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Marimba Concerti
The McCormick Percussion Ensemble | Robert McCormick director, conductor
On MARIMBA CONCERTI WITH PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA (2006), Robert McCormick conducts his McCormick Percussion Group – an ensemble comprised of 20 marimbists and accompanied by guest pianist Corey Holt Merenda throughout. Guest conductor Cayenna Rosa Ponchione appears on her composition The Creation, the album’s concluding track.
Other compositions on the album include The Alabados Song by Paul Bissell; Concertino for Two Marimbas and Six Percussionists by Jan Van Landerhem; Concertino for Marimba and Four Percussionists by Chihchun Chi-sun Lee; Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble by Daniel Adams; and Concertino for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble by Paul Reller.
In expressing his gratitude for the record, Landerhem said he was “touched by the ensemble’s poetry and technical precision. The sound and the performance of the ensemble are of high professional standards, and could be compared with the best percussion ensembles I have heard. This is also true for the performances of the other compositions.”
McCormick is currently Professor of Music at the University of South Florida and timpanist with Opera Tampa. He is a former member of the Harry Partch Ensemble and served as principle percussionist and assistant timpanist with the Florida Orchestra for twenty seasons.
He has authored several articles, solos and two percussion texts: Percussion for Musicians and 32 Duets for Percussion. Robert was the 2006 recipient of the Florida Music Educator of the Year Award, the 2007 Grand Prize winner of the Keystone Percussion Composition Award, and the 2010 recipient of the Jerome Krivanek Distinguished University Teacher Award.
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Artist Information
McCormick Percussion Group
The McCormick Percussion Group is recognized by critics and composers throughout the world for their unique recordings and interpretations of music decidedly outside of the mainstream. MPG often collaborates with other non-percussion musicians to explore and develop new trends of compositional thought. Among the most recorded ensembles of the genre, MPG has recorded many award winning albums for Ravello Records (dist. by Naxos). To ensure the original intent of each work, composers are often invited to rehearse with the ensemble and supervise recording sessions. Under the direction of Robert McCormick, MPG is a resident ensemble at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
Daniel Adams
Daniel Adams (b. 1956, Miami FL) is a Professor of Music at Texas Southern University in Houston. Adams holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (1985) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Master of Music from the University of Miami (1981) and a Bachelor of Music from Louisiana State University (1978). He served as the College Music Society Board Member for Composition from 2015 through 2017. Adams is the composer of numerous published musical compositions and the author of many articles and reviews on topics related to 20th-century percussion music, music pedagogy, and the music of Texas. His book entitled “The Solo Snare Drum” was published in 2000. He also contributed two entries published in 2009 in the Oxford Encyclopedia of African-American History: 1896 to the Present and has authored a revision of the Miami FL entry for the Grove Dictionary of American Music.