In the midst of a ferociously busy Finals Week at Carthage, complete with jury rehearsals that kept me in my office until almost 11:00 last night, it may seem strange that I went out of my way to take in as much as I could of last night’s percussion recital. After all, if stress reduction is what you need, the last thing you should do is seek out roomful of percussionists who are banging on things … sometimes quite loudly! But that’s what I did- and I’m glad I did, because it was exactly what I needed to help sustain me through the most challenging week of the year.
There were a couple of reasons why I made a point of hearing as much of this night of percussion- and their names are Tyler Zumbrock and Chase Tonar. Tyler is a senior music major at Carthage, and frankly he’s one of the sweetest students I have known in my 20-plus years there. He is so positive, so interested in others, and so incredibly appreciative. You’re with him for just a few seconds and life just looks a little bit brighter than it did just a few moments before. I’ve never so much as had Tyler in a class or a choir or voice lessons; he is just someone I know in the hallways of Carthage, but I have come to deeply appreciate this fine young man – as well as his formidable talents as a percussionist. Last night was Tyler’s senior recital and I was not about to miss it, even though I had a full evening of jury rehearsals scheduled. So with apologies to a gracious bass clarinetist who was willing to wait for me, I ran up to Siebert Chapel at 7:00 to enjoy the first couple of pieces on Tyler’s recital – a marimba solo titled “Parody” and a timpani solo titled “Raga No. 1.” And I’m glad I did, and was only sad that I couldn’t stay to hear all five pieces that Tyler played.
I was also there for Chase, a Carthage senior whom I have known for many years because he grew up at Holy Communion- so I remember him as a very gifted boy soprano who took some private voice lessons with me during high school, and studies voice with me now. Chase is a fireball of talent and I know his senior recital last Friday night was a spectacular tour de force. Unfortunately, I had to miss it because of a concert which Kathy and I attended with friends (an amazing night of Irish music with the group Cherish the Ladies, at the beautifully restored Stoughton Opera House.) I had to miss Chase’s recital, but at least had the pleasure of seeing him in action last night as Carthage’s splendid Percussion Ensemble took the stage for the second half of the concert. I missed most of what they did, but a slight lull in jury rehearsals right around 8:40 allowed me to sneak back up to Siebert just in time to hear the full ensemble in an amazingly dynamic piece by Nathan Daughtrey called “Power Struggle.” That was followed by the finale of the evening, Chase’s own arrangement of “Carol of the Bells.”
By the way, the director of the percussion ensemble and the private teacher of Tyler, Chase and all of these percussionists, is a superb musician from Chicago by the name of Michael Kozakis, who plays often with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera Orchestra, and other top flight ensembles. He’s terrific at what he does- and a very fine teacher to boot. I remember one Saturday when I ended up watching him work for a few minutes with a high school senior who had just auditioned for Carthage. I got to see Michael work with this young person on some snare drum techniques- demonstrating for him all kinds of intriguing, subtle inflections which were possible in playing the snare drum. Of course, most of us outside of the world of percussion never think that there’s anything to playing a drum besides banging it …. except for the matter of banging at exactly the right times! But in the expert hands of someone like Michael, the snare drum becomes this incredibly expressive instrument with a host of potential colors to share. It was an eye-opening (or was it an ear-opening) experience for me. Anyway, Michael is a superb teacher and Carthage is so fortunate to have him; thanks to him, we are attracting fantastic young percussionists in droves, who in turn have enriched our instrumental program immeasurably.
I may be quite fond of Tyler and Chase and Mr. Kozakis – but the other thing which drew me to last night’s recital is my own personal fascination with percussion. It goes back to my childhood in Decorah, when I was quite often taken by my parents to concerts on the Luther campus. You would think that the Nordic Choir had the most powerful impact on me, but in fact I remember concerts by the Luther College Concert Band far more vividly- and I especially remember grabbing a seat way up in the front row, all by myself (my mom couldn’t stand to sit up front) as close to the percussion section as I could manage. And I would sit there, absolutely transfixed by what I was seeing and hearing – especially awed what seemed like impossibly difficult music played on the xylophone. Why I never thought to act on that interest, I do not know. Maybe my life was full enough with piano and singing – and maybe I was just too lazy to get up early for band practice. Whatever the reason, I never pursued percussion myself, but it remains something that excites me in a very visceral way. And when I see first-rate percussionists in action, part of me becomes that 10-year-old boy sitting in the front row of Luther Band Concerts, lost in amazement and pleasure.
