Word: orchestras
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...this tuning was done by carefully twisting the screws holding down the drumhead but most timpanis today are constructed to be tuned with a pedal. This is quicker and allows one to tune two timpanis at once. This has dramatically expanded the role of the timpani in the modern orchestra and indeed as a solo instrument...
...Kris Gauksheim '01 and Adam Beaver '00 play the timpani in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. I spoke with both of them before a rehearsal earlier this week. They started studying the timpani in grade school. Neither of them said exactly why they were first drawn to the instrument, but they both agree that there is a sort of adrenaline rush associated with the timpani's wildly expansive dynamic range. Beaver points out that he gets to play everything from the gentle, dying heartbeat in a requiem to great, rolling sforzandos where he "comes in like the hand...
...even with the innovation of the foot pedal, playing the timpani remains a delicate and complex job. Each timpani is different, and in addition, each spot on the taut drumhead has a slightly different tuning, tension and response. And the tuning is still an uncertain science, performed with the orchestra in full swing around the timpanists. They have to find the perfect pitch despite the tooting and sawing of their neighbors and without losing track of the conductor. If you see them stooping over the drumhead during the concert as though they were whispering into a gargantuan ear, that...
...asked them to consider the broader context of the music, "both in terms of the piece and in terms of the composer and the context of the time," said James Wannatos, conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra...
...American Repertory Theater, CityStep and the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra all donated prizes for participants who raised the most money and finished the walk first...