Culture News Blog

As Marc Bolan of T.Rex once so wisely advised us, "Bang a gong, get it on."

On Saturday night, the Nexus percussion ensemble from Canada, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taffee Zwilich and the Florida State University Symphony Orchestra are teaming up for a gong-fueled performance of Zwilich's new "Rituals for Five Percussionists and Orchestra."

"They (the Nexus musicians) are bringing a whole gang of gongs," Zwilich said. "There are Chinese opera gongs, Thai gongs, Balinese temple gongs, various other gongs. A lot of them. ... Then there's a whole array of drums."

This will be the second official performance of "Rituals," which had its world premiere in March 2004 in Germantown, Tenn., with Nexus and the IBIS Chamber Orchestra.

Zwilich, who is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at her alma mater of FSU, wrote "Rituals" on special commission specifically with the five members of Nexus in mind.

"(It is) probably the finest percussion ensemble anywhere," Zwilich said. "When I got the commission I had no idea what I would do, but I thought it was a great idea."

In 2003, Zwilich traveled to the Nexus studio in Toronto to survey the group's staggeringly impressive collection of percussion instruments collected from all corners of the globe.

"I asked them to pick their favorite instruments and show them to me," Zwilich said. "I ... immersed myself in everything they had. Over a couple of days we really got to know each other. I got a sense of them as performers. They're five very different performers."

Trained as a violinist, Zwilich said it took her a lot of thought about how she would incorporate percussion before she hit upon the idea of "ritual." After all, percussion is used in cultures worldwide for everything from funerals to dances to war marches.

"It (drumming and percussion) taps into something so basic about our humanity that it's common to every culture," Zwilich said. "And there's not much else like that. There's just something that's so basic, so powerful, that it has a great pull on all of us."

The FSU Symphony will begin this weekend's concert with a tribute to Lubomir Georgiev, a brilliant Bulgarian cellist who taught music at FSU until his death from cancer in June.

Cello dynamo Marta Simidtchieva - Georgiev's close friend, student and a fellow Bulgarian - will perform Antonin Dvorak's "Waldesruhe" ("Silent Woods"). The work was one of Georgiev's favorite pieces.

Judging from past performances by Simidtchieva, be prepared to be wowed as well as moved.

The Trio Con Brio - which included Georgiev as a member until his death - is back with a special Kaleidoscope chamber-music concert at 8 p.m. today in Opperman Music Hall. The program will focus on the music of Johannes Brahms. Tickets are $7 per person at the door.

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