Although this year's Taipei International Percussion Summer Camp (TIPSC, 台北國際打擊樂夏令研習營) will be coming to a close tomorrow, the camps' hugely popular concert, which sees the internationally renowned percussionists invited to lecture at the event performing together on one stage, will take place this coming Monday at Taipei's National Concert Hall.
Organized by the Ju Percussion Group Foundation, the TIPSC has been attracting large numbers of youngsters eager to learn and understand percussion since its founding in 1999. According to a spokesperson for Ju Percussion, this year's camp is the largest to date with 250 students aged between 12 and 20 taking part in the nine-day tutorial.
Helping the scores of young Taiwanese would-be Cozy Powells who enroll in the camp over the years have been some the world's greatest percussionists, all of whom have come to Taiwan in order to teach and help increase the popularity of percussive arts throughout the country.
Past masters who have led classes include Emil Richards, a vibraphonist who performed with the likes of Charles Mingus and Frank Zappa, Michael Burritt, associate professor and director of percussion studies at Northwestern University and Japanese world music celebrity, Tomoyuki Okada.
This year saw organizers focusing on the areas of ensemble music, marimba, drum set, Latin drum and Japanese Taiko. And in keeping with previous years, organizers invited a selection of some of the world's leading percussionists to lecturer at the camp.
This year's classes were led by composer and marimba specialist, Gordon Stout, internationally recognized session drummer and educator Steve Houghton, pre-eminent authority on Latin and Brazilian rhythm percussion, Chalo Eduardo and Keiko Nakamura, a timpani player who has held master classes in both her native Japan and Europe. The four stars will be joined on stage on Monday by members of both the Ju Percussion Group and its junior ensemble.
Houghton and the popular Ju Group will be performing a set of offbeat and unpredictable percussion numbers, while Eduardo and Nakamura will be performing sets that include marimba and classical tunes accompanied by the group's junior ensemble. Top honors this year go to Stout, however, who will be performing the evening's only solo routine, which will see the walls of the National Concert Hall reverberating to the artists' highly charged brand of vibraphone and marimba.
The 2002 Taipei International Percussion Summer Camp Concert (2002台北國際打擊樂夏令研習營示範音樂會) will take place at Taipei's National Concert Hall (國家音樂廳) on Monday, Aug. 5 at 7:30pm. Tickets for the event cost between NT$300 and NT$1,000 and are available from Acer ticketing outlets nationwide or direct from the venue. -- Gavin Phipps
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