The Heterodyne Duo will present a program of contemporary works for different configurations of percussion and saxophone when the duo performs at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in Cole Concert Hall on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus.
The duo features Dr. Nathan Nabb, SFA professor of saxophone, and Dr. Brad Meyer, director of percussion studies at SFA. They will perform “Walk the Walk” by Michael Daugherty, “Grab It!” by JacobTV and “Ajax Is All About Attack” by Robert Hasegawa.
In “Walk the Walk,” Daugherty takes the listener “through a world of virtuosic Detroit blues, rock, jazz and Latin Motown musical grooves,” according to Meyer, while “Grab It!” explores the “no-man’s-land” between language and music.
“Ajax Is All About Attack” is inspired by Jim Shepard’s short story by the same name about the Amsterdam soccer team Ajax. The piece “uses the upper register of the soprano saxophone, in a musical language including many microtonal intervals,” Hasegawa said of his composition. “The interplay between the saxophonist and percussionist demands that the performers follow each other closely, ever sensitive to nuances of rhythm and phrasing, as they jointly carve patterns in a musical ‘football pitch.’”
Meyer frequently tours to universities and high schools both nationally and internationally to present recitals, workshops, master classes, and clinics on various topics, including electro-acoustic percussion, contemporary marimba, concert snare drum, marching percussion, percussion ensemble, steel band and world music. His international performances and clinics have taken him to Austria, Taiwan, France, South Africa and Slovenia.
Nabb also maintains a vibrant and diverse international schedule as a performer, clinician and teacher. He is a regular performer with the St. Louis and Houston symphonies and has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, New World Symphony and IRIS Chamber Orchestra. Nabb was a finalist at the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition and a three-time semifinalist at the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. His current activities span the United States, Europe and Asia, and his career was featured in the March/April 2010 issue of the “Saxophone Journal.”
Tickets for the concert, which is a presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music, are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.
