VOICES
for Twelve Clappers (12 Pairs of Hands)
Written: 1988
Duration: 5'
Instrumentation: twelve hand clappers (12 pairs of hands)
For Hannah-Raiken Schulman and the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts Dance Department
World Premiere: Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts Dance Department Concert, Hannah-Raiken Schulman, director, Downtown, Buffalo, NY, May 20, 1988.
Other Performances: Percussive Arts Society, Soviet Union and Germany, 1990; Percussive Arts Society International Convention concert, Poland, 1991.
Publisher: Music for Percussion, Inc.
Program Note
Voices was written to accompany six dancers performing a powerful work about the lives of teenagers. Two hand clappers (four hands) represent one dancer, and each of the six dancers choreographed their individual dance to their own clapping tracks, which start out together in unison but gradually become more intricate. The whole piece slowly and almost imperceptibly speeds up from beginning to end.
““Voices” is a piece which listens to the heart of today’s youth. ”
“Voices, a composition for 12 clappers by Robert Paterson, premiered during June and July [1990] as a concert piece in the Soviet Union and Germany by the Percussive Arts Society, in exchanges with the Moscow Musical Society.”