Beat a path to glór door for feast of bangers and crash

AN IMMERSIVE and powerful experience of drumming and percussion is on offer to young people at Glor on next month.

Percussion virtuosos, Bangers and Crash, will bring their global palette of rhythmic influences, from Afro-Cuban and Japanese taiko to Spanish flamenco and Javanese gamelan to Ennis on Sunday, October 16.

Bangers and Crash include some of Ireland’s finest percussionists, featuring Alex Petcu-Colan, Emma King, Catríona Frost, Brian Dungan, Patrick Lynch and John Rousseau-Parlane.

This is the first event to be announced as part of PIMA Fest! ’22. It will see the six members of Bangers and Crash Percussion Sextet collaborate on a unique immersive concert that invites the public t participate.
“We are inviting audiences to enhance the musical experience, to join us at various high points and transitions, adding drama, dynamics, colour and atmosphere to the music,” audience to participate in their music, adding an atmospheric ‘surround sound’ to the concert. said Alex Petcu-Colan. “This is purely optional though. The concert can equally be experienced in a traditional way: just sit back and absorb the textural surround sound.”

Bangers and Crash will bring a spectacular array of percussion instrumentation to the event, including marimbas, vibraphone, tubular bells, wind chimes, crotales, tambourines and all manner of drums including bass drum, tom-toms and congas. What makes Bangers and Crash so extraordinary, however, is their fascinating array of ad hoc percussive materials including scrap metal, marbles and smashed plates. Exploring the sonic potential of various shapes and substances is a trade mark of the troupe. It’s no wonder, given that founding member Petcu-Colan has a background in physics.

“From the resonant chime of bells to the hissy rattle of shakers to the meditative hum of gongs, percussion instruments bring to our ears a vast region of sonic space,” said Liam Cagney RTE Culture. “In this way, a percussion ensemble can at times be like a miniature orchestra in itself.”

While Michael Lee of Goldenplec described Bangers and Crash as having “witty, melodic ideas, with shifting patterns and cross-rhythms”. 

The event at Glor promises to create a fantasia of percussion sonorities. The performance will involve intricate patterns created by exceptional rhythmic precision and interplay will be enhanced by audience participation. The concert repertoire will journey through the textures and colours of contemporary percussion from Petcu-Colan’s own composition ‘Sextet No 1’ to works from composers including Philip Glass, Matthias Schmitt, Elliot Cole and others.

Audiences who interested in participating in the interactive elements are welcome to attend a short and easy practice with Bangers and Crash in the main theatre at Glor at 4.30pm on the day of the concert. No skills is required. Places can be booked online through Glor.ie, or by calling 065-6843103. The concert is suitable for all ages.

PIMA! Fest is kindly supported by The Arts Council and Music Generation Clare.