DPU Percussion Ensemble to present 'Percussive Roots'

Sophomore Zach Jacobs, performing with faculty percussionist Bonnie Whiting in a recent concert at University Farms, will play with the DePauw Percussion Ensemble and guest violinist Erica Dicker in the Green Center's Kresge Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. (Courtesy photo)

The DePauw Percussion Ensemble will present its fall showcase "Percussive Roots," featuring Erica Dicker as guest violin soloist, in the Green Center's Kresge Auditorium on Thursday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m.

The performance, directed by Bonnie Whiting, plumbs the diverse beginnings of the American percussion ensemble from use of tin cans, washtubs and gongs, in music by pioneering composer Lou Harrison, to the lilting rhythms of Gertrude Stein's quirky prose set to John Cage's Living Room Music.

Composer Johanna Beyer's recently rediscovered "Waltz" (1939) explores the dance form though percussion's unlikely sonic characters. These early works of experimental percussion music will be presented in the context of traditional rudimental Civil War era drumming and ragtime songs.

An active chamber group that plays a wide range of musical styles, the DePauw Percussion Ensemble has performed at such venues as the Indiana Day of Percussion and Rhythm Discovery Center in Indianapolis and has traveled to central Europe, Brazil and China.

Soloist Dicker, who began her appointment as DPU assistant professor of violin this fall, has been heard at festivals in Belgium, Germany, Macedonia, Poland, Turkey and Italy, including the 2012 Venice Biennale.

She has appeared as a concerto soloist, most recently with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and also writes and performs her own music.

Professor Dicker is a founding member of the contemporary chamber music collective Till By Turning, an ensemble devoted to reinforcing the modern canon, championing new works and creative educational programs. She is also violinist in Katherine Young's Pretty Monsters, as well as Vaster Than Empires, an electro-acoustic collaboration with composer and sound artist Paul Schuette and percussionist Allen Otte.

Thursday's concert, which is free, is co-sponsored by DePauw Environmental Fellows and "Envisioning Zero Waste."

For additional information, persons may contact bonniewhiting@depauw.edu or visit httwww.depauw.edu/music/events/eventcalendar.