Members of the K-State Percussion Studio made history by performing the musical piece, “Amid the Noise,” in its entirety on April 13.
“Amid the Noise” had previously been played in parts, but never completely through all 12 movements. When preformed fully, the piece lasted one hour and twenty minutes continuously.
The Percussion Studio is part of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance in the College of Arts and Sciences. The members who were part of the performance were: Brett Butler, Brett Eichman, Garrett Lloyd, Tim O’Connor, Ethan Wagoner and Nolan Groff. The original composer of the piece, Jason Treuting, preformed as well.
Joe Kulick, senior in music education, also preformed and was instrumental in bringing the piece to its full potential.
“I first found Amid the Noise when I went to a concert by So Percussion in Lawrence where they played four movements. On my way home, a friend, Brett Eichman, and I decided to look into playing it in the Percussion Studio as a side project,” Kulick said. “Upon researching, we found that only five of the twelve pieces were published.”
After that, Kulick contacted the original composer, Treuting, who agreed to send Kulick the rest of the movements.
Kulick and various others worked on perfecting the piece since last spring.
While practicing, they teamed up with various campus organizations including an advanced digital media class who created 12 videos to go with each of the 12 movements of “Amid the Noise” and to be displayed during the performance. Wildcat Watch, a student-run video production group within the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, worked closely with the group to create a 20-minute documentary on “Amid the Noise.”
“The most exciting aspect of this project was seeing the vision of the final performance really come to life and grow to a level that I never imagined,” Kulick said. “Working so closely with the composer throughout the school year as well as closely with the students and faculty involved, it has truly been a unique learning experience not only for me, but everyone involved in the project.”
Working on “Amid the Noise” allowed Kulick and others involved to witness something they had likely never seen while at K-State.
“The pairing with the video, lighting and audio effects adds an incredible amount of depth to the performance truly transferring it from just a musical experience to an audio and visual sensation,” Kulick said. “The free nature of the music as well as the interpretive qualities help really make the performance different from other performances.”
