2026-04-21T20:15:00
2026-04-21T21:45:00
Tuesday, 4/21/2026 8:15pm | Ford Hall Ithaca College: Percussion Ensemble Free, open to the public
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Our concert showcases the wonderful diversity of the world of percussion ensemble music. Henry Cowell’s work features a delicate and intriguing soundscape, sounds initially explored by him in his works created in the 1940s. Ostinato Pianissimo expands on his early explorations by adding a chromatic xylophone soloist who plays a repetitive pattern of notes in which accents are added each repetition to aurally regroup the notes into syncopated and intriguing patterns.
After Henry Cowell’s work, the ensemble will perform Plena Linda which is based the Plena traditional music from Puerto Rico. Our performance will feature many soloists culminating in a rousing end to the first half of our concert.
The second half our concert will feature the IC steel band performing a variety of music and musical styles from around the world. Our concert tonight will feature music by Len “Boogsie” Sharpe who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest steel drum performers from Trinidad. Orchid is a new composition written by one of our freshman percussion majors, Frankie Marks. Moving Too Fast is arranged by our senior percussionist, Nicole Galicia, who over the last four years has created wonderful arrangements for our steel band during her time at IC. Our final work of the evening, Coconut Champagne, was originally written for, and made famous in the 1980s, by the Maynard Ferguson Big Band.
Ford Hall