It’s been a while since attending a YPG show and I’ve forgotten how mesmerizing they can be. The concert was billed as “From Piazolla to Pleiades”. The first tune was Le Grand Tango from the master accordionist and composer Astor Piazolla. The group was 6 varsity percussionists from Yale’s storied program, one white guy and five grad students of Asian descent, one being a tiny female. The Tango had four marimbas and dueling pianos. I sat close as to get a good view of the marimbas, one was decidedly “bass”, the young lady had two to bang on, and the other two had matching configurations except one had a metallic clang while the other had a smooth wooden tone. The runs were fluid and I enjoyed watching the body language of the players. The standard “10 and 2” mallet technique was a constant for all marimbists. The second suite was called Water by the composer AlejandroVinao. The music meandered through three distinct parts: Edge of a Tide, Through the Wild Rain, and All The Rivers. Marimba runs can approximate water sounds, and the crew did an expert job of imparting that to the audience. The head of the program and musical director is Robert Van Sice who regaled the crowd with personal stories of his interactions with John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis. At intermission, the musicians were busy jacking the stage with instruments for set two. For anyone who hasn’t seen this stage, it is large, and after setup, was completely littered with marimbas, drums, congas, bongos, tympani drums, laptops, and ipads. The second set consisted of Pleiades by Xenakis. The director said the piece starts cohesively, then 3 and 3 split for a cacaphonous maelstrom before reuniting for the thunderous ending. That was helpful in navigating this challenging piece. If anyone hasn’t seen six musicians furiously banging away at exotic and obviously costly instrumentation, I urge them to take in a YPG performance, it’s stunning.
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