A Night of Percussion featuring Gregory Beyer
The Department of Music presents A Night of Percussion featuring Gregory Beyer with the UVA Percussion Ensemble, directed by I-Jen Fang on Saturday, April 16 at 8 pm in Old Cabell Hall.
The University of Virginia Percussion Ensemble is excited to work with guest artist and composer, Gregory Beyer, in the realization of Beyer’s quintet composition, “fios e linhas,” commissioned by and dedicated to I-Jen Fang and the UVA Percussion Ensemble. The work places the Afro-Brazilian berimbau in the center of a mallet keyboard quartet and pays homage to both the music of Luciano Berio and Pat Metheny. The ensemble will also perform Andrea Venet’s Kibo, featuring Beyer on snare drum. Not least, Beyer and Fang will team up to give the American premiere of dois gestos, a duo for vibraphone and marimba by Brazilian pianist and composer André Mehmari. During Beyer’s residency, percussion students will also be introduced to the art and traditions of musical bows from Brazil and Africa. Beyer is Artistic Director of Arcomusical, a non-profit organization with a mission to spread the joy of musical bows; and is the Director of Percussion Studies at Northern Illinois University.
Fulbright Scholar, composer, educator, and percussionist Gregory Beyer is a contemporary music specialist who blends the disciplines of orchestral, jazz, and world music into a singular artistic voice.
He is Artistic Director of Arcomusical, an organization dedicated to the Afro Brazilian berimbau. Arcomusical has released two albums, MeiaMeia, (2016, Innova Recordings) and Spinning in the Wheel (2019, National Sawdust Tracks). Representing Arcomusical, Beyer has appeared on WNYC, WBEZ, and NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Arcomusical received a 2016 Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant to create the twenty-minute, four-movement “Roda” with composer Elliot Cole, which the ensemble has performed dozens of times. In 2019 Arcomusical premiered “Roda Grande,” an orchestral concerto version of the same work, with the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra. Arcomusical Brasil, a sister ensemble based in Belo Horizonte, released its debut album, Semente, in 2021.
Professor Beyer is the Director of Percussion Studies at Northern Illinois University, and is a member of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition’s Grossman Ensemble and Chicago’s premiere new music group, Ensemble Dal Niente.
The UVA Percussion Ensemble is directed by I-Jen Fang, the Principal Timpanist and Percussionist with the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia. Re-established in spring 2005, the Percussion Ensemble is a chamber group that performs literature from classical transcriptions to contemporary music. The ensemble draws upon a large family of pitched and non-pitched percussion instruments. The number of players and the amount of equipment varies greatly from piece to piece.
For those who can not make it to Old Cabell Hall you can watch live via YouTube.
All programs are subject to change. 
For more information please call the Department of Music at 434.924.3052 or write music@virginia.edu with any questions.
Tickets are available through the UVA Arts Box Office or at the door one hour prior to the concert. UVA students need to reserve their tickets 24 hours in advance at the UVA Arts Box Office student ticket portal.