Inspired By Bragg: Aurora Percussion Duo: Metal

Aurora Percussion Duo: Delia Stevens, Le Yu, plus guest percussionist Jason Huxtable

Gene Koshinski: Sync (2018)
Adam Silverman: Paper Covers Rock (2016)
Claude Debussy arr. Kai Strobel (2018): Suite Estampes: Pagodes (1903)
Andy Scott: Xi Yu (2018)
Ney Rosauro: Cenas Amerindias: ii El Dorado (1987)
Delia Stevens: Improvisation on a Music Box (2020)
Ivan Trevino: Seesaw (2020)
Nebojsa Zivkovic arr. Aurora Percussion Duo: Trio Per Uno: movement ii (1995)
Damien Harron: Ouroboros (world premiere - commissioned by University of Leeds and Delia Stevens)

Malleable, conductor of energy, lustrous

The award-winning Aurora Percussion Duo (Delia Stevens and Le Yu) are joined by the University of Leeds Percussion Lecturer Jason Huxtable in a concert exploring the sonic possibilities of metal, comparing the playful, experimental approach that both scientists and musicians apply to their craft in the pursuit of new knowledge and perspectives.

Curated by Delia Stevens, the programme’s theme is inspired by research areas at the Bragg Centre, who develop and exploit recent and established analytical techniques in order to create new materials and improve existing materials. The research makes use of an understanding of morphology, structure and chemistry at the atomic scale to forge expertise in metals and nanometals.

Musicians work in similar microscale detail to physicalise an imagined reality and hone techniques in the pursuit of a new truth, to better express our comprehension of ourselves and the world around us. Percussionists constantly experiment with creating and finding sounds as well as exploring the capability of existing instruments across a range of materials through extended techniques.

The concert features conventional metallic percussion instruments such as the hang (handpan), kalimba (thumb piano), vibraphone, glockenspiel, gamelan gongs, cowbell, triangle, Chinese opera gongs, cencerros, toy bells, cabasa, tam-tam, wire brushes, crotales and cymbals.

This is supplemented by an odd collection of repurposed percussion instruments such as a music box, steel-string guitar, carousel bells and tuned desk bells as well as more quotidian objects like the metal coffee press, bike wheel, drainpipe, cat bowl and biscuit tin lid.

6:30pm - Pre-concert talk
Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall
Percussionist Delia Stevens and composer Damien Harron discuss the formation of the concert programme in relation to the theme of metal, and the compositional process of the newly commissioned piece of music.

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