L.A.

Item details

• Description +

  • L.A. was originally written as a large, slowly building final piece for the stage program “Recycled” (2017) by Percussion Under Construction and premiered at Saarland State Theater (Saarländisches Staatstheater).  Inspired by a stay in the city of Los Angeles/California, Martin Hennecke used the abbreviation of the city as the title. He did not only name the music after the city however, for the composition also includes field recordings he made during his stay, and combines them with the humming of self-made drainage bass pipes, various wood and metal sounds and two huge drums made from rainwater collection containers.
    
    The six percussionists make the soundscape of the pulsating metropolis tangible. With its catchy theme, unusual sounds, electronics and challenging passages for marimba and vibraphone, the entire breadth of modern percussion ensemble music is on display. The electronics (fixed media) are divided into a playback track (set up for the audience) and a click track (for the musicians, set up via inear). The click starts with a four beat pickup.
    
    For building instructions of Bass Pipes and a 4.3 Octave PVC-Instrument reach out to mail@martinhennecke.com.
    
    L.A. appears on the album “Locked Down?” performed by Percussion Under Construction, nominated for the Opus Klassik award, released by the label Coviello Classics.

• Instrumentation +

  • Required Instruments
    
    Player 1
    Crotales
    PCV-Instrument (optional a Marimba can be used)
    Rain Barrel (1)
    Oil Barrel (1)
    Speaking Tube (bass tube made of drain pipes can be used; optional PCV-Instrument or Marimba)
    
    Player 2
    Vibraphone (4.0 octave if possible, 3.0 octave can be used)
    Thunder Sheet
    Tam-Tam
    Kick Drum
    
    Player 3 & 4
    Marimba (5.0 octave)
    
    Player 5
    Drum Set
    Wind Chimes
    
    Player 6
    Glockenspiel
    4 Tom-Toms
    Suspended Cymbal
    Tam-Tam
    Rain Barrel (2)
    Oil Barrel (2)

• Watch+

  • Listen on Spotify

• About the composer +

  • Martin Hennecke, born 1987 in Taunton/UK and raised in Cologne/GER, is a German percussionist and composer. Since 2009 he is the associate principal timpanist at Saarland State Theater.
    
    He studied percussion (performance and music education) in Trossingen. As a timpanist and percussionist he and has been invited to work with about 1/5th of the 129 professional orchestras in Germany. Being a long-standing orchestra board member and member of various committees of Unisono - German Music and Orchestra Association - he is actively involved in shaping various aspects of a modern professional orchestra.
    
    With his ensemble “Percussion Under Construction”, he has been creating opportunities to perform the best percussion repertoire through the development of a series of cross-genre full length live shows. Their first album “Locked Down?” has been nominated for the Opus Klassik in four categories.
    
    His list of compositions include several works for solo percussion, percussion ensemble, electronics and orchestra.
    
    Martin Hennecke is an alumni of Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy and the Academy for Theatre and Digitality Dortmund, where he developed concepts and methods on how to combine live music with audience interaction, utilising artificial intelligence.
    
    His project “The (Un)Answered Question - a Data Science Powered Music Experiment“ has been awarded the ”Prize Innovation“ by the German Orchestra Foundation. He has been nominated for the German theatre award DER FAUST 2023.
    
    He is teaching percussion and orchestra studies at University of Music Saar.

• Credits +

  • Front Cover Graphics: Nicola Lee
    Photo (Martin Hennecke): Martin Kaufhold
    Copyright © Edition SVITZER
    www.editionsvitzer.com
    With support from Koda’s Cultural Funds

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