Minimal Meditation

The percussionists from Elbtonal Percussion normally fill the stage with an array of instruments that include drums, cymbals, gongs, marimba and vibraphone as well as various everyday objects otherwise used for other purposes. However, they have to scale down for this concert and make do with timber beams and drumsticks!

Michael Gordon, the US composer and co-founder of the legendary music collective Bang on a Can is one of the pioneers of post-minimalism. »Timber« is one of his most extreme and forceful compositions. Striking the wooden beams, which are of different lengths, produces a raw sound that is rich in overtones. These instruments, known as semantrons, are used in the Orthodox Church. In »Timber«, the chimelike vibrations of the long beams create complex rhythmic textures. With their contemplative and hypnotic effects, they almost remind one of an archaic ritual, but also of an experimental sound lab.