Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Music

Senior Recital
Eli Mahne, percussion
Assisted by:
Abigail Mincy
Carter Stahl
Brycen Canada
Wrynn Clarke
Randy Gindler

Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J.S. Bach

​ I: Prelude
​ II: Allemande
​ III: Courante
​ IV: Sarabande
​ V: Gavotte I/II
​ VI: Gigue

Sonata for Timpani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Beck

​ I: Mysteriously
​ II: Jazz-Like
​ III: Fast

Reminiscence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keiko Abe

~ Intermission ~

Living Room Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Cage

​ To Begin
​ Story
​ Melody
​ End

Valse Brillante . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.H. Green

Catching Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ivan Trevino

Sunday, April 6, 2025

6:00 p.m.
Dunham Hall 1115
This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Music degree
(Performance).
 Program Notes

J.S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor (1717-23)

​ In the vast history of western music, Johann Sebastian Bach stands apart as someone who many
would consider to be the most important and influential single figure. His compositions have included
orchestral works, choral pieces, and solo music for many instruments of his time period. To this day these
works are constantly performed by all levels and all kinds of musicians, with the cello suites in particular
being considered some of the composer’s finest works, their popularity being so extreme that they are
commonly performed on a variety of instruments not limited to the cello. As was typical of Baroque
suites, a prelude introduces the key and tonality of the suite (C minor in the case of the fifth) with the
following movements being based on different types of baroque dances.
Among the six composed by Bach during 1717-23, the fifth suite is unique for how much of a
highlight the prelude is, with it being the longest movement of the whole suite as well as the most
physically demanding for the performer. A dark, dramatic opening sets the desolate tone for the suite,
before arriving into a fugue section that pushes on unrelentingly until the ending. The following
Allemande and Courante are the first dance-like moments, with the former being more languid and
yearning and the latter being dynamic and vigorous. The Sarabande is the most forlorn and lonely
sounding moment of the suite, only featuring a lone melody without any full chords to back it up. The
following Gavottes 1 and 2 are more energetic, particularly the triplet-based Gavotte 2, and the Gigue is a
charming and jubilant ending that maintains a lighter feeling in spite of the minor key.

John Beck - Sonata for Timpani (1969)

​ Educator, composer, and performer John Beck is a central figure in the history of percussion and
its development over the past century. As a performer he has served as a member of the U.S. Marine Band
and had principal roles in the Rochester Philharmonic, and as an educator he taught at the Eastman School
of Music beginning after his graduation from the school in 1955, eventually becoming its professor of
percussion in 1967. After retiring in 2008, he now holds the status of Professor Emeritus and continues to
teach at a smaller scale.
​ Sonata for Timpani was composed during a time of progress and development for percussion
music. The roles percussionists could play in both solo and ensemble settings were expanding, and
composers began to use percussion instruments in new ways. As a result, Sonata for Timpani feels
exploratory, even playful. Beck utilizes the timpani’s potential in a variety of unique ways. The first
movement, labeled “Mysteriously,” begins with droning rolls set between two drums, occasionally
interspersed with short rhythmic fragments. Later in the movement, the performer is instructed to strike
the bowl of the drums, creating a pinging, metallic sound. Descending rhythmic patterns are played on the
drum heads and are immediately echoed by these patterns being played on the bowls, creating an echoing,
imitation effect. Movement II “Jazz-like” sees the composer exploring the application of timpani to new
contexts. As an instrument historically rooted in orchestral music, the usage of the timpani in a jazz
setting is unusual, and Beck draws comparisons between the two worlds, such as instructing the player to
play in a “walking bass style” partially through the movement. In an especially playful moment halfway
through the movement, the player is instructed to set down their mallets and alternate between clapping
and playing on the drums with their fingers, achieving another new kind of sound from the drums. The
third movement “Fast” is adventurous in its use of rhythms. This movement features the most meter
changes of the sonata, alternating quickly between 4/4, 3/8, 4/8, 5/4, and 12/8, with a 2/3 polyrhythm
appearing near the end. The timpani’s glissando effect is also taken advantage of, in which the player
quickly raises through pitches using the instrument’s pedals. The compositional techniques of the
movement along with the quick tempo lead to a sharp and resounding finale.

