Ian David Rosenbaum

Brace yourself, because this is a wild one.

Due to an incredible and still unbelievable series of events, you very well might see a certain strikingly handsome percussionist performing live on America’s Got Talent, should you turn on your TV next Tuesday night.

Yes, this is happening.

Let me fill you in. You might remember the 3Penny Chorus and Orchestra from this video - we did a classical version of the pop hit Call Me Maybe. That video went viral and out of nowhere the Today Show called and asked us to come and perform the arrangement live on their show. Check that out here. And then, just to cap the whole thing off, America’s Got Talent got in touch and asked if we would come and audition. The audition went really well and now we’re set to compete live at Radio City on Tuesday night. We won’t be playing Carly Rae Jepsen this time….I can’t tell you exactly what we’re playing, but trust me – it’s just as wonderful.

So – tune in to NBC on Tuesday night at 9pm EST to watch! And then after you do, we need your votes to move on in the competition. You can vote online or by phone - see that website for details.

I know it’s Easter, but this Sunday night my good friend Andy Akiho & I are returning to the Kennedy Center for an incredible program. With the help of the Mivos Quartet, we’ll present Andy’s works for marimba/steel pan and string quartet – including, of course, one of my favorite pieces in the whole world: LIgNEouS 1. Wooden mallets, rubber bands stretched across marimba bars, what more could you want?

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Tomorrow night, I have the pleasure of joining the Carnegie Hall Academy, Robert Spano and my CMS colleague Juho Pohjonen in a rare performance of Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles. This piece, commissioned by the one and only Alice Tully, was written to celebrate the bicentennial of the American Declaration of Independence. It was inspired by Messiaen’s time at Bryce Canyon in Utah and depicts, among other things, the incredible vastness of the sky, the many colors of the canyons and in true Messiaen fashion, the bird songs he heard.

The citizens of Utah were so overjoyed with the composition that they christened Mt. Messiaen on August 5th, 1978 – also known as Messiaen and the Beauty of Southern Utah Day!

Messiaen is one of the most spectacular composers of the 20th century. He sounds completely unique, and there is so much raw emotion and power in his music. This is one of my favorites, and the group sounds incredible. Please come join us tomorrow night at 6pm! Tickets and more information here.

Last weekend, I did a family concert with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. On the program was a 30-minute instrumental suite composed and narrated by Bruce Adolphe. Bruce is an extremely gifted speaker and performer – he’s hilarious, and for this show he dressed up and acted out semi-improvised interludes to our performance.

Anyhow, before the concert, we had what they called an ‘Instrument Petting Zoo’ – or about 45 minutes of controlled chaos + musical instruments. Basically, they set each of the performers up in roped-off pens with our instruments and then they let the kids in. Hundreds of them.

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Happy new year!

Our Kickstarter campaign to commission Andy Akiho to write his first percussion quartet is in its final week! If you haven’t yet, please check out our campaign!

Lots of new things have been added to the campaign web site since the last time I posted here:

• Video of Andy’s incredible piece for 11 steel drummers, 1 metal drumset  and a whole bunch of junk metal played with kick drum pedals (“pedalmetal”), Alloy, is up on YouTube. We recorded this piece a spur-of-the-moment recording session at a warehouse in LA last May. Check it out!
• New rewards: for percussionists and percussion quartets we added a $240 reward. You’ll get the parts and score for the new piece six months before it’s published along with exclusive performing rights during those six months. Also, for any Japanese backers, we added a $120 reward that includes a lesson with Ayano Kataoka in Japan along with some other goodies.
• You backed – we delivered! In an update a week or so ago, we promised to post a brand new performance video for each $2000 that we raised. We hit $2000 a few days ago, so I posted a video that Andy and I made a few weeks ago. This was another impromptu session – we set up a few iPhones in the lobby of a building at Princeton University and let them roll for a few hours. Read more about and check out our video of Andy’s Karakurenai here.
• Finally, my friend Chris McGovern over at the arts blog The Glass wrote a nice piece about the campaign. Check that out here.

5 days left – please help us make this important contribution to the percussion quartet literature!