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Students, Faculty + Alumni

Yale Percussion Group featured on recording of James Wood's "Cloud-Polyphonies"

The renowned Yale Percussion Group, directed by Robert van Sice, is featured on the upcoming album Cloud-Polyphonies from British composer James Wood. NMC Recordings will release the album on February 19, 2016.

In addition to the YPG's recording of the percussion sextet Cloud-Polyphonies, the record also includes Wood's Tongues of Fire for symphonic chorus and percussion quartet, written for the 140th anniversary of the Yale Glee Club. The composer writes of the work:

Percussion sextet Cloud-Polyphonies explores the movements of large formations of organisms – whether animals, insects, birds, fish, water, steam or crowds of human beings. The first movement Starlings, is written for six marimbas and woodblocks, the second, Clouds, for metal instruments and prepared piano, and the third, Buffalo, for drums, simantras and bullroarers."

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About the Yale Percussion Group
Founded in 1997 by Robert van Sice, the Yale Percussion Group has been called “something truly extraordinary” by composer Steve Reich. It is composed of talented and dedicated young artists who have come from around the world for graduate study at the Yale School of Music. In recent seasons, the YPG has performed in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Galapagos Art Space, and the Kennedy Center. The YPG traveled to Ghana in 2014 as part of a music and service trip with the Yale Concert Band. The ensemble won the Percussive Arts Society competition in 2009 and 2014. A concert in 2012 called “75/100″ celebrated the birthdays of Steve Reich and John Cage. The Zankel Hall concert was part of the Yale in New York concert series. Members of the YPG have gone on to form groups such as the acclaimed quartet So Percussion and the new ensemble Sandbox. YPG alumni have also performed with ensembles such as Third Coast Percussion, Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two, the Carnegie Hall Academy Ensemble, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.