Keiko Abe - Reminiscence (2023)

​ Keiko Abe is one of the most influential percussionists of the past century, composing many
now-classic works for four-mallet marimba and having an integral role in the creation of the five-octave
marimba. Emotionally, her works tend to center around feelings of memory, longing, and nostalgia while
evoking imagery of nature and serenity. Examples of these themes can be found throughout her career in
pieces like Dream of the Cherry Blossoms, Memories of the Seashore, and Wind in the Bamboo Grove. As
these are the primary concepts guiding Abe’s composition, it is fitting that the work the composer has
announced to be her final piece ever is entitled Reminiscence. As it is the most recent Abe composition, it
was written in the later years of her life (the composer is 87 at the time of this recital) and the work is
steeped in a sense of reflection and finality.
The thematic conceit of being a meditation on memory goes beyond the larger context in which it
was written, extending to the very compositional process itself. In the program notes for the piece, Abe
mentions that despite many of her previous works being created by openly improvising and later writing
down the improvisations, Reminiscence was fully conceived and written out beforehand, with melodic
concepts and structures that she had already imagined throughout her career being drawn out of her
memory. These concepts were finally written down and then stitched together to create the final work.
Melodic themes reappear throughout the piece, but each section can feel like its own vignette that is a part
of a larger structure. Musically, Reminiscence uses many of Abe’s signature techniques, from slowly
building rolls sections with despondent melodies and dense, dissonant harmony, to fiery, bombastic runs
extending from the lowest to highest notes of the instrument. Reminiscence is a celebration of what makes
Keiko Abe’s music special, and is an appropriate conclusion to the career of one of the most significant
composers in percussion history.
John Cage - Living Room Music (1976)
​ With the turn of the Twentieth Century, musicians began to challenge traditional notions of
tonality and instrumentation, and questioned the preconceived ideas of what music could be. As the
century progressed, these changing ideas of what can constitute music allowed for the creation and
popularization of solo percussion and percussion ensemble music, with many composers turning to the
atonality and rhythmic focus of percussion instruments for inspiration. One of the most consequential of
these musicians was John Cage, whose philosophy of sound was and still is groundbreaking and
influential on music creation to this day. His works blurred the line between music and noise, with Cage
believing that sound itself (or even the absence of sound) could be music. While percussion ensemble
pieces Third Construction and Credo in US utilized various “found” instruments such as tin cans, Living
Room Music sees the idea of indeterminate instrumentation being pushed to its fullest.
​ Living Room Music consists of four parts, and though some suggestions are given, the
instrumentation of each part is entirely up to the player. As the piece is meant to feel like it is organically
occurring in a living room scene, household items and furniture are used in place of traditional
instruments, with the exception of player four’s part in movement 3, which asks for “any suitable
instrument.” Other than the one exception, movements 1, 3, and 4 present another of Cage’s trademark
composing traits, complex rhythms that overlap, sometimes interlocking with each other, and sometimes
contrasting greatly against each other. The second movement is the most unique, taking a Gertrude Stein
quote and breaking it up across the four vocalizing performers, who use the words from the quote as
different rhythmic structures.

George Hamilton Green - Valse Brillante (1924, arr. 1992)

​ One of the most commercially successful percussionists of all time, xylophonist and composer
George Hamilton Green has been a major part of the history of the xylophone and keyboard percussion
music as a whole. His pieces for the xylophone are some of the most commonly performed works on the
instrument to this day, with a major factor in his continued relevance being the revitalization of his music
in the 1990’s by Bob Becker of the percussion group NEXUS. Becker took many of Green’s rags that
were originally written for xylophone and piano and arranged them for xylophone and marimba ensemble,
fitting them into the context of the modern percussion ensemble. Pieces such as Valse Brillante, arranged
in 1992, have been performed by NEXUS at concerts around the world, sparking a newfound interest in
the xylophone in modern times.
​ Valse Brillante begins with an introduction that features several cadenzas in which the soloist can
play freely on their own, either following the framework left by Becker or ad libbing their own line. After
the final cadenza the piece arrives in the titular waltz section which features a dream-like melody in the
xylophone that runs up and down the entire length of the instrument. Fluctuations in tempo and dynamics
contribute to the piece’s dream-like quality in the following B section, and the rubato trio section is
dramatic and romantic sounding. The piece concludes with a restatement of the trio section in a whimsical
ending.

Ivan Trevino - Catching Shadows (2013)

​ Ivan Trevino is one of the most in-demand and popularly performed composers in modern
percussion music. From passionate, intricate rhythmic lines to delicate, emotional melodies, Trevino’s
music encompasses a wide range of emotion into works that are demanding to perform yet easily
accessible to listeners, a balance obtained due to the composer’s classical education under Professor
Michael Burritt at the Eastman School of Music melding with the musical cues and sensibilities he takes
from pop, rock, and indie music.
​ Catching Shadows is a perfect example of Trevino’s rock and pop mindset colliding with his
study as a classical percussionist. Beginning with a dramatic and somewhat mysterious melodic cell that
scatters and echoes between the two performers, the piece then erupts into a vibrant theme. Following
this, player 1 begins a rhythmic groove reminiscent of a drum set beat, with the other player filling in the
melody over the drum set line. The composer’s talent for creating stark emotional contrasts becomes
apparent in the following lyrical section, which showcases his skill for making gentle, highly sentimental
music out of a rather simple melody. Following the slower lyrical section, a rousing recap of the earlier
material is played and a final statement of the first melodic idea ends the piece in the same mysterious
feelings it began with.