| 4-MALITY CONCERT |
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A dazzlingly spectacular percussion concert On 11th May an excited group of 10 musicians, mostly drummers, joined Mrs. Westley and Mr. King in a lunchtime dash to Newbury – to enjoy a special ‘Percussion’ event for schools at the Corn Exchange. After rapidly devouring our packed lunches at the canal-side ( ably entertained by a large flock of hungry swans ), we eventually found our seats in the balcony and the amazing show began. 4-MALITY is a quartet of brilliant young percussionists ( specializing in ‘4 mallet’ playing, get it ? ), who delight in demonstrating their technical skill and compelling dexterity in moving swiftly around a stage packed with an array of instruments – today these ranged from the obvious drum kit, through several ‘tuned’ ( marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel etc ) and ‘untuned’ ( djembes, bongos, tom toms, tam tam, cowbells etc ) to some very unusual things ( bowed cymbals, water-phone, and crotales ) – and in playing innovative arrangements of their instruments with great artistry. Overall they succeeded in giving us a dazzling hour’s concert of various pieces, including sampling all their different sounds. They started noisily with kit and djembes, then a quiet piece for two giant marimbas, followed by two ‘audience participation’ pieces, involving stamping and clapping in time to a familiar football chant and then grunting in off-beat syncopated time to a Steve Reich claves rhythm, next came a frantic bongo piece, and finally an impressive arrangement centred on a huge bass drum and employing everything else on stage………… absolutely spectacular!! Thank you Mrs. Westley for a fantastic trip – can we please go again next time ? CCK  |