Jacob Gutierrez - Six Japanese Gardens by Kaija Saariaho

Recorded May 2019 at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

Video/Audio by 2x1 Media: https://www.2x1media.com/

0:00 i. tenju-an garden of nanzen-ji temple
3:12 ii. many pleasures (garden of the kinkaku-ji)
4:38 iii. dry mountain stream
7:54 iv. rock garden of ryoan-ji
11:33 v. moss garden of the saiho-ji
14:36 vi. stone bridges

CONNECT WITH JACOB:
Facebook:   / jacobgpercus.  .
Instagram:   / j_jgutie  
Website: https://www.jacobgpercussion.com

PROGRAM NOTES:
Six Japanese Gardens is a collection of impressions of the gardens I saw in Kyoto during my stay in Japan in the summer of 1993 and my reflection on rhythm at that time. As the title indicates, the piece is divided into six parts. All these parts give specific look at a rhythmic material, starting from the simplistic first part, in which the main instrumentation is introduced, going to complex polyrhythmic or ostinato figures, or alternation of rhythmic and purely coloristic material.

The selection of instruments played by the percussionist is voluntarily reduced to give space for the perception of rhythmic evolutions. Also, the reduced colours are extended with the addition of an electronics part, in which we hear nature's sounds, ritual singing, and percussion instruments recorded in the Kuntachi College of Music with Shinti Ueno. The ready-mixed sections are triggered by the percussionist during the piece, from a Macintosh computer.

All the work for processing and mixing the pre-recorded material was done with a Macintosh computer in my home studio. Some transformations are made with the resonant filters in the CHANT program, and with the SVP Phaser Vocoder. This work was made with Jean-Baptiste Barrière. The final mixing was made with the Protools program with the assistance of Hanspeter Stubbe Teglbjaerg.

The piece is commissioned by the Kunitachi College of Music and written for Shinti Ueno.

Kaija Saariaho

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ABOUT JACOB:

Percussionist and teaching artist Jacob Gutierrez is crafting a career model around being a true 21st-century musician. With experience ranging from his touring percussion trio to performances at the Kennedy Center, Gutierrez is charting a career path of entrepreneurialism in tandem with award-winning musicianship.

Gutierrez is most known for his work in cultivating the percussion repertoire, creating evocative concert experiences that both entertain and educate. To this end, he and his two brothers co-founded 3G Percussion, a nationally recognized percussion trio. Having toured in Texas and across Canada with Ensemble Atlantica, 3G has been featured on Houston Public Media Radio Station, the San Antonio Current, and “Live & Local” on KRTU 91.7FM. Furthermore, 3G proudly collaborated with multiple organizations to create large-scale interdisciplinary works, including the Transitory Sound and Movement Collective. With TSMC, Gutierrez spearheaded an hour-long performance of dance, film, and music with creatives from Dallas and New York City. 3G was also the anointed Guest Ensemble at the 2018 Space City New Music Festival, where they gave the world premiere of Marcus Maroney’s work “Escape,” in addition to sixteen other works by composers from around the United States, Mexico, and Germany.

A proud proponent of new music, Gutierrez is a member of several commissioning consortiums to generate new music from composers such as Alejandro Vinao, Emmanuel Sejourne, Juri Seo, and Rajna Swaminathan. He has performed some of the era’s most celebrated–and challenging–work for percussion, including Kaija Saariaho’s “Six Japanese Gardens”, Joseph Schwantner’s “Velocities”, Alejandro Vinao’s “Book of Grooves”, and Peter Klatzow’s “Dances of Earth and Fire”.

Gutierrez has performed with recognized artists and ensembles including the Yale Percussion Group, Sō Percussion, Caroline Shaw, Magda Giannikou, Yale Jazz Combo, MUSIQA, The Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps, and has appeared at Canada’s Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy, Western University, Lone Star College Contemporary Music Festival, Rothko Chapel, the Space City New Music Festival, the So Percussion Summer Institute, and the Cloyd Duff Timpani Masterclass. Furthermore, as a member of The Cadets, he was named as part of the country’s top drum corps percussion section in 2013, receiving the Fred Sanford High Percussion Award. As an orchestral musician, Gutierrez has performed under the baton of renowned conductors such as Marin Alsop, Joseph Young, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Peter Oundjian, Raymond Harvey, Arthur Arnold, and Laurent Pillot.

Gutierrez holds degrees from Yale University, the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Houston, and is a licensed K-12 music educator in Texas.