Attending PASIC this year? Be sure to check out the Keyboard Clinic/Performance on Friday, November 13th at 2:00 PM. This special clinic, sponsored by Steve Weiss Music (and others), will feature a very special new publication called Intermediate Masterworks for Marimba.
Commissioned by the Zeltsman Marimba Festival and ZMF New Music, this new set of 2 publications features 24 new works for solo marimba, 16 commissioned by some very famous composers, as well as 8 winners of the ZMF New Music composition contest. Recognizing the need to fill a vast void in marimba literature, Zeltsman took it upon herself and her organization to take on this very important, extensive project. In today’s current solo marimba literature, it is very common to find lots of entry-level 2 and 4 mallet solos. Also, you will find that most of the substantial literature for solo marimba is extremely difficult, and not well suited for intermediate players. Each of the pieces in the 2 books are 3-6 six minutes long and feature a range of up to 5 octaves, designed SPECIFICALLY for the intermediate marimbist.
Think of them as solos written somewhere between Yellow After the Rain and Two Mexican Dances. Volume 1 features pieces from some very famous composers – most notably 12-time Grammy Award winner Paul Simon (remember Simon and Garfunkel?). Also included are pieces by Steven Mackey (who wrote See Ya Thursday) and Robert Livingston Aldridge (composer of From My Little Island), two very popular composers of solo marimba literature. Other composers of pieces from the book (volume 1) are: Carla Bley, Ed Haddad, Anders Hillborg, Darren Jones, Gaetano Lorandi, Osnat Netzer, Gunther Schuller, Alvina Tan, and Derek Tywoniuk. Volume 2 will be available right around the time of the PASIC 2009.
As part of the clinic at PASIC, 8 of the 24 pieces will be performed by the same people who premiered these works over the summer at the Zeltsman Marimba Festival (who are some of the greatest marimbists in the world today): Ivana Bilic, Thomas Burritt, Jean Geoffroy, Beverly Johnson, William Moersch, Gordon Stout, Jack Van Geem, as well as the person who started the whole project – Nancy Zeltsman.
What a concert that’s going to be! Intermediate Masterworks for Marimba Volume 1 is currently available here at Steve Weiss Music, and will also be available from the Steve Weiss Music booth at PASIC 2009.
A few of the recording artists (including Nancy Zeltsman) will be in our booth signing the CD and books on Friday from 3-4PM and on Saturday from 1-3PM. Please stop by Booth # 743-45-47-49 to say hello.
