Percussionists Matthew