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Percussion Group DePauw to perform Wednesday Night
The Greencastle Summer Music Festival continues its series of free 7:30 p.m. Wednesday concerts in Gobin Church this week with a program by Percussion Group DePauw, a project established by Ming-Hui Kuo, the DePauw School of Music’s percussion professor, and Ben Hogan.
The group consists of DePauw faculty, staff and alumni. The ensemble covers music by Ivan Trevino, James Campbell, Andrew Beall, Piazzolla, and more.
The group’s colorful variety of instrumentation will take the audience on a musical journey from classic percussion instruments to powerful drumming, including the rich sounds of marimba and the intricate rhythms of swing, rock and tango.
“This is always one of my personal favorite concerts of the summer,” Eric Edberg, the festival’s founding artistic director, said. “There is usually a colorful forest of instruments, and an array of sound colors and musical styles unlike anything else. And Ming and Ben, well known to our musical community, are joined by recent School of Music alum Abby Foehrkolb, who like them is a fabulous player.”
The GSMF concerts are made available through the generosity of individual donors, an endowment at and grant from the Putnam County Community Foundation, a grant from the Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau, in-kind donations from the Inn at DePauw, and the “radical hospitality” of Gobin Church and its pastor, Bryan Langdoc.
The GSMF continues next week on Wednesday, Aug. 11 with Cathie Malach and Friends and will conclude on Aug. 18 with Tad Robinson and his band.
This summer’s performances are being shown at 3 and 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays on cable access Channel 3 in Greencastle and are available online at greencastlemusic.org.
Kuo is an adjunct assistant professor and percussion ensemble director at DePauw. She is a former intern performing member of Ju Percussion Group from 1993 to 2002. During her time with JPG, she performed in more than 500 concerts and 100 music related activities, including the annual seasonal concerts at Taiwan National Concert Hall, Taipei International Percussion Convention in 2002 and 2005. Her international performance with JPG includes China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Macao, Spain, Hungary, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Foehrkolb grew up in St. Louis, where she began studying percussion at age12. She has studied with Dr. Martin Weir, Erin Elstner and Dr. Kuo at DePauw. This fall, Abby will be continuing her education at the University of Missouri - Kansas City Conservatory where she will pursue her Master of Music degree and teach classes as the percussion teaching assistant.
At DePauw, she co-founded and served as president of DePauw’s Contemporary Ensemble, and she was a winner of the 2019 DePauw Concerto Competition. She has also participated in PASIC’s All-Star Intercollegiate Percussion Ensemble, Yarn/Wire’s Summer Institute, IMEA’s Intercollegiate Honor Band, Percussion Group DePauw and the DePauw Chamber Symphony’s Japan Tour
Foehrkolb was also the 2021 recipient of the Van Denman Thompson award as well as an inductee of the Pi Kappa Lambda national music honor society.
Hogan is an in-demand drummer and percussionist in western Indiana with an interest in jazz, pop music, Brazilian music and incorporating electronics into live performance. While completing his master’s degree in music performance at the University of Louisville, he had the opportunity to spend six months in Brazil on a grant to study Brazilian music.