NEW YORK – The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble, led by director Daniel Druckman, presents “Founders: Percussion Music of Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe” on Monday, April 4, 2016, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. The free concert features works by the founders and creators of the Bang on a Can festival. Gordon, Lang, and Wolfe have all written innovative and influential pieces for percussion ensemble.
“What these three composers bring to our world is a broadening of boundaries and influences,” notes Daniel Druckman, director of the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble. “Most notably, perhaps, the energy and primal force of rock, but not just that. Popular culture, kitsch, street noise, found objects, punk aesthetic, new math — all find their way in, in equal measure, forcing us to re-examine our ideas about content and context.”
The program features Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe’s Dark Full Ride (2002) performed by Ethan Ahmad, Joseph Desotelle, Anthony Guarino, and Christian Krogvold-Lundqvist; David Lang’s the so-called laws of nature (2002) performed by Sae Hashimoto, Brandon Ilaw, David Yoon, and Joshua Vonderheide; and Michael Gordon’s Timber(2009) performed by Joseph Bricker, Tsz Ho Chan, Tyler Cunningham, Jake Darnell, Taylor Hampton, Hanna Kim, and Gregory LaRosa.
Free tickets are available at the Juilliard or Alice Tully Hall box offices. For more information, go to events.juilliard.edu.
About Daniel Druckman
Percussionist Daniel Druckman is active as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician and recording artist, concertizing throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. He has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composer’s Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic’s Horizons concerts, the San Francisco Symphony’s New and Unusual Music series, and in recital in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo. He has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1991, where he serves as associate principal percussion, and has made numerous guest appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the American Brass Quintet, the Group for Contemporary Music, Orpheus, and Steve Reich and Musicians. Mr. Druckman has also participated in chamber music festivals at Santa Fe, Ravinia, Saratoga, Caramoor, Bridgehampton, Tanglewood and Aspen.
An integral part of New York’s new music community, both as soloist and as a member of the New York New Music Ensemble and Speculum Musicae, Mr. Druckman has premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Oliver Knussen, Poul Ruders, Joseph Schwantner, Ralph Shapey and Charles Wuorinen, among many others. Recent appearances include collaborations with Gilbert Kalish and Wu Han at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with Leif Ove Andsnes at Zankel Hall, with Dawn Upshaw at Carnegie Hall, and solo concerts at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre and Merkin Concert Hall in New York. Solo recordings include Elliott Carter’s Eight Pieces for Four Timpani on Bridge records, David Felder’s In Between on EMF, Jacob Druckman’s Reflections on the Nature of Water on Naxos, and Steven Mackey’s Micro-Concerto on New World. Mr. Druckman is a faculty member of The Juilliard School, where he serves as chair of the percussion department and director of the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble.
Daniel Druckman was born and raised in New York City. The son of composer Jacob Druckman, he had invaluable exposure to music and musicians at an early age. He attended The Juilliard School where he was awarded the Morris A. Goldenberg Memorial Scholarship and the Saul Goodman Scholarship, receiving both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music in 1980. Additional studies were undertaken at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where he was awarded the Henry Cabot Award for outstanding instrumentalist.
About the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble
The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble was founded in the late 1960s by Saul Goodman. It has also been led by Roland Kohloff, and by its current music director, Daniel Druckman. In addition to its yearly series at Alice Tully Hall and the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, the ensemble has concertized throughout the New York area. Recent guest appearances include the Danish Wave festival at Merkin Hall, the New Works/October series at Miller Theatre, Cutting Edge series at Greenwich House and several appearances at Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series, curated by Maurizio Pollini and Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2001, it collaborated with Juilliard’s Music Technology Center (now the Center for Innovation in the Arts) to present an evening of interactive music, and is often featured on the school’s annual FOCUS festival. In the fall of 2005, the ensemble collaborated with Juilliard’s Dance Division in the world premiere of an evening-length work choreographed by Elliot Feld, set to Steve Reich’s Drumming, which inaugurated Juilliard’s centennial year celebration. In 2007, they joined forces with the Percussion Ensemble of Manhattan School of Music to present several performances of Charles Wuorinen’s seminal Percussion Symphony.
