I'm extremely excited to share this video with you all! Please enjoy:

​So cool!!!

Seriously, I don't know if you've gotten the impression yet, but I am so excited about this arrangement! It is pieces like this - arrangements of masterful works from monumental composers in the history of Western music - that I believe are the extra ingredient to push the marimba to new heights.

Of course, contemporary compositions will always be the forefront of marimba repertoire, but let's keep it real for a moment:

Just as every other point in the history of music,
there are hundreds and hundreds of pieces being written right now,
​but only about 1% of them will actually stand the test of time.

And that is OK! There are many fantastic pieces being written that won't get the attention they deserve, and I don't want to imply that they are any less than phenomenal. HOWEVER, for centuries before the marimba appeared in our little classical music world, the community of composers, musicians, and patrons went through a process of trial and error, weeding through the mountains of works from year-to-year and providing us with a body of masterworks that enrich our understanding of music today. 

Unfortunately for us, the marimba wasn't around during that time (at least not in western music circles), so there aren't hundreds of years worth of pieces written for us from which we can choose the 'good ones.' 

An amazing Messiaen arrangement on both an intellectual and emotional level, by Nancy Zeltsman

I think that the percussion community over the past century deserves acknowledgement for the amount of quality pieces that were written. We were the underdogs, but persevered and managed to produce a high percentage of quality works in a short time, giving us a fantastic foundation on which to continue building.

I often wonder how I can contribute to our highly productive, fast-paced community. Composition is something that I am interested in, but I have no illusions that I will be a groundbreaking composer any time soon (or ever), so that won't enable me to be productive right now.  However, I do think that my experience as a player puts me in a fantastic position to reinterpret some of the masterworks already written for other instruments and contribute to our growth in that realm.

So, while many people are working hard at composing new pieces for the marimba, I am focusing - for now, at least - on figuring out what we can learn from the masterworks that were already written for other instruments throughout music history.  ​Together, we can cover all of the bases and bring marimba to its next stages of maturity!

All of that is to say, I hope you enjoy my arrangement of the third movement of Bartók's Piano Sonata! It is a piece that has greatly inspired me, and the process of arranging it, and rehearsing, performing on my recital, and recording it with Jack van Geem was truly a pleasureful experience from which I learned so much. Hopefully this arrangement can inspire further advancements in the marimba world!

Stay tuned for movements one and two in upcoming Summer '16 Bi-weekly Video Releases!

This week I was finally able to acquire the recording of this performance on Jing Jing Li's SFCM recital.
​Please enjoy Udacrep Akubrad by Avner Dorman:

Wow, that was energetic! I think that is one of the more energy-packed performances that I've ever been in.

Sometime last fall, I was fortunate enough to be in the next practice room over from Jing Jing as she was working on the most intense moment of this piece in her usual fashion - metronome blasting out 16th notes, drilling nonstop for hours with stroke heights above her head - a sound the SFCM percussion studio would grow very accustomed to over the next 6 months. 

​I recognized the piece, and I really hadn't yet gotten a chance to connect with our studio's new post-graduate studies student from China, so I went over and started talking about it with her. Her English was not too great yet (her English is awesome now, less than a year later!), but eventually I learned that she has been trying to play this piece for years, though the performances always were cancelled for various reasons. 

And thus I came to play this piece with Jing Jing. What an amazing experience it has been! It is truly a pleasure to perform a piece with someone who is not only very talented, but also deeply loves the music that they are playing, and cares about the act of presenting this music that they love to an audience of friends and family. 

My favorite was how in rehearsals, she would always remind me about points in the music where we need to, "look at each other and smile, to give each other power."  Oddly, I think that power actually comes across in our performance, despite some mishaps... mostly on my part :)

Thanks for listening, watching, reading, and subscribing! -Stephen

Upcoming Blog Post: On Learning Music Quickly (​you KNOW that came in handy playing Udacrep...)

oh yeah, one more thing...

Darbuka Stands:
Preparing for this piece, I found it really difficult to find darbuka stands. The closest I could find were djembe stands and they were like 3 times the price of the actual darbukas.

So I made my own stands, and they worked pretty well!

​If you would like to inquire about having me make you darbuka stands, please get in touch  with me.