Pulsating Skin (2021) for 4 snare drums and electronics
Technical rider (in French).
A video following Pulsating Skin’s instructions is on the Score Follower’s incipitsify Youtube page. Watch Mathias Lachenmayr and Justina Repeckaite perform Pulsating skin (2021) for 4 snare drums & electronics in a new version for solo percussion player and a quartet of snare drums of different sizes at Villa Waldberta on the 17th of June, 2022. Mathias Lachenmayr uses a bass snare drum that he built himself. Electronics harmony was adapted to the seize of each snare drum. Pulsating skin premiered in Darmstadt Summer Course 2021 by 5 performers, it was since been performed in 4 different countries.
Program note of Pulsating skin 13″-17″
4 snare drums have transducers – small loud-speakers that transmit sound towards the interior of the instrument, attached to their skin. Sound is being sent to drums that act like resonating bodies manipulated by human touch. These harmonies are inspired by the physical models, the resonance of a circular membrane tuned to a snare drum frequency. Performers illuminate the sounds they are hearing (and feeling!) with no score to follow. The pulses that guide musicians are created from a superposition of slightly different frequencies as the sound alternately interfere constructively and destructively thus creating pulsation (beats). Snare drums radiate mechanical pulses characteristic to the city combined with allusions to the nature still present in urban surroundings.
Premiere of Pulsating skin. Photo David Helbich.
Pulsating skin was performed in 4 different countries:
2024.05.18
La nuit des musées au Musée de l’homme.
2023.10.02
EKLEKTO FLASH SHANGHAI - International Percussion Competition Shanghai, 2023.
2022.07.04
Mikolaj Rytowski’s, Alejandro Sarriegui, Yi-Chen Tsai & Maria Luisa Pizzighella in Swiss Percussion Days 2022 at Hochschule für Musik in Basel, Switzerland.
2022.06.17
Justina Repeckaite and Mathias Lachenmayr, - a new version for a solo percussion player and a quartet of snare drums of different sizes at Villa Waldberta, Germany.
2022.05.03
Mikolaj Rytowski’s BA recital outside inside Hochschule für Musik in Basel, Switzerland.
2021.08.10
Creation by Justina Repeckaite (electronics) and percussion players: Pablo Mena Escudero, Federico Tramontana, Romane Bouffioux, Corentin Barro at Darmstadt Summer Course 2021, Germany.
Review
In an article Darmstädter Ferienkurse 2021 from the journal TEMPO (Cambridge University Press) musicologist Max Erwin writes:
Tempo , Volume 76 , Issue 299 , January 2022
“Right next door in front of the steps leading up to the Ludwigskirche, Justina Repečkaitė’s Pulsating skin began as four snare drum membranes began to vibrate from the effect of transducers placed on their underside, just as the title promised. The four percussionists here – Corentin Barro, Romane Bouffioux, Pablo Mena, and Federico Tramontana – acted not so much as traditional action-oriented drummers but more like the gardeners or doting chaperones of the sounds their instruments produced as they evolved, a task they accomplished with both surgical focus and elegant sensitivity. This piece really just worked – it adapted to the outdoor space and transformed it, creating a new environment while somehow not backsliding into sound installation territory. To underline this point, as I write this, I can’t really remember a single specific aural event from Pulsating skin (and, since this was one of the few concerts not recorded and broadcast online, I can’t refresh my memory), but the overall impression and sensation of it – inviting, constantly changing, gritty and lustrous – are fresh in my mind. It was generally agreed that, had a Kranichstein prize been awarded this year, Repečkaitė would have been a strong frontrunner.”
Eklekto (artistic co-director & organiser Yi-Ping Yang, co-director Dorian Fretto, Louis Delignon, Nikolay Ivanov) playing Pulsating Skin (2021) in Shanghai.
Mikolaj Rytowski together with Alejandro Sarriegui, Yi-Chen Tsai & Maria Luisa Pizzighella performed Pulsating Skin in Swiss Percussion Days 2022 at Hochschule für Musik in Basel, Switzerland.
Mikolaj Rytowski’s chose to perform the piece for his BA recital outside inside on the 13th of May 2022.
Pictures Santiago Villar Martin.
In Darmstadt Pulsating skin for 4 snare drums and electronics was performed by Pablo Mena Escudero, Federico Tramontana, Romane Bouffioux, Corentin Barro and Justina Repeckaite herself by the Saint Ludwig church in Darmstadt. It was part of the workshop Music in the City led by Christian Dierstein, Francoise Rivalland, David Helbich & Cathy Milliken.
Justina’s participation at the festival Darmstadt Summer Course 2021 was supported by i-Portunus creative mobility program. Duo Dubois also performed Repeckaite’s composition Ciclo Continuo (2021) for soprano saxophone and percussion in the Open Space of Darmstadt Summer Course , available online.
