Michael Compitello

Percussionist

Writing great sounding and idiomatic keyboard parts

Interested in writing for mallet percussion instruments but not sure where to start? Want to help your percussion writing become both playable and powerful? This workshop will offer an introduction to the most typically used keyboard percussion instruments as well as idiomatic practices that will help your ideas be most effectively performed. In addition to introducing keyboard percussion instruments, Compitello will discuss working with performers on revisions and common sonic and idiomatic misconceptions. Because of the nature of this topic, extensive time will be left for workshopping participants’ works, which they will bring at the time of the class.

Masterclass Details

Host: Michael Compitello
Class Date
November 7, 2022 from 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern Time

Registration Fees
Registration Fee = $35 per person

Number of Participants
20 composers

Sign Up To Be A Part Of This Masterclass
Sign up for this Session: November 7, 2022 | 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST

What The Workshop Will Include: 

  • Introduction to commonly used keyboard percussion instruments: range, sonic characteristics, sonic and technical fundamentals

  • Mallet Selection

  • Orchestrating idiomatic and expressive passages: how to make your part sight-readable; changing piano parts to percussion parts

  • Effective and consistent extended techniques

  • What to avoid/pet peeves

  • Collaborating with performers on revisions

Questions Addressed During Workshop:

  • “How can I make my part easy to play at sight without compromising my artistic vision?”

  • “What instrument could do this?”

  • “How do I notate what I want?”

  • “What mallets should I call for?”

Signing Up For The Workshop

More About Michael Compitello

Michael Compitello is a dynamic, “fast rising” (WQXR) percussionist dedicated to expanding the limits of percussion’s possibilities through long-term collaboration with composers. Through his solo projects and his cello/percussion duo New Morse Code, Compitello has developed an expertise around helping composers turn innovative musical ideas into unique, expressive, and path-breaking new works for percussion. 

His debut solo album Unsnared Drum—released 2021 on New Focus Recordings—seeks to reinvent the snare drum through long-term collaboration with composers Nina C. Young, Hannah Lash, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Tonia Ko, and has been called "soulful and adventurous" (Take Effect) with his performances praised for their “brilliant technique” (An Earful) and “phenomenal musicality” (The Whole Note).

With cellist Hannah Collins as the “remarkably inventive and resourceful” (Gramophone) New Morse Code, Michael has created a singular and personal repertoire through long-term collaboration with some of America’s most esteemed young composers

Michael is also a member of Percussion Collective, an ensemble dedicated to refined performances of contemporary percussion repertoire, with whom he performed as soloist with the Colorado Symphony, and on concert series across the country. Michael is Associate Professor of Percussion at Arizona State University.  He holds degrees from The Yale School of Music and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. For more information visit michaelcompitello.com

Sign Up To Be A Part Of This Masterclass
Sign up for this Session: November  7, 2022| 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST

Blue Skin of the Sea is also the title of a book by Graham Salisbury, which is a series of coming-of-age stories set in Hawaii. In Salibury's writing, the Pacific Ocean is embodied, almost to the point of being another character. Just like the skin on our bodies, the sea is flexible, wrinkles with time, and is protective of what it surrounds. I am reminded of this idea every time I return home to Honolulu and see the expansive deep blue waters from the plane window.

“limestone & felt” presents two kinds of surfaces – essentially hard and soft. These are materials that can suggest place (a cathedral apse, or the inside of a wool hat), stature, function, and – for me – sound (reverberant or muted). In limestone & felt, the hocketing pizzicato and pealing motivic canons are part of a whimsical, mystical, generous world of sounds echoing and colliding in the imagined eaves of a gothic chapel. These are contrasted with the delicate, meticulous, and almost reverent placing of chords that, to our ears today, sound ancient and precious, like an antique jewel box. Ultimately, felt and limestone may represent two opposing ways we experience history and design our own present.”

-Caroline Shaw