News

CADRE Participates in NEXUS’ first Silver Creek
Summer School at
The University of Toronto

The five days of August 23rd to 27, was the first Silver Creek summer school at the U of T during which the five Members of Nexus taught classes to 12 percussion students who've enrolled from the USA and Canada.

Robin Engelman – CADRE’s sponsor for the summer school – covered courses in history / performance on the field drum and its music and invited CADRE to participate in an afternoon class and evening performance.

Robin’s class played music from his collection of tunes from the 15th to the 19th centuries. He selected the six tunes for which John S. Pratt wrote beatings: Marching Through Georgia, British Grenadiers, Battle Cry of Freedom, Kingdom Coming and Hell on the Wabash (with Attanasio's bass drum beating).

Also included in Robin’s program were audio CDs of fife and drum corps, playing Robin’s beatings for pre Bruce and Emmett tunes, talking about early technique, the development of rudiments and drums, their uses in the military, plus Robin’s collection of drum methods dating from 1776 to Bruce & Emmet. Robin, in addition, formed a percussion ensemble and played some of John Cage's early music.

Other highlights provided by NEXUS were:

• Garry Kvistad gave lectures on the acoustical properties of resonating bodies and how those impact on percussion instruments and players.
• Bob Becker gave a clinic on xylophone technique and literature with an emphasis on early 20th century Novelty Xylophone Rag Time and also a clinic on cymbals and their techniques
• Bill Cahn gave an improvisation workshop and a clinic on orchestral percussion instruments - triangle, tambourine, snare drum, bass drum etc.
• Russell Hartenberger led a workshop on African drumming and an exploration of its rhythmic significance for western drummers.
  

On Thursday afternoon, August 26th, Paul Mosley and Ed Jacko held a 1 hour seminar – including live performances - on the development of rudimental drumming from the late 19th century through to today.

That evening, the CADRE Rope Drum Quartet provided an hour-long performance - with commentary – on rudimental drumming development over the last 200 years:

• Drums as camp / fort / battle signals
• Drummers’ duties (negotiation, translation, recruiting, etc.)
• Drums as battlefield signals devices
• Intro to older compositions
• Intro to modern compositions
• “Compare & Contrast” - North American & European Influences
• Intro to more modern composition
• More North American & European Influences

… plus the CADRE Rope Quartet’s competition piece: “Songs of Peace & Freedom”.

At the evening performance’s conclusion, CADRE presented Robin Engelman with the master score to “Songs of Peace & Freedom” - as well as an official CADRE Sports Cap.

CADRE thanks Robin Engelman, the Members of NEXUS and the University of Toronto for this opportunity to advance awareness, interest and understanding for rudimental drumming.