Eos

Percussion music is likely the oldest there is: the impulse to make sound by scraping, scratching, tapping and striking is primal, one of the first things a child does consciously with his or her hands. Yet in spite of its primacy to our human experience, percussion is underrepresented in classical music, with a repertory dating back mostly to the 1950s. With her generous triple album Eos, percussionist Patti Cudd demonstrates her commitment to expanding it while opening new doors for future exploration.

Cudd commissioned 16 new compositions for the album and the works span a breathtaking variety of approaches from composers including Cort Lippe, Paul Elwood, Per Bloland, Jeff Herriott, Barry Moon and others. The album also features works by Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough and Christian Wolff — the only ones here without the use of electronics. All the pieces make use of electro-acoustic and interactive techniques, and many use the software Max/MSP, which was designed to offer tools for composers and performers to develop real-time interactive music. The software can track and analyze sound, refracting it and reimagining it as the performer plays.

“By extending the world of physical percussion with virtual computer objects and processes,” Cudd writes in the liner notes, “I am excited to enter new sonic and mental territories in the company of these many remarkable composers.”

Cudd is active as a percussion soloist, chamber musician and educator. She teaches percussion and new music studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and the College of St. Benedict & St. John’s University. She is also a member of the new music ensemble Zeitgeist. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Contemporary Musical Studies at the University of California studying with Steven Schick, Master of Music Degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo where she worked with Jan Williams, undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and studied in the soloist class with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark.