Dancing conductors and rolling cymbals

I forget which tune it was but there's really only one notable classical piece that demands a percussionist to do a 'roll' on a pair of clash cymbals. Well, NJP proved me wrong last night when they played a piece by Rodion Shchedrin, and one guy pulled out a pair of cymbals and started 'rolling' on it. What does this exactly mean? It means you angle the uppermost tips of the cymbals against each other, and make a circular motion with your arms so that the cymbals are literally 'rolling' against each other. It's totally weird.

The rolling clash cymbals definitely set the tone for a peculiar, musical evening. The concert began with a snare drum set up right in the middle of the orchestra, and the principal playing a jazzy rhythm on it during the Shchedrin piece. Slightly distracting was the dancing conductor. I mean, this guy was dancing. He would jump up and down, swing his hips side to side, suggestively flare his arms here and there...it was as if he was acting out his own personal musical. Possibly because I wasn't used to seeing dancing conductors, his performance kept me from concentrating on the music.

Then of course half way through the concert I realized that the timpanist had set up his timpani backwards. It's by no means illegal in the world of percussion--whatever works goes--but I couldn't imagine how one could play like that.

The star of the show was Keiko Abe. She was featured in a piece called Lauda Concertata for Orchestra and Marimba, and I knew she had played this piece before (have read her bio). But when I heard it at first I wondered if she was having a bad day. Her mallets' stick-ends were hitting the keys on the marimba, and I thought I heard a few notes here and there that probably wasn't supposed to be there. After the performance I briefly read through the programme notes for the evening, and the piece was described as having an eery, almost rite-like air to it, with the strings playing long, legato notes and the marimba playing rhythmic, staccato notes characteristic for a percussion instrument. So I guess maybe the stick-hitting part was supposed to be a part of the piece, as with the odd notes here and there. New-age contemporary music is hard to tell in this way--you never know if it was all supposed to be there or not in the first place.

In any case it was a good evening. Sumida Triphony Hall is one amazing concert hall, and watching the New Japan Phil made me want to play percussion in an orchestral/concert setting all over again. I have to do something musical one of these days, or else I'm going to go nuts! I'm thinking of taking up the cello but access to the instrument itself is one obstacle, finding a good teacher is another, and then of course I have to pay for lessons, which is an additional obstacle.