Marcos Balter - Descarga (2006)
My fascination with percussion is directly related to my Brazilian heritage. I remember being mesmerized as a young child watching the enormous percussion ensembles (sometimes over one hundred percussionists) that perform during the official carnival parade in my hometown, Rio de Janeiro. I will never forget the feeling of having my whole body shaking as an involuntary resonator to such potent sounds. The experience was both physical and metaphysical.

When Sam Solomon asked me to write a new work for him, I knew immediately that I wanted to recreate that same transcendental feeling I once experienced. The challenge was to find ways of translating it into a solo piece. It was not until I watched a video with the late Tito Puente that I realized the intensity I wanted to capture had little to do with number of performers or sonic simultaneity. What I was searching for was a proximity to that dangerous zone that blends controlled and uncontrolled virtuosity, rationalized and spontaneous reactions to extremes, unpolished and refined responses to physical challenges. Only by immersing the performer in such frantic, incongruent, almost hypnotic and yet agitated mind state could I hope to convey these feeling to the audience. "Descarga" is my attempt to create such a sonic world, celebrate Sam's artistry, and revisit my roots.

-Marcos Balter



Composer Marcos Balter was born in 1974 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Regarded by critics as "colorful, inventive (.) with vibrant sonics" (New Music Connoisseur, May 2005), his works have been performed and broadcasted in North and South America, Europe, and Asia in venues such as the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Teatro Col—n, Sala Villa-Lobos, Seiji Osawa Hall, E-Werke Freiburg, Paul Hall, DePaul Concert Hall, Pick Steiger Concert Hall, Slee Hall, and Pepsico Theater. Past awards and honors include the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship at the 2005 Tanglewood Music Center, a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from Lawrence University (2005-2007), performances at the MusicX, June in Buffalo, Panorama da Mœsica Contempor‰nea, and Bounding Board festivals, first prizes at the 2004 Douglas T. Faricy Composition Competition, the 2002 Jonathan Durington Composition Competition, the 1997 Nordan Young Artists Competition, and the 1993 Villa-Lobos Award, and being a regional winner and national finalist at the 2005 ASCAP/SCI Composition Competition.

Mr. Balter is currently finishing his doctoral studies in music composition at Northwestern University, where his main teachers were Augusta Read Thomas, Amy Williams, and Jay Alan Yim. He has also taken lessons in festivals and master classes in Europe and North America with John Adams, Louis Andriessen, George Benjamin, Pierre Boulez, Martin Bresnick, Bright Cheng, Michael Gandolfi, Betsy Jolas, Oliver Knussen, Christian Lauba, Steve Mackey, Tristan Murrail, Bernard Rands, Wolfgang Rihm, Frederic Rzewski, Kaija Saariaho, and Chen Yi, among others. He is currently a composition lecturer and the director of the improvisation and new music ensemble at Lawrence University, and a music theory lecturer at Northwestern University.