And of course, percussions are engaged in what almost certainly is the most primeval kind of music making of them all . . . linking us back to prehistoric man beating on logs. I used to think of singing as the most fundamental of all music making, but the longer I teach the more aware I become of its complexities – particularly in this age of increased use of digital technology and anatomically-based lingo in teaching . . . which mostly leaves me bewildered. Yes, singing is about opening up your mouth, letting air in, and then letting it out again (how natural is that?) but what we sing and how we sing is a complicated business, involving genres and styles and languages. I don’t mean to imply that percussion is easy; it is far from it, especially when it gets into the kind of dazzling level we heard last night. But there’s something about playing percussion that frankly looks a lot like playing . . . as in playing with toys. And when I watch a band perform, in some ways the flutists and clarinetists and trombonists look like the adults, while the percussionists at the back (and I mean this in the most positive sense possible) sort of look like kids playing and having a ball – beating on things and making noise, only they’re beating drums instead of their mom’s pots and pans. It’s sort of odd to say that because in another way, the percussionists in a group really serve as the stern disciplinarians of the group, laying down the steady beat to keep everything cohesive. So while they may look like agents of chaos, in fact they are crucial to the cause of preventing chaos!
Wow- I just had another flashback to Luther. But in this vision, I”m not a 10-year-old child; I’m a student there, many years later. I’m in the audience of the CFL (the Center for Faith and Life) and the concert band is wailing away on Stars and Stripes Forever . . . pouring out a torrent of magnificent sound. But for me, all I can watch is a short but spirited percussionist named Pam Puckett – what a great name for a drummer! – playing the cymbals like she was Godzilla destroying Tokyo, rearing back so it looked like those cymbals were almost scraping the floor and then bringing them up above her head with a mighty crash! Or was she Moses, pounding her staff into the ground to part the Red Sea? Maybe she was both! And I’m flashing back to making music in the John Bunic Big Band with Joe Pulice, who was a master on the trap set and such a fun collaborator. And at the Racine Theater Guild, I have been blessed to work with several superb drummers. And I smile thinking about Cara Russo, a consistent presence in the Kenosha Pops Band for many years. Director Craig Gall has said more than once that nothing undermines a band more profoundly than a shaky percussion section, and one of the great pleasures for me this past summer at the band shell was watching the pops band’s exceptionally fine percussionists do their thing with steady skill. And in this flurry of memories, I would be terribly remiss not to mention a spectacular product of the Kenosha public school music program, Steve Houghton, a professional percussionist of the highest calibre who has played with the likes of Woody Herman, Rosemary Clooney, Maureen McGovern, etc. He has been back to Kenosha and Racine many times over the past quarter of a century, and I’ve had the pleasure of emceeing many of the spectacular performances he has given with all of the area orchestras and community bands over the years, welcomed back to his home turf like a conquering hero. And more than once, watching him in action, I’ve thought to myself “if there’s anyone who has more fun than singers, it’s drummers!”
In the midst of a week as exhausting as finals week, with students and teachers up to their eyeballs in rehearsals, projects, juries, grades, etc. I’m thankful for those percussionists for reminding all of us who was there last night that music, first and foremost, even when its done with utmost seriousness of purpose and executed with a high degree of excellence, is FUN. That is exactly why the world was given this precious gift.
pictured above: Carthage’s percussion ensemble plays the finale of last night’s recital. The percussionist nearest to the camera is the aforementioned Tyler Zumbrock, and Chase is almost exactly center in the picture.