Bali to New York | Hammers & Sticks

Bali to New York Music for two pianos and four percussion

This project has been created by Cardiff based composer Charlie Barber. As the title suggests, this concert will take you on a journey from Indonesian gamelan music right through to downtown Manhattan.

With its infinite rhythmic patterning and metal percussion orchestration, Indonesian gamelan music has had a strong influence on many composers.

The American Colin McPhee spent several years in Bali during the 1930s transcribing this luminous and fiery music including Balinese Ceremonial Music. In the following decade, under the spell of this magical sound world, John Cage and Lou Harrison collaborated on Double Music for an assortment of Chinese gongs, water buffalo bells and thunder sheet.

Charlie Barber's Kantilan Karangan, a re-invention of traditional arabesques of Balinese music, is heard alongside the motoric rhythms of Steve Reich's seminal minimalist classic Piano Phase and the eastward-looking Fifth Simfony by West Coast composer Lou Harrison.

Programme includes:
Colin McPhee Balinese Ceremonial Music (1934-38)
Lou Harrison Fifth Simfony (1939)
Steve Reich Piano Phase (1967)
John Cage/Lou Harrison Double Music (1941)
Alan Hovhaness Gamelan and Jhala (1967)
Charlie Barber Kantilan Karangan (1993)

The tour took place in February and March 2008.

Hammers & Sticks Music for two pianos and two percussion

This is an Education project created by duoDorT and the percussionists Dave Danford and Jez Wiles.

The Hammers and Sticks Project is a series of keyboard and percussion based workshops and performances that can be adapted to the needs of your school activity, and age-group. We are aiming to take this project on tour in Spring 2009.

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