Press information and Video on Michael Gordon’s Timber

St. Peter’s Church of Ireland, Drogheda as part of Drogheda Arts Festival 2013
4 May 2013

Press Highlights

The musical instruments look like something you’d see in the lumber department of Home Depot. Playing them requires great skill and stamina, but no special alchemy.Yet there’s one element that’s more conjured than contrived in Michael Gordon’s new percussion work, Timber: It has a halo, an ethereal aura of sound…

Read More    “…the custom instrumentation allows Gordon to create the impression that the sound is traveling around and through the room by subtly shifting the accent of sound from one player to another. The result is a meditation on sound and rhythm, bringing the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level.” Brooklyn Vegan

Co-commissioned by Netherlands-based Slagwerkgroep Dan Haag and New York-based Mantra Percussion, Timber, a stunning and virtuosic work, is played on six instruments made from specially cut wooden planks. Timber brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level. The range of sounds and rhythms Gordon is able to get out of a single piece of wood is nothing short of astounding, and the music moves seamlessly from the visceral to the cerebral, from beat-driven to ambient, from delicate to overwhelming.  It is a tour de force for the composer and the performers alike.  The performers are the New York-based ensemble Mantra Percussion, hailed by the New York Times as “…finely polished…a fresh source of energy.”

NPR Music Field Recordings: Mantra at Lowe’s Hardware
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lytgDpIs4Sk
There’s something primeval about guys banging on wood. But the New York percussion group Mantra takes such primitive pounding to a surprisingly refined level. For composer Michael Gordon’s mesmerizing new work – Timber, written for six two-by-fours – Mantra set up a public performance of the piece in the lumber department of a big-box hardware store in Alexandria, Va. Who knew 60 inches of processed pine could sound so good?
Read About Mantra Percussion 

Review of Mantra Performance from Boston Globe by Matthew Guerrieri”Over the course of an hour, Gordon wrings a rich array of sounds from the lumber, from chorale-like resonance to cascading Steve-Reich-like shifting phases. (The performance, by New York-based Mantra Percussion, was fluently focused in its stamina.)” Read More