An unexpected highlight of this program was the U.S. debut of a new percussion instrument, the aluphone, a series of aluminum bells of varying sizes and pitches on a stand six to eight feet in length.   […] Anders Koppel‘s […] Concerto for Aluphone [is] a three movement work which also included a marimba, presumably added for more tonal variety.  Both were played by the venerable Dame Evelyn Glennie, British percussionist extraordinaire.

Cast in three movements, the aluphone dominates in the first, its timbres difficult enough to define that you have to hear it to believe it.   It shimmers a bit like a vibraphone but has no equivalent electric power source to produce the latter’s tremolo effect.   Wielding two mallets in each hand, Dame Glennie struck widely varying intervals at sometimes breakneck speed, creating a ringing tapestry of a modern idiom, acquainting us with this new sound color.

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Mario Venzago
Hilbert Circle Theater, Indianapolis
20 & 21 November 2014