It is Time
Steve Mackey
4 percussionists
30’
It Is Time marshals the virtuosity of the individual members of So Percussion to speed, slow, warp, celebrate and mourn our perceptions of time. Each of the four sections of the piece is a mini concerto for one of the players. First Eric Beach leads the music in a multi percussion set up composed of metronome with delay, pump organ, bells, china cymbal on hi-hat stand and a few other assorted toys. Josh Quillen follows on Steel Drums, Adam Sliwinski on Marimba, and Jason Treuting on Drum Set.
The piece draws its inspirations from various sources including my admiration for So percussion, the inscrutable grooves of the Latin drummer, Horatio “el Negro” Hernandez, the rhythm of a bouncing ball and ultimately the fact that the last ten years went by much faster than the previous ten and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to slow that down. Sure there are timeless moments here and there but the decades speed by … or maybe I’m just more patient than I used to be.
– Steve Mackey
Annotated by Tyler Flynt