Sat 3/5 @ 8PM
A couple of years ago — back before there was even a pandemic — two Akron institutions laid the seeds for an unusual collaboration. The result is a concert called “Earthquaker Symphony” at E.J. Thomas Hall Saturday March 5, performed by the Akron Symphony with music director Christopher Wilkins conducting.
The orchestra is joined by musician/composers Jon Sonnenberg and Jake Gunnar Walsh utilizing effects pedals made by Akron’s EarthQuaker Devices. While these Akron-made pedals have become favorites of top-name rock & pop musicians all over the world, they’ve never been used in this context, fusing acoustic orchestra instruments electronics.
The concert features a six-movement piece called Confluence: Symphony for Orchestra & Effects, written by Sonnenberg and Walsh, that uses a different EarthQuaker device for each section, augmenting soloists and orchestra sections.
It will be surrounded by a program of pieces selected to showcase it: works that also emphasis drama, rhythm and excitement. They include Joseph Haydn’s “Earthquake” from his The Last Seven Words of Christ; Beethoven’s The Creatures of Prometheus overture and his “Turkish March” from The Ruins of Athens; and William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony.
“We’ve sort of had our eye on doing something with EarthQuaker for a long time,” says Wilkins on the Akron Symphony website. “Using electronic effects in orchestras is nothing new. It’s at least a century old, but I think the way in which we’re doing it is unusual, to say the least, in that a number of orchestra players are playing through the effects pedals in addition to our soloists. And we have five or six different effects and five or six different orchestra players participating in addition to the two composers who are also on stage.” He notes that EarthQuaker CEO Julie Robbins is also on the Akron Symphony board.
Composer Jon Sonnenberg also had an EarthQuaker connection, having designed a device for them. He also created an instrumental called the “confluence harp,” which Walsh will play during the performance of their work. Sonnenberg will be manipulating the pedals.
“The EarthQuaker component was always part of this project,” says Walsh. “There was never a time where Jon or I or Chris Wilkins were making any musical decisions that didn’t have EarthQuaker Devices as a pretty high priority. So, for that, I’m really grateful because they made the effects really integral to the piece. We really wanted to avoid something that was just like, ‘Write a piece for orchestra and then throw on a Plumes pedal.’ So Jon and I really worked to make it so that the music served the pedal, and the pedals served the music.”
For an incredibly detailed breakdown of how the piece was created, including the technical background, go to the Akron Symphony blog.
Tickets range from $20-$60. Masks are required at E.J. Thomas Hall.
akronsymphony/earthquaker-symphony/