Fourteen St. Cloud State University students will have the opportunity to be part of an improvisational gong orchestra when guest artist Tatasuya Nakatani leads them in concert at 8 p.m. Sept. 27 in the Performing Arts Center Recital Hall.
Participating students
Jordon Goebel, Pierz
AJ Rowe, Belgrade
Jaysa Saumer, Pine City
Michael Fernlund, St. Cloud
Cohl Eichers, Sauk Rapids
Carter Dobmeier, Albany
David Palermo, Ramsey
Abbigail Doeden, Sartell
Paige Jaeger, Plymouth
Elki Johnson, Foley
Tim Thole, Sauk Rapids
Paul Deckard
Ben Wagner, Buffalo
Bridger Fruth, Maple Lake
Matt Wood
Isabelle Miller, Pepin, Wisconsin
Tanya Rupp, St. Cloud
Megan Shipley, Buffalo
Nakatani is a Japanese avant garde percussionist and acoustic sound artist. The Nakatani Gong Orchestra is a mobile community engagement project he has developed and grown over the last decade.
In his third visit to St. Cloud State, Tatasuya will lead 14 music students in the presentation of his Gong Orchestra.
For the Gong Orchestra, Nakatani has organized and conducted local ensembles in performances of his complex, harmonic compositions on 15 bowed gongs in many places. The works are site-specific and have been performed in places as varied as grain silos and viaducts to traditional concert halls.
Admission to the concert is free.
Students are preparing for the concert by watching videos of Tatasuya’s orchestra and by discussing the approaches Tatsuya takes to free improvisation, said Terry Vermillion, music professor.
The Gong Orchestra cannot be rehearsed because Tatasuya brings the instruments with him to each performance.
“We supply the student players, and he teaches us how to extract all of the amazing sounds from the gongs,” Vermillion said. “Then he uses a series of hand gestures to communicate with the players when and what music to play — much like a conductor of an orchestra.”
The students will rehearse with Tatasuya in person the afternoon of the concert in preparation.
“The students will learn about how to play the gongs in a variety of ways that are unconventional, and they will learn how to work as a group in a free improvisation that has no notes or paper to read from,” Vermillion said.
The experience is unique at St. Cloud State but is something that is becoming more common in the professional world of music making, so it is a good experience for students looking to make music their profession, he said.
