“In a society where upcycling is all the rage and environmentalism is on the forefront of everyone’s mind, it’s not hard to believe that even the symphony is going green,” writes Carrie Beth Wallace in Sunday’s (1/14) Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, GA). “This week, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra is performing … an entire concerto composed for instruments made out of garbage. ‘The Garbage Concerto: A Concerto for Recycled Garbage and Orchestra’ composed [in 1995] by Jan Jarvlepp [will feature] an ensemble of percussionists playing instruments made of upcycled materials. George Del Gobbo, CSO’s beloved maestro, called the concerto ‘a masterpiece of whimsical repurposing and ingenuity.’ The concerto … calls for recycled cans, hubcaps and bottles of all shapes and sizes…. The Garbage Concerto will feature Columbus State University’s Professor of Percussion, Paul Vaillancourt, [and] Up/Down Percussion, a quartet.” Said Vaillancourt, “It is not very easy to find the correct sized bottles and keep them tuned accurately. We continually have to adjust water levels due to evaporation and spillage…. Not being wind or brass players, we haven’t had the opportunity to develop the kind of lung capacity and breath control necessary to play the bottles.” The orchestra will perform Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 on the same program.
Posted January 17, 2018
Pictured: Members of UpDown Percussion will perform Jan Jarvlepp’s “Garbage Concerto: A Concerto for Recycled Garbage and Orchestra” this week with Georgia’s Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
