I feel that I've been very lucky this spring - many great performances with great musicians. Another recent performance was this past Wednesday, April 2 with the American percussionist (also a tabla player), Payton MacDonald.
Tim Brady, from Bradyworks, invited us to perform a concert together as part of his series entitled VOYAGES: Montreal-New York. With Payton representing New York, and myself representing Montreal, the idea was to combine my tabla playing with Payton's tabla-inspired marimba playing.
Payton describes his Super Marimba like this: "Super Marimba is the nexus point of all of my artistic activities. Here I combine my study of tabla drumming, Western classical composition, and Jazz improvisation. All of my Super Marimba compositions are notated, but the pieces include improvisation. Sometimes the improvisation is free and spontaneous, but more often it is of a unique sort that I have developed over the past couple years, based on the kaida/palta theme and variation processes used in tabla drumming." He also uses loop and distortion pedals to record, loop, and modify the marimba sound in real-time.
The concert program was quite varied. We began with a tabla solo, accompanied by the marimba (perhaps an unusual take on a very traditional concept). Next was Hazel, Orange, for Super Marimba and tabla. Here, I was able to accompany Payton on tabla, while adding some extra colour on various percussion instruments. Next, Payton performed Vignette for solo Super Marimba, and I followed with Paul Frehner's composition for solo tabla, Ke-Te.
After the intermission, we performed Spider and Four Places of Prophecy in the Fire Ritual, for Super Marimba and tabla, followed by Bruno Paquet's Les arbres célestes, for tabla and pre-recorded tape. We concluded the concert with Payton's composition for marimba and tabla, Jugalbandi.
After 10 years of collaboration with Payton, it was really a pleasure to perform this concert with him. I look forward to the next time we are able to perform together!
This was also the first time I used my Sabian "sprimbal" in concert. It's the weird looking cymbal to my left. It basically sounds the way it looks. :) It was also a pleasure to perform at the Theatre La Chapelle. The acoustic was great, and the sound and lighting crew were extremely professional.
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