There are three new fish in the University of California, San Diego\u2019s acclaimed resident percussion “pool,” better known as Red Fish Blue Fish (RFBF). Eager to flash their fins, they are Leah Bowden, Eric Derr and Jennifer Torrence, who performed with the group publicly for the first time Nov. 18 in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall. Others in the prestigious ensemble are director Steven Schick, Ross Karre, Stephen Solook, Dustin Donahue and Bonnie Whiting Smith. Bowden, Derr and Torrence come from The University of California, Santa Cruz, McGill University in Montreal and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, respectively. RFBF joined pianist Aleck Karis in performance of John Cage\u2019s 1943 “Amores,” which includes, among others, prepared piano, nine tom-toms, seven wood blocks and pod rattle. Also on the program are Cage and Lou Harrison\u2019s “Double Music” and Iannis Xenakis\u2019 1989 “Okho.” Following the interval vocalist Susan Narucki performed George Crumb\u2019s 45-minute, 2004 song cycle, “The Winds of Destiny,” subtitled “Songs of Strife, Love, Mystery, and Exultation.” Narucki\u2019s collaborators are Karis, Schick and RFBF. The songs are drawn from American Civil War songs, spirituals and folk songs. “The work is part of a larger project of the composer, in which he\u2019s been setting traditional American songs for female voice, percussion quartet and amplified piano,” Narucki said. “For example, \u2019Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory\u2019 could be very, well, corny. But by asking the singer to sing in a ghostly, remote way and having the percussion and piano evoke the sounds of a battlefield long after the war is over, we get a poignant and moving portrait of the loss of war. “In the spiritual, \u2018Twelve Gates into the City,\u2019 the percussion and piano sound like a city full of churches, whose bells ring and overlap, full of joy and energy. In \u2018Shenandoah\u2019 the voice sings that beautiful tune softly and slowly, while the percussion and piano surround it with a haze of sound that\u2019s as open and expansive as that big flowing river,” Narucki said. According to Schick, RFBF serves as a laboratory for the exploration of new percussion works. They tour regularly to such places as New York\u2019s Bang on a Can Festival, Paris\u2019 Agora Festival and Mexico City\u2019s Centro des Bellas Arts. Pulitzer Prize-winner Crumb, 81, is one of the most frequently performed living American composers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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