North Star (Perc Ens 8 + Piano)

North Star takes inspiration more from the phrase's symbolic meaning than from its astronomical one. For centuries, it has served as a guiding principle, providing stability, direction, and inspiration in life. This can come in many forms, such as an educator, a religious leader, a therapist, or a guru, but it can also simply come from within an individual as they seek to find purpose in the world.

Genre: Percussion Ensemble + Piano | # of Players: 8 + 1
Level: Intermediate | Duration: 6:30

Instrumentation
Conductor's Score (8.5"x11" spiral bound)

Player 1: Bells, Crotales [optional], Vibraphone [shared], Marimba [shared]
Player 2: Vibraphone, Xylophone, Marimba [shared]*
Player 3: Marimba 1 [shared]*
Player 4: Marimba 2 [shared]*
Player 5: Timpani [4-5 drums], Claves, Mark Tree (Wind Chimes)
Player 6: Djembe, China Cymbal, Snare Drum, Hi-Hat
Player 7: Bongos (2), Congas (2), Suspended Cymbal
Player 8: Concert Bass Drum, Tam-Tam, Multi-Bass Drum
Piano: Whirly Tube [preferably pitched in A]

*Only one 4.3-octave (low A) Marimba is required

Program Notes
Commissioned by Adam Kollipara and the Northville High School Percussion Ensemble (Northville, Michigan), North Star takes inspiration more from the phrase's symbolic meaning than from its astronomical one. For centuries, it has served as a guiding principle, providing stability, direction, and inspiration in life. This can come in many forms, such as an educator, religious leader, a therapist, a guru, but it can also simply come from within an individual as they seek to find purpose in the world. To personalize the piece for Northville, I used one of my favorite compositional tools to indeterminately create motivic material to weave our names into the work — a serial alphabet — transforming the word NORTHVILLE into numbers, which were then turned into chromatic pitches. These pitches became the main theme of the piece, and the numbers were also used to create a time signature sequence.

– N.D.