On October 18 and 20, percussionists Trevor Barroero and Fred Morgan will perform Laura Vega’s Ángel de luz percussion concerto on the second Classic series concert of the season, Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The performance will be the U.S. premiere of the relatively new concerto written for harp, strings and over 50 percussion instruments.
Front and Center
The concerto will not only grant the audience the rare opportunity to see percussionists at the front of the orchestra, but to watch them play an impressive 50+ percussion instruments. “Our audience is probably used to watching us run around the back of Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, but until you see it up close at the front of the stage, it’s hard to really comprehend all the subtleties involved. Especially when it comes to the implements that we’re using on each instrument. One of the challenges of this piece is that we’re not only moving between instruments, but we’re also constantly changing the mallets and sticks that we’re using. Throughout most of the piece we’re holding four mallets at a time. For example, we may have two yarn mallets for the marimba, one triangle beater for scraping the gong, and one plastic mallet for the glockenspiel. The physical choreography is extremely demanding,” said Barroero.
Morgan added, “This piece is going to totally blow people’s minds. The amount of colors that we can create will be a totally new experience to see it in front of the stage like that. Just the marimbas alone are a really unique instrument to hear with the orchestra and this is going to have two 5-octave marimbas, which is just rare in itself. Combined with everything else, it is a virtuosic and extremely rare occasion.”
Concerts with such large percussion sections are rare, usually reserved for movie concerts with epic scores (think any score composed by the legendary John Williams) and usually require five or more musicians to manage all the parts. “By far it’s the most instruments that either of us have ever played in a concerto setting. Many percussion concertos are written for a single instrument, but this is taking it to the next level. There are about 50 different percussion instruments we’re going to be playing. The piece’s virtuosity comes from the fact that there will only be two of us playing all those instruments,” said Barroero.
Ángel de luz
Premiered in 2015, at the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Laura Vega’s Ángel de luz consists of a single movement, divided into three large parts entitled Entre tinieblas (In Darkness), Ángel de luz (Angel of Light) and Rituales primitivos (Primitive Rites). Each explores the percussion section’s multiple and different timbres. “The color palette is going to be new to the listener where you have so many light colors, dark colors, and how quickly they come upon the listener’s ear coming from our instrument in such a featured light is really unique, it’s going to really open up a listener’s ear to the full possibilities of percussion,” said Morgan.
Barroero added, “sometimes we’re accompanying the orchestra for moments of the piece and then for 80% of it we are the solo voice. On the mallet instruments, we’ll be playing some beautiful phrases that you would normally hear from our woodwind or string sections and then suddenly we’ll move to the congas, bongos, toms, and bass drums where we get to jam like rock drummers. There are also some quiet and nuanced soundscape textures in the piece, as we gently scrape and strike the different instruments. There’s something in this piece for everyone because whatever you think about percussion, this is certainly going to push your understanding of the instrument in one way or another.”
Full Circle Moment
The Ángel de luz performance marks the 10-year anniversary of Barroero’s TSO solo debut. In 2014 as a student of Kim Toscano, TSO’s former principal timpani, he won the TSO’s Young Artist Competition and was granted the opportunity to perform a solo with the orchestra. “As a kid, I had always dreamed that I would be in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Specifically, I wanted one day to be the principal percussionist because I looked up to TSO’s former principal percussionist Homero Cerón a lot. That alone gives a lot of significance to this performance. This is not just an opportunity to solo with the orchestra again, but the fact that I’m a tenured member of the orchestra now performing alongside Fred is absolutely incredible,” Barroero said.
Morgan also shares a connection with Toscano. They both attended the New England Conservatory in the early 2000’s and in 2012 Toscano encouraged Morgan to audition for the TSO. It was at that audition that Morgan met Barroero, “my first professional audition was with the TSO in 2012 when I was a freshman in college. That was the one that Fred won. Afterwards Fred helped me, and I would play for him and Kim regularly. It’s all led to this, which is pretty special.”
The Friday, October 18 performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations is a Classics with a Twist Performance. Visit the concert page for tickets and more information.