For some of us, there is no sensation quite as gripping as the feeling of powerful drums on the ears, and those people were treated to a great performance on Oct. 28 as UTM senior and percussionist Hohner Porter packed most of the Blakenship Recital Hall in Fine Arts.
The set, which Porter had practiced around four hours a day since the beginning of the semester, was jam-packed with compelling pieces wherein he demonstrated his craft, sweat and dedication through his expressive playing and confident control.
The recital began with “Rebonds A”, a composition by Iannis Xenakis. As the introductory piece, it began slow and with a bit of meandering that this coalesced into a pounding theme by the end of the song.
This was followed by the short piece “Saeta” from Elliott Carter’s “Eight Pieces for Four Timpanis” which was, as one would expect, executed on four timpanis. Of note here was Porter’s ability for control as he was able to use both ends of the mallets to produce sharper or fuller sounds as well as keeping an impressive deal of control over reverberation.
This was followed by “After Syrinx II” a piece by Richard Bennett in which he demonstrated this same talent through expert deployment of the two-in-hand mallet technique, producing a more crisp and staccato piece reminiscent at some points of old cartoon sound effects as characters chase one another about on screen.
The next two compositions were more experimental in nature. “Stop Speaking” by Andy Akiho featured a bit of sampling from a text-to-speech program, with the snare drum mimicking the disjointed speech patterns of the machine. This was followed after intermission by “Sometimes My Arms Bend Back” by Daniel Harrison, which saw Porter joined by an ensemble wielding cooking pots, metal pipes and a small novelty piano while he himself played a group of ceramic flowerpots. The piece was in some ways fitting, given the month, insofar as it was a bit unsettling. It featured long, meandering points which built and coalesced into themes that sounded vaguely like church bells, or with the chiming of the small piano and the metallic sound of the pipes and cookware, it sometimes took on the quality of an antique music box.
But spooky was definitely not the dominant theme of the evening, as they ended the performance with an energetic Caribbean number called “Hands Like Lightning” by Liam Teague, featuring as many steel drums as could be packed into the room and a guest musician here at UTM from Trinidad.
Overall, the performance was lively, entertaining and did much to showcase Porter’s incredible talent. He is now making preparations to apply for graduate school where he plans to study music performance.
