Music Reviews : Nexus Percussion Quintet at Museum

The latest Monday Evening Concert in Bing Theater at the County Museum of Art hosted the Canadian percussion ensemble Nexus--Bob Becker, William Cahn, Robin Engelman, Russell Hartenberger and John Wyre--in a varied yet tidy program of ragtime, film music, arrangements of African music and contemporary works.

The slick, energetic presentation displayed an eclectic grab bag of virtuosic styles and tastes. Weightiness was avoided, the ensemble opting for light music.

The only exception was Toru Takemitsu’s very serious, enigmatic “Rain Tree”(1981) for two marimbas, vibraphone and crotales. Becker, Hartenberger and Engelman approached the music with the required delicacy, exchanging simple pitch materials back and forth, and ending with a longer, more complex unison melody.

Becker proved an adept master of mallets not only with Takemitsu’s central vibraphone part but also with a set of rapid, showy ragtime etudes for the xylophone by George Hamilton Green, with marimba accompaniment arranged by Cahn and Becker. Becker’s talents were again showcased with a slowly unfolding, engaging mbira solo in a set of arrangements of African folk songs.

Other African arrangements included a somber funeral song and an improvisatory “FraFra,” a rhythmic pattern used in drum music from northern Ghana. Engelman’s work on Lapland flute and Cahn’s on toy panpipe added a less convincing element to the otherwise intoxicating drum rhythms by other Nexus members.

The evening ended with a screening of Mack Sennett’s silent film classic “Teddy at the Throttle” (1916).

Here, Cahn arranged a flashy, nostalgic film score utilizing Nexus’ full forces--performed live--and some otherwise forgetable turn-of-the-century film music.