Description

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The Artists:

Sō Percussion

For twenty years and counting, Sō Percussion has redefined chamber music for the 21st century through an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker). They are celebrated by audiences and presenters for a dazzling range of work: for live performances in which “telepathic powers of communication” (The New York Times) bring to life the vibrant percussion repertoire; for an extravagant array of collaborations in classical music, pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and theater; and for their work in education and community, creating opportunities and platforms for music and artists that explore the immense possibility of art in our time.

Recent highlights have included performances at the Elbphilharmonie, Big Ears 2022 – where they performed Amid the Noise, premiered a new work by Angélica Negrón with the Kronos Quartet, and performed their Nonesuch album with Caroline Shaw, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part – and a return to Carnegie Hall where they performed new collaborations with Nathalie Joachim, and Dominic Shodekeh Talifero. Their Nonesuch recording, Narrow Sea, with Caroline Shaw, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, won the 2022 Grammy for Best Composition. Other recent albums include A Record Of… on Brassland Music with Buke and Gase, and – on new imprint Sō Percussion Editions – an acclaimed version of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It,  and Darian Donovan Thomas’s Individuate. This adds to a catalogue of more than twenty-five albums featuring landmark recordings of works by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, and many more.

In the Summer of 2022, Sō performed at the Music Academy of the West Festival, Newport Classical, at Time Spans in New York, and offers four concerts at Our Festival in Helsinki – including a performance of Let the Soil with Caroline Shaw. 22/23 dates include concerts for Cal Performances, at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, at the Barbican in London, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Penn Live Arts in Philadelphia, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

 In Fall 2022, Sō Percussion began its ninth year as the Edward T. Cone performers-in-residence at Princeton University. Rooted in the belief that music is an elemental form of human communication, and galvanized by forces for social change in recent years, Sō enthusiastically pursues a range of social and community outreach through their nonprofit organization, including partnerships with local ensembles including Pan in Motion and Castle of Our Skins; their Brooklyn Bound concert series; a studio residency program in Brooklyn; and the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for percussionists and composers.

 

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Olivier P. Tarpaga

Olivier Tarpaga (USA/Burkina Faso), is a Lester Horton Award-winning choreographer/director of the African Music Ensembles of Princeton University. Tarpaga has performed and taught music and dance regularly in more than 50 countries throughout Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.

Since 1998, Tarpaga has composed and performed contemporary and traditional music and conceived dynamic dance theater works, touring internationally and the US with an impressive roster of collaborators and commissioning partners: including The Hollywood Bowl, the Ford Amphitheater (Los Angeles), The New Delhi Sacred Music Festival (India), The World Cultures Festival (Hong Kong), The Bali Spirit Festival (Indonesia), Festival de Jazz d’Amiens (France), Kelly Strayhorn Theater (Pittsburgh), Harlem Stage, The Joyce Theater, REDCAT, Crossing the Line Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, Action Danse Festival (Morocco), Charleroi Dance Biennale (Belgium), Natanda Dance Festival (Sri Lanka), The Drama Center (Singapore), and Session House (Tokyo).

Tarpaga’s music and dance works have been described as “unforgettable” by Los Angeles Times and “extraordinary” by The New York Times. His major works include Once the dust settles, flowers bloom (2023) When Birds Refused to Fly (2019), Declassified Memory Fragment (2015), Not Because You’re African (2010), Disorder Inside Order (2008), Sira Kan (2007), and Tin Suka (2001). His commissioned works include Only One Will Rise (2022) for the Limon Company, Wind of Nomads (2017) for Malaysia’s internationally renowned HANDS Percussion, Resist-Resurge: Traces of Hope for Maya Dance Theater of Singapore, and The way of sands (2012) for the Temple of Fine Arts in Perth, Australia.

Born in Kaya, Burkina Faso, Tarpaga followed in the steps of his father Abdoulaye Richard Tarpaga, co-artistic director of the 1960s Orchestre Super Volta. At the age of sixteen he was selected as an actor, dancer and drummer for Burkina Faso’s acclaimed company “Le Bourgeon du Burkina,” which performed at numerous festivals and theaters throughout Africa, Europe, and South America. Tarpaga is the founder and artistic director of the internationally acclaimed Dafra Drum (1995–present), which plays traditional Manding music, and Dafra Kura Band (2011–present), which plays contemporary African music. He is also a co-founder of Burkina Faso’s internationally acclaimed Compagnie Ta (2000–2004) and Philadelphia-based Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project (2004–present).

