featuring Jessica Petrasek, flute
Tuesday
November 11, 2025
7 p.m.
Kopleff Recital Hall
Ambient Densities
Jon Gibson | 1940-2020
Ambient Densities was written for the Frog Peak Music “Rock Music” collection.
–Stuart Gerber
Taxidermy
Caroline Shaw | B. 1982
Jake Flack, Julian Mitchell, Karma Allen & Thomas Philpot
Why “Taxidermy”? I just find the word strangely compelling, and it evokes something grand, awkward, epic, silent, funny, and just a bit creepy — all characteristics of this piece, in a way. The repeated phrase toward the end (“the detail of the pattern is movement”) is a little concept I love trying (and failing) to imagine. It comes from T.S. Eliot’s beautiful and perplexing Burnt Norton (from the Four Quartets), and I’ve used it before in other work — as a kind of whimsical existentialist mantra.
–Caroline Shaw
Three Folk Songs from Chiapas
arr. Allen Otte | B. 1950
Andres Lewis, Caleb Franklin, Evelyn Harris & Rella Weeks
These three traditional songs were used as protest songs in the early 1990s during the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. This region, located in the far south of Mexico, shares with its neighbor Guatemala a strong tradition of marimba band music. For this reason, Allen considered it fitting to arrange these songs for marimba ensemble.
–Stuart Gerber
An Idyll for the Misbegotten
(Images III)
George Crumb | 1929-2022
Professor Jessica Petrasek, flute solo
Blaze Benavides, Dylan Mantione & Nasir O’Daniel
I feel that “misbegotten” well describes the fateful and melancholy predicament of the species homo sapiens at the present moment in time. Mankind has become ever more ‘illegitimate’ in the natural world of the plants and animals. The ancient sense of brotherhood with all life-forms (so poignantly expressed in the poetry of St. Francis of Assisi) has gradually and relentlessly eroded, and consequently we find ourselves monarchs of a dying world. We share the fervent hope that humankind will embrace anew nature’s ‘moral imperative.’
My little ‘Idyll’ was inspired by these thoughts. Flute and drum are, to me (perhaps by association with ancient ethnic musics), those instruments which most powerfully evoke the voice of nature. I have suggested that ideally (even if impractically) my ‘Idyll’ should be “heard from afar, over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August.”
An Idyll for the Misbegotten evokes the haunting theme of Claude Debussy’s Syrinx (for solo flute, 1912). There is also a short quotation from the eighth century Chinese poet Ssu-K’ung Shu:
“The moon goes down. There are shivering
Birds and withering grasses”
–George Crumb
Extremes
Jason Treuting | B. 1977
Austin Mellen, Caleb Franklin, Andres Lewis, Talisa Harris
Written in 2009 as part of the larger evening-length work Imaginary City, Extremes draws its rhythmic material directly from six city-names – Brooklyn, Burlington, Denver, Helena, Houston and Cleveland – each consonant rendered as an eighth-note and each vowel as a dotted eighth. With a steady quarter-note pulse as foundation, the percussion ensemble weaves these city-names into canon, ostinato and shifting meters, evoking the energy, architecture and urban bustle of these locales. The instrumentation is flexible, often centered around bass drum, cymbals and pitched pipes or metal surfaces, inviting each performance to reflect its own setting and performers’ interpretation.
–Stuart Gerber
Bookoctet
Alan Sentman | B. 1968
Andres Lewis, Evelyn Harris, Jake Flack, Julian Mitchell, Karma Allen, Rella Weeks, Talisa Harrisl & Zyler Osborn
Bookoctet is a unique piece that is written in the same spirit as de Mey’s “Table Music” and Cage’s “Living Room Music.” Here, eight players are given 50 or more books, some of specific size or construction, to create all the sounds of the work, including ripping, scraping, dropping, shaking, and even being read from. The piece is in three sections. The first is traditionally notated and is the most rhythmically specific. It begins with a unison figure from the entire ensemble. As the piece progresses, select players grab different books and play counter- rhythms that thicken the texture and create a sense of controlled chaos, similar to notated Cage music. These gestures are comprised mostly of triplets, sextuplets, and occasional grace-note figures, all of which are independent of one another. The conductor of the piece is meant to be an ensemble member and thus unable to direct in a traditional fashion, making this the most difficult portion of the work. What follows is a significantly slower section that includes several sound experiments. Each player is instructed to create sounds with the books in unique ways, such as scraping a hard cover with fingernails, shaking an open book, blowing between two pages to make them whistle or buzz, and even destroying a book by “any means necessary.” The final portion requires the performers to read aloud from whatever books are near them, slamming them shut, then repeating the process in quicker succession. The piece ends with only two players reading single syllable words in low voices. “Bookoctet” is a clever and entertaining piece to perform and to watch. It can be used to introduce students to this world of compositions, or for fans of this style to program and celebrate the wide range of capabilities of the percussion ensemble.
