, including The Place Where We Go To Listen, a site-specific work installed currently at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, reflect the natural world in constantly evolving, rolling tonal changes. Adams has been composer in residence with musical organizations including the Anchorage Symphony, the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and the Fairbanks Symphony, and he's taught at the University of Alaska, Bennington College, and the Oberlin Conservatory. His works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird, and American Composer's Orchestra.

Doug Perkins specializes in new works for percussion as a chamber musician and soloist. This has taken him throughout North America and Europe including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Spoleto USA Festival, and the World Expo in Lisbon, Portugal. He was a founding member of So Percussion and is presently at work with the Meehan/Perkins Duo. He works regularly with such composers as David Lang, Steve Reich, Paul Lansky, John Luther Adams, Nathan Davis, John Zorn, and Evan Ziporyn. He also performs regularly with groups such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Camerata Pacifica, Collage New Music, Max Roach's M' Boom, and the electronica duo Matmos. Doug currently teaches percussion at Dartmouth College. Learn more at http://dougperkins.com.

So Percussion began performing while its members were students at the Yale School of Music. They have worked with composers such as Paul Lansky, Dan Trueman, Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, Fred Frith, and many others. In 2010, So presented the U.S. premiere of Reich's new Mallet Quartet. Recent projects include the site-specific Music For Trains in Southern Vermont and Imaginary City, a sonic meditation on urban soundscapes commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 2009 Next Wave Festival. Starting in the fall of 2011, its members will be Co-Directors of a new percussion department at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. So Percussion has performed all over the United States, with concerts at the Lincoln Center Festival, Carnegie Hall, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Stanford Lively Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and many others. Visit their website at sopercussion.com.

Percussion Group Cincinnati was founded in 1979 and consists of members Allen Otte, James Culley, and Russell Burge, all of whom are faculty members and ensemble-in-residence at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. The Group regularly appears as concerto soloists with symphony orchestras, and has presented their program "Music From Scratch" to hundreds of thousands of children across North America. The Group has developed special relationships with John Cage, John Luther Adams, Qu Xiao-Song, Russell Peck, and with Larry Austin. Recent performances include the Shanghai International Spring Music Festival, a tour of Japan, and the premiere of a new concerto in Singapore with the Singapore Chinese Instrument Orchestra. Their recording of John Luther Adams' evening-length Strange and Sacred Noise was released in surround-sound by Mode this year. For more information visit http://pgcinfo.com.