Live Performance Review

The world music performance that I chose to attend was a two-hour concert on September 26th,

2015 from 3pm-5pm in Central Park, featuring different musical styles performed by the University of

Louisvilles percussion ensemble members and the Junkyard Hawks. The University of Louisvilles

percussion ensemble was directed by Dr. Greg Byrne, and the musicians were trained to perform both

Cuban and Brazilian traditional percussion arrangements. The performance was included as a chapter of the

Concert in the Parks performances, hosted throughout various parks in Louisville, all through the

summer. The concerts themselves are designed to be targeted to the audience, considerably more than a

symphonic or orchestral concert. In most classical music styles, the audience is not typically as involved in

the performance as the musicians; however, with this concert series, audience and even passing-by

community members were able to join in on the performance. The stage for the performance was set up

similarly to a prism concert, with different instrument families grouped together in a performance venue,

except performers rotated to new instruments only when the previous set had been completed. This

combination of unique instrumental setup and location made the weekends concert transition through

different segments of performance efficiently, making the concert more enjoyable for everyone.

The weekends performance opened up with a Cuban percussion ensemble, made up of a line of

congas, two drum sets, three sets of bongos, two timbales, and various hand percussion instruments (guiro,

claves, etc). One of the timbale players opened the piece by playing a syncopated ostinato, and other

ensemble members began to layer in on top of one another; consequently, it could be viewed that the

timbales player was the leader of this Cuban ensemble set. Once a constant tempo was set up after about 4-

measures of the introduction, drum set players and hand percussionists began to join into the texture. After

all the members were folded into the performance, a conga player began to solo over the ensemble. After

this improvisatory section ended, the piece took a quick pause and the timbales player cued another

entrance similar to the beginning, but about 40 bpm faster than the previous tempo. One major feature of

this type of performance was the heavy emphasis on polyrhythms and rhythmic syncopations. In addition,

from the two performances given by the percussion ensemble, this style of music was not as audience-
friendly as the Brazilian works. A challenge for most musical performances is keeping the audience

interested, and in the case of these performances, involved. Because of the heavy syncopation, most

community members who came to join this part of the performance were unable to feel the tempo and

meter of the piece.

After the Cuban pieces were finished, members of the universitys percussion ensemble quickly

transitioned to play a Brazilian percussion arrangement by Lalo Davila. The ensembles various members

could be considered a bateria, or a group of drum and percussion players in a given Brazilian ensemble.

This specific performance featured a variety of percussion instruments, including a few repeniques, surdos,

caixas, tamborins, a cuica and various hand percussion instruments (scrapers, agogo bells, whistles and two

tamborins. Dr. Greg Byrne initiated the start of the piece by playing a sort of call with a whistle, to which

the full bateria responded. The piece shortly ricochets between the conductor/whistle blower and the bateria

before opening into larger sections of music, serving as a call and response feature of the performance.

The Brazilian piece was set up into three main chunks of music, each section adding an element that the

previous one had been missing. The first section consisted of simply all musical and no locomotive

aspects, the focus was targeted towards feeling the accented second beat of the arrangement. The second

section of the piece added in new syncopated elements and the musicians also began to circle each other in

pairs, similar to a fight. After the third cycle, members of the bateria were swaying in step, turning and

dancing in time to the samba piece. The ending of the piece was again signaled by the whistle player,

bringing back similar elements to the beginning of the performance. The main aspects of this performance

included syncopated percussion rhythms that layer and intertwine with one another, and a heavy accent on

beat 2, given from the surdo drums, a difference from most Western musical practices.

Overall, the concert was both an educational and entertaining experience. Even though the

different sections of the performances lasted a very long time, allowing audience participation made the

event a booming success. Community members of every age and race were able to experience a new form

of music that they had possibly not heard before. In addition, Dr. Byrne spoke about each type of music

before it was played, offering a historical perspective to anyone interested about the origin of the music.

With all of these elements combined, the concert presented by the universitys percussion ensemble was a

highlight of Louisvilles Concert in the Park series.