Extension of a Dream

Album Notes

For our debut album, Fisher/Lau Project is thrilled to present our core contemporary percussion duo repertoire by a diverse group of composers spanning the past five decades. The album showcases innovative development in percussion, and includes standard works and hidden gems.

Philippe Manoury’s Duo de Marimbas from Les Livre des Claviers (1987) is a standard and significant percussion work. The piece showcases the performers musicality and virtuosity through Manoury’s complex musical language. Les Livre des Claviers explores different combination of mallet instruments in various chamber group sizes, including solo, duo, quartet, and sextet.

Award-winning (including Fulbright Scholar and Guggenheim Fellowship) African-American composer Alvin Singleton wrote the percussion duo Extension of a Dream (1977, rev. 1987) to memorialize South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. As he states in various interviews, Singleton expresses an obligation to address social injustice in his work. Through his music, he provides tributes to black individuals who have been killed due to racially motivated acts with works such as Japser Drag (2000), which reflects upon the murder of African American James Byrd Jr. Extension of a Dream is scored for two multi-percussion setups and includes instruments from the African diaspora (bongos, claves, cowbells, congas). The 20 minute work spans sparser, more open moments juxtaposed with complex, intertwining polyrhythms. The inclusion of police whistles and car horns represent the brutality of the South African police.

Swedish composer Fredrick Andersson’s the lonelyness of Santa Claus (1994) explores extreme soft dynamics and a meditative mood. As stated by Andersson in his 2006 PAS program notes, “the lonelyness of Santa Claus is an exploration of sound and silence combined with lush harmonies. The simplicity and modality of the melodic material is reminiscent of Gregorian chant. There is intimacy and space within the piece which brings forward the natural resonance, nuance, and beauty of the marimba. The piece could be considered as a contemplation/meditation for musician, listener, room, and of course, time.”

Yi (憶) Six Short Images for marimba four-hands (1973) by Chinese-Swiss composer Tona-Scherchen Hsiao features two percussionists on one marimba, and includes an array of extended techniques.

Scherchen-Hsiao, born into a musical family in Switzerland, is an European avant-garde composer that infused Chinese elements into her music. The title 'Yi' refers to the Chinese character 'memory.' Each of the movements is inspired from Chinese mythologies, sceneries, and memory of folk music that she heard in China in the 1960s.

Placing two players on one marimba poses choreographic interest and dilemmas.  Scherchen-Hsiaohas wrote very detailed articulations throughout the piece, and because of the nature of the marimba, achieving the desired elements require meticulously planned gestures and choreography between the two players, along with many mallet changes and specific playing spots.

Album Reviews

Russell Hartenberger, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Member of both the percussion group Nexus and Steve Reich & Musicians since 1971.

When I attend concerts or listen to percussion music, I am attentive to the touch of the performers as they play their instruments. Their touch is an extension of their personalities, and my interest in their performance is greatly affected by the sounds they create.  Abby Fisher and Matthew Lau, in their debut album Extension of a Dream, perform on all their instruments with care and thoughtfulness, never overplay, and display a sensitivity to touch that makes for an enjoyable audio and visual experience.

As I watch their performances on YouTube, I am reminded of Dan Hinger’s descriptions of “time and motion” and how movements of the player should be timed so that each motion should be in a time that relates to both the instrument struck and the next attack. By playing with this sense of time, players can achieve a sense of line by internalizing a conscious awareness of hand motions. I don’t know if Abby and Matthew have thought about this concept specifically, but they certainly demonstrate it with their playing.

A satisfying aspect of the Fisher/Lau Project recording is the complementary styles of performance by both players. This is particularly obvious in Yi: Marimba Four Hands by Tona Scherchen Hsiao. Their interplay gives the sense that one person is creating all the sounds. In fact, all the instruments used on the recording are played with a similarity of touch and feel that gives a sense of equanimity. All the works on the album are of an expressive genre that fits well, one after the other. In the introduction to their website, Abby and Matthew state that the F/L Project was formed to promote “the contemporary and avant garde aesthetic with clarity and approachability.” They are off to an excellent start with this album.

Julie Spencer, Internationally known American composer, musician, and visual artist.

Elan is not something you can put into the music. It exists effortlessly and flows through a performance because of an imperceptible lightness that comes from so much depth - the kind of depth that one finds in this offering by Fisher and Lau.There is a certain intonation of spirits that happens sometimes in a moment of a performance or in several pieces of a wonderful concert, and here in the debut Fisher/Lau Project album, Extension of a Dream, throughout the whole magical recording. These two, Fisher and Lau, are like two hands of the same performer, creating not just stunning and seamless textures, landscapes of images that are at once captivating and then dissolve into intriguing questions and experiences that surprise and drift off, for instance in the exquisite interpretation of the Manoury. The lovely simplicity of the vignettes in the Singleton invites free associations that float comfortably in and out, because of the clarity of the performance, not overplayed, just presented, as its own world, the way Fisher and Lau play, with complete certainty of every sound and gesture.  The worlds that are presented in this fabulous set of intimate and understated pieces that are in themselves a fascinating overview of late 20th C. reflective chamber percussion writing.  With an underpinning ethos of enormous attention to audible and inaudible detail, their embodiment, for example of the soul of Andersson's portrait of feelings of isolation we all experience, brought to light through the example of someone who has a different public personna is brilliant and heart wrenching. The album reaches out somehow with something I can't put my finger on, and touches me deeply. I suppose the intonation of these two performers has something to do with the resonance this music creates within my spirit.

Brian Nozny for the April 2023 Percussive Arts Society Percussive Notes online publication:
Featuring a diverse range of composers and percussion duo music that spans the past 50 years, Extension of a Dream is an ambitious recording.

Striving to "showcase innovative development in percussion," the group has selected repertoire that represents standard pieces in the percussion duo catalog as well as works that have not gotten as much attention.

Opening with 'Duo de Marimbas" from the larger work, "Le Livre des Claviers," the connection between the two performers is impressive as they connect gestures seamlessly throughout the work. Their blending of tone blurs lines together, making it hard to hear where one player ends and another begins. Albin Singleton's "Extension of a Dream," written in 1977 and revised in 1987, strives to address the social injustice of South African apartheid. Utilizing two multi-percussion setups, car horns and police whistles (meant to represent South African police brutality) are joined with the more traditional instruments.

The work is just over 20 minutes long and moves between sparse, atmospheric sections and denser polyrhythmic areas.

"The Lonelyness of Santa Claus" by Swedish composer Fredrick Anderson is a classic marimba duo that is spacious and meditative in nature. The performance is well executed, and this recording captures the atmosphere of the piece well, though it is unfortunate that the spaces in the piece are occasionally marred by various clicks and footfalls which take away from the purity of the resonance.

The recording closes with "Yi (1ã) Six Short Images for Marimba Four Hands" by Tona Scher-chen-Hsiao. Written for two players on a single marimba, the piece explores a variety of colors on the marimba through various implements and specific articulations. Each movement is unique in character and offers a great closing work to the re-cording.

The Fisher/Lau Project has created an impressive and high-quality contribution to the percussion duo repertoire with this recording. The sensitivity and detail conveyed in their performances places this recording on a very high level, making it something that would be enjoyed by anyone who takes a listen.