PERCUSSION TAKES CENTRE stage when one of the world's most original and versatile groups of musicians takes the audience on a dazzling journey Around the World in 80 Minutes, as their show is titled.
Performing on instruments as widely different as Chinese gongs, Polynesian log drums, tin cans, bicycle wheels and frying pans, the Budapest-based musicians will be performing traditional music from China, Tonga, Indonesia, Ghana, Tahiti, Uganda and Zimbabwe, as well as their own compositions.
The Amadinda Percussion Group comprises four graduates of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Their mission is two-fold: to introduce percussion music from around the world to audiences in their homeland and to showcase contemporary Hungarian music at home and abroad.
The group also researches traditional percussion cultures, presents new compositions by members of the group and transcribes for percussion instruments well-known works from the classical repertory.
As Zoltan Racz, the group's artistic director and a professor at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, explained, 'The fact that Amadinda was founded by only four members, as opposed to the traditional set-up of six musicians, clearly signalled our intention of creating a new repertoire set in an innovative framework.'
Leading names in contemporary music who have written works for the group include John Cage, Peter Eotvos, Rosemary Hardy, Andras Keller, Zoltan Kocsis, Gyorgy Ligeti and James Wood.
'Apart from the great pieces of composers like John Cage and Gyorgy Ligeti, the compositions of group members Aurel Hollo and Zoltan Vaczi really helped us to create a new voice, a voice that is unique and impossible to mix with that of other similar ensembles,' Racz said.