DANE RICHESON
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As a child in Ohio, Dane Richeson tried to imitate the jazz drummers he heard on his parents’ records; by watching National Geographic specials on TV he became fascinated with non-Western drumming traditions. Today he’s one of the most versatile percussionists in the country, sort of a cross between spirited classical experimenter Evelyn Glennie and self-made ethnomusicologist Mickey Hart. He’s proficient on a wide variety of instruments, conventional and unconventional–to perform a John Cage piece, he once tore up a head of cabbage and plinked the spines of an amplified cactus–but he most often relies on marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, or timpani. And he jumps at the chance to demonstrate what he’s learned on visits to Cuba, Ghana, and Brazil, including a deep appreciation for tropicalia and samba reggae. The program for this HotHouse recital, organized by Richeson’s comrades in the new-music collective CUBE, showcases him primarily as a marimbist: he’ll play it solo in Janice Misurell-Mitchell’s Mamiwata, which borrows rhythmic elements from southern African tribal songs; with oboist Patricia Morehead and electronic keyboardist Philip Morehead in Ruth Lomon’s Desiderata; with soprano saxophonist Marco Albonetti in an arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango; with alto saxist Steven Jordheim in David Maslanka’s Song Book, which takes its melodies from Bach chorales; and with the two saxists and several members of CUBE in Herbert Brün’s Mutatis Mutandis, which asks the musicians to respond to shapes generated by a computer just prior to the performance. Richeson also plans to play bodhran and djembe to accompany readings from the poetry of Mary Oliver and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Sunday, April 8, 3 PM, HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo; 312-554-1133 or 312-362-9707. At 5 PM at the same venue, Richeson will drum in the trio backing jazz vocalist Jackie Allen.
