This Thursday, Feb. 7, UCSD contemporary percussion ensemble redfishbluefish are playing a free show at Mandeville Auditorium. Founded in 1991 by UCSD professor Steve Schick, redfishbluefish is composed of UCSD graduate music majors. The Guardian recently spoke with Stephen Solook, one of the ensemble’s members.
The concert this Thursday consists of a performance of Gerard Grisey’s “Le Noir de l’Etoile,” a piece that involves six percussionists playing from within the crowd. Solook, who claims that the piece is “one of the greatest works for percussion sextet,” says that the idea to perform ‘Le Noir de l’Etoile’ has been talked about for years here at UCSD, and I feel very honored to finally be able to play it with such great musicians in such a compelling musical presentation.” The piece uses its unconventional performance setup to examine pulsars, radio waves emitted by massive, disintegrating stars. “By placing the percussionists around the audience,” says Solook, “there becomes very trackable musical ideas that travel around the audience. This is just a representation of pulsars spinning.”
Don’t let that description intimidate you; Solook promises that “As part of the performance, there is some text that gives some information about pulsars,” and that though “it is very difficult to be able to present this work in an ideal situation … we have done a fair amount of work to give an experience that is unique to live performance that one can not get from a recording.”
Redfishbluefish, for those unfamiliar with it, is an exceedingly successful group. This is likely due to the fact that, according to Solook, “One of the biggest strengths of the ensemble is its ability to not only play on a high level, but also to conceptualize works to a level very few ensembles ever have the time to do. While some groups need years to be able to start to approach their repertoire beyond note accuracy, this ensemble consistently gets beyond that benchmark with both new and traditional works.”
In recent years, redfishbluefish has premiered several significant compositions, such as Roger Reynolds’ “Sanctuary” and James Dillon’s “Nine Rivers.” In addition, they’ve released recordings (including a 3-CD set celebrating the career of Iannis Xenakis), performed pieces by Steve Reich and John Cage with Eighth Blackbird in New York City, and played at the John Cage Centennial Festival in Washington, DC. Their concert this Thursday is free to students and represents a wonderful opportunity to examine one of the finer groups in the world of contemporary classical percussion.a
