By Julia Duggan
Staff Writer
Fellow music majors and non-music majors congregated for an unconventional night of live music, electronics and multimedia on Sunday, April 7 at 8 p.m. in Mayo Concert Hall for The Senior Music Major Recital.
Reim started the night with his performance of “Alter Ego” by Pat Jacobs. This piece required the performer to record audio from the snare drum ahead of time. Reim dropped a snare drum down the stairs, sang into it, scraped it and took it apart to create the right sounds.
Reim decided to go a step further and make a video to accompany the audio and added lighting. The result was an eerie, but fascinating performance that included Reim drumming with incredible speed and accuracy. He also had a lightbulb on the stage that flickered off and on, creating additional dramatic effect. The video would add strobe effects as well as contrasting scenes to create a musical experience that stunned the audience.
“Ben’s first piece used a ghost light as well as a movie projection to add to the eerie mood the piece brought,” said Antonio Morra, a freshman music education major who also plays percussion. “Broken light bulbs with the glass flying all over the screen in the movie, to the flashes of red and white being truly eye grabbing to the audience. Arguably, this piece was the best piece of the entire recital.”
The second piece Reim performed was “Eight Pieces for Four Timpani” by Elliot Carter, which differed drastically from his first piece. Reim used the drum pedals to bend and change each pitch after he hit the drum, creating distinct and beautiful harmonies.
“Ben did absolutely fantastic,” said Keith So, a freshman music education major. “It was super clear he did both his research into pieces and put in the effort to master them,”
The third piece that was performed was by Ashley Krebs, a senior music education major. She performed “Sonata in A minor for Solo Flute,” the first movement by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Her sound commanded attention from the audience as she created a mesmerizing story.
For the fourth piece of the night, Reim conducted a marimba quartet with a piece that he arranged. It was performed by Jacob Ford, a freshman music education major, Nick Wanagosit, a sophomore music performance major, Danny Beer a junior computer science major and Nasir Foster, a sophomore music education major. The piece carried the elegance and characteristics of a string quartet while maintaining the tone qualities of marimbas.
After intermission, Reim performed a duet with James Fox, a junior music major. Their performance of “Eight on 3 and Nine on 2” by Robert Marino called for 13 different drums that were arranged in three neat rows with the performers on either side. It was a fast piece, forcing the performers to race up and down the rows of drums. The audience reacted to the performance with a thunderous applause.
The next piece was performed by Beer, who is a junior computer science major. He played “Etude-Whole Tone Op. 6 No. 8” by Clair Omar Musser on a marimba, which created a gentle and peaceful sound.
This serene performance was followed by a duet featuring Reim and Vanessa Piwtoratsky, a senior history and secondary education dual major. The pair performed “Even When He is Silent” by Kim Andre Arnesen which was arranged by Reim. The program notes detailed that this song was in memory of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victims.
The last piece of the night was “Pulsar” by Francisco Perez, which was also performed by Reim and centers around the complexity of space. Reim used electronics while performing on a snare drum, which received a standing ovation from the audience.
“I wanted to give a really diverse representation of music in my recital,” Reim said. “Professor Trigg is really good with self-expression. I selected a lot of different contrasting repertoire including pieces with electronics and multimedia that I designed, along with pieces of more a classical nature but still are all not what people are usually expecting to hear.”