—Kyle Cherwinski
Aggression
Yo Goto | B. 1958
Blaze Benavides, Caleb Franklin, Dylan Mantione, Elaijah Stachelrodt, Nick Coppola & Thomas Philpot
Aggression is a bold and visceral dialogue crafted for six snare-drum performers, exploring the dynamic interplay between rigid meter and rhythmic abandon. Goto alternates tightly controlled ostinatos, layered textures and precisely notated unison passages with freely repeated, un-measured outbursts in which the drummers relinquish temporal control and instead respond instinctively. The effect is one of tension and release—an ensemble of equal voices simultaneously bound by discipline and invited to erupt in spontaneous energy. Over a performance span of roughly seven minutes, the piece challenges both performers and listeners to engage with the physicality of sound, to feel the pulse of collective movement, and to savour the moment when structure yields to force. At the heart of the work is the question of how much intensity an ensemble of similar instruments can sustain—and how that intensity transforms when the performers become both time-keepers and agents of chaos.
–Stuart Gerber
Omphalo Centric Lecture
Nigel Westlake | B. 1958
Elaijah Stachelrodt, Nick Coppola, Nasir O’Daniel & Zyler Osborn
The title comes from a painting by Paul Klee - the direct & centered simplicity of which was an Inspiration to me during the writing of this piece. The piece also owes much to the music of the African balofon (or xylophone), with its perslstant ostlnati, cross- rhythms & variations on simple melodic fragments. Like African music It seeks to celebrate life through rhythm , energy & movement. It was written originally for the Sydney–based percussion quartet "Synergy".
–Nigel Westlake
Jessica Petrasek
Jessica Petrasek is Lecturer in Flute at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She has recently appeared with the Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the EPIC Chamber Series, Classical Remix Festival, and on tour with the Kansas City Symphony at the Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouw, and Berliner Philharmonie. Currently the tenured Assistant Principal Flute and Piccolo of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra and Piccolo and Utility Flute of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Georgia, Jessica has previously held the positions of Principal Flute of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Principal Flute of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Principal Flute of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra, Piccolo of the Kansas City Symphony, Piccolo and Second Flute of the Central City Opera Orchestra, and Piccolo and Second Flute of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. Jessica is a founding member of Hera Trio with oboist Lara Dahl and pianist Miya Sun. She and her husband, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Principal Percussionist Joe Petrasek, play together as the Petrasek Duo, and give performances and masterclasses all over the country.
Kellen King
Dr. Kellen King is currently an Artist Affiliate at Georgia State University and Reinhardt University. Prior to his appointment at GSU and RU, he was Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at Western Oregon University. Kellen has been published in Percussive Notes and has presented at OMEAin 2021 and 2022 in addition to performing at PASIC, TMEA, and MMC. He is currently a member of the Percussive Arts Society Music Technology Committee and has previously served as the Oregon PAS Chapter Secretary, winning the PAS Outstanding Chapter Award during his service. Kellen is an avid educator, researcher, and well-versed performer in classical and contemporary percussion, having spent most of career focusing on solo, chamber, and electroacoustic music. As an educator, Kellen has previously instructed at Western Oregon University, Mercer University, The University of Texas at Austin, Ithaca College, and Cornell University.
Kellen has taught and arranged music at an array of music organizations across the United States; teaching elite competitive marching band and collegiate level performance and academic courses, in addition to being a featured guest artist and clinician at institutions across the country. During his education, he has studied with Dr. Thomas Burritt, Gordon Stout, Judy Moonert, Tony Edwards, Conrad Alexander, and Greg Evans.
Kellen earned his degrees from Western Michigan University (B.M. Music Education and Music Performance), Ithaca College (M.M. Percussion Performance), and The University of Texas at Austin (D.M.A. Percussion Performance).
Kellen is an artist and clinician for Innovative Percussion, Black Swamp Percussion, Zildjian Cymbals, and Remo Inc.
Stuart Gerber
Lauded as having “consummate virtuosity” by The New York Times, percussionist Stuart Gerber has worked with many important composers including George Lewis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kaija Saariaho, and Steve Reich, and has recorded for Innova and Mode records, among others. Recent appearances include: KLEX Fest (Kuala Lumpur), the Montreal New Music Festival, Electronic Music Malta, the Cervantino Festival (Guanajuato, Mexico), the Now Festival (Tallinn, Estonia), he Spoleto Festival (Charleston), and the Savannah Music Festival. Stuart is Professor of Percussion at Georgia State University and is the Co-Artistic Director of the contemporary ensemble Bent Frequency in Atlanta.
Stuart studied at the Oberlin College Conservatory, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the Hochshule für Musik in Hannover, Germany. He is a Professor of Music at Georgia State University and co-artistic director of the Atlanta-based contemporary music ensemble Bent Frequency.