The Valley City State University Music Department is pleased to announce an upcoming concert at the Larry J. Robinson Center for the Arts.

Percussion Ensemble Spring Concert is Tuesday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. Free of charge and open to the public. It will be held in the Performance Hall at the VCSU Center for the Arts.

For those unable to attend, the concert will be live-streamed on YouTube on the Valley City State University Music account.

The VCSU Percussion Ensemble is featured in concert on Tuesday, April 8, highlighting some of the university’s standout percussion students. With the theme of “Roots & Resonances” the concert will present work for small percussion chamber ensembles.

The program will open with “Elements” by Chad Heiny, a series of duets for marimba and electronics which is “a programmatic piece representing natural elements through musical devices such as texture, phrasing, style, and tonality…” The world premiere of Matt Sargent’s “Flower & Branch” follows, a sparse, quiet work for two performers bowing and striking one glockenspiel. It will also include “Sequoia” by Yaz Lancaster, a work inspired by the massive Redwood trees of Northern California. “Sequoia” features flower pots played as musical instruments in a variety of ways and field recordings of nature made by students. The concert concludes with Emma O’Halloran’s “Shell”, a groove-based piece for four performers playing around a single “reverb-drenched marimba.”

VCSU Percussion Ensemble is under the direction of Dr. Taylor Long, VCSU’s percussion professor. Students in Percussion Ensemble are music majors, music minors, and non-major participants.