(Posted April 19, 2010)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. - Appropriately titled, "The Loud and the Soft of It," the Juniata College Percussion Ensembles will showcase their wide range of talents at a spring concert at 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 30, in Rosenberger Auditorium in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts.
Tickets for the concert are $3 for adults and free for children under age 18 and for Juniata students with current identification. The concert will be conducted by James Latten, associate professor of music at Juniata.

The auditorium will resound with music during Alexander Lepak's "Crescendo," followed by Warren Benson's "Streams," a soft number that, Latten says, "may very well be the world's quietest and slowest percussion piece."

The ensembles will next perform an arrangement of the famous "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg, who is also known as Norway's greatest composer. This piece of orchestral music was written for the play "Peer Gynt." The music helps portray the imagery of a chase scene using increasing speed and resonance.

"Mucho Caliente," a number written by Murray Houllif, two-time winner of

the Percussive Arts Society Competition, will also be performed.


Another tantalizing piece the ensembles will present is Christopher Rouse's "Ku-Ka-Ilimoku." Rouse captures the sense of a war dance throughout this piece to go along with its title, which is a Hawaiian expression translated as "God of War."

Three players on one marimba (an instrument that originated in Africa with keys or bars typically made of wood and struck with mallets to create musical tones) will be the spotlight of the show during Mark Ford's "Stubernic." This piece accumulates in the final section where the trio doubles in octaves bringing it to a dramatic end.

The concert will also include entertaining selections by the PVC Pipe Percussion Ensemble, "Steely Pan and the PVC's." They will perform the "Limbo," "Pan Painted Blue," "Under the Boardwalk," and "Super Mario Brothers Theme."
The members of the Juniata Percussion Ensembles are:
Jon Bogue, a freshman from East Berlin, Pa.; Andrea Burton, a junior from McLean, Va.;
Jordan Campbell, a senior from Tyrone, Pa.; Amanda Durofchalk, a freshman from Wernersville, Pa.; Benjamin Gust from Wettringen, Germany; Sergio Lopez, a junior from Edison, N.J.; John Lugg, a freshman from Lock Haven, Pa.; Tyler NeuCollins, a junior from Solon, Iowa; Amanda Schlosberg, a sophomore from Baldwin, N.Y.; Sophia Suarez, a senior from Bronx, N.Y.; Jessica Toot, a freshman from New Oxford, Pa.; Brenda Tyler, a senior from La Puente, Ca.; and Kathleen Vanderau, a senior from Scotland, Pa.

Written by Molly Sollenberger

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.