an unusual concert

A percussion quartet, at Herbst. Third Coast Percussion, it's called. All of the ten pieces played are recent compositions, some of them by members of the ensemble. Most were for, or largely for, marimbas and/or other tuned mallet instruments, and were largely soft, gentle, and peaceful, even the one titled "Death Wish." One piece (by Augusta Read Thomas) was for a set of tuned Tibetan prayer bowls: that was very peaceful.

The only one that used much conventional orchestral untuned percussion - wooden blocks, snare drums, tambourine, that sort of thing - was the newly commissioned piece by the senior composer of the bunch, Philip Glass. Titled "Perpetulum," it only sounds like typical Glass in a few eruptions of Glass-like themes from those tuned mallet instruments. It wasn't otherwise at all minimalist; the only one that did sound at all minimalist was by an English pop musician named Devonté Hynes.

The one piece I'd heard before was Mark Applebaum's Aphasia, which is for pre-recorded soundtrack (mostly electronically-processed vocal sounds) to which the musicians silently mime. I thought it was funnier and more imaginative the previous time.

A few of the quieter pieces were enhanced with ambient sounds from outside the hall (which is in a building also used for other purposes) or, from inside the hall, the same stentorian snoring from audience right that also enriched the string quartet concert on Monday. Either wake up, or do your sleeping somewhere else.