Between 2007–2008, Tarpaga collaborated, recorded, and performed with rock star Poe in Los Angeles, CA. Tarpaga was recommended to Poe by Hollywood composer Danny Elfman (who has produced soundtracks for The Simpsons, Good Will Hunting, Spiderman 2, Doctor Strange, Alice in Wonderland, and other films and shows). Elman has presented Olivier’s music at private events in Malibu and in Hollywood with celebrities in the movie and music industries in attendance.

Tarpaga also has played live and recorded with Grammy-nominated drummer Steve Perkins (Jane’s Addiction, Porno for Pyros) at Capital Records in Hollywood. He has collaborated with recording engineer Jim Mitchel (who has worked with Michael Jackson, Guns and Roses, and Billy Bob Thornton) in Los Angeles. In 2010, Tarpaga collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, performing multiple shows at the Garden theater of the Hollywood Bowl.

Tarpaga plays numerous instruments and is an expert in the calabash, djembe, and dundun drums. Over the years, he has developed and taught his own sophisticated drumming solo technique inspired by grand masters Adama Dramé and Amadou Kienou.

Between 2004–2017, Tarpaga served as faculty of music or dance at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures (CA), the University of the Arts (PA), the Ohio State University (OH), Kenyon College (OH), Denison University (OH), and the University of Iowa (IA).

Between 1999–2022, Tarpaga also taught as a guest artist at Yale University; Stanford University; Brown University; Cornell University; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; the Western Australia Performing Arts Center in Perth; the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts; the National Academy of the Arts (ASWARA) in Malaysia; the Tokyo Olympic Center; the Goodman Arts Centre in Singapore; the Russian Cultural Center in Tanzania; the National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda; Maitisong Festival in Botswana; the Aboki Ngoma festival in Yaoudé, Cameroon; the Action Danse Festival in Casablanca; the French Institut in Rabat and Meknes (Morocco), Dakar, Senegal, and Madagascar; the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, l’Université Technologique de Compiègne in France; the Lycee Francais in Madrid; and the United Nations International School (Hanoi).

In 2011, Tarpaga directed an acclaimed collaboration between Dafra Drum and the Kryasta Guna Gamelan ensemble for the opening ceremony of the Bali Spirit Festival in Bali, Indonesia. In 2008, he was invited to re-interpret Beethoven’s ninth symphony with West African instruments in a sold-out concert with British singer Billy Bragg and numerous guests at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, CA.

 

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NOMON

Shayna and Nava Dunkelman are musicians and percussionists currently based in Brooklyn, NY. After spending years apart working on their own unique voices, they came together in 2018 to form NOMON.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan to an Indonesian mother and an American father, the sisters became multi-instrumentalists performing alongside their mother, a musician and composer active in Asia and the Middle East.

They are strongly drawn to the dance-like movements and flow of playing percussion. It is as visual as it is aural. The trajectory of the hands and sticks, the shift of body weight, the eyes aiming to strike – The physicality of the performance has a choreographic quality as it is. The body follows a sequence of movements when immersed in playing the array of percussive instruments surrounding it.

The music lives in the intersection of electronic soundscapes and intricately composed percussion parts. They combine drum machines, vocal samples, synth melodies and modular synthesizers triggered by analog sensors with carefully chosen percussion sounds to create a cohesive interweaving of the electronic and acoustic elements. The seamless blend of the two worlds is essential to their music.

When composing, they are inspired by industrial music, avant-garde percussion improvisation, rhythms and sounds from their cultural background (Japan and Indonesia) and contemporary electronic music that incorporates voices instrumentally. In addition to solo performances, Shayna toured with Pulitzer Award-Winning and Grammy-nominated composer Du Yun, Balún, Ali Sethi Grammy Award-winning ensemble Attacca Quartet among others. Nava is a member of electro-percussion experimental noise duo IMA, and has performed or collaborated with Fred Frith, John Zorn, William Winant, Ikue Mori, Brandon Seabrook, Angélica Negrón, Pauchi Sasaki, and gabby fluke-mogul and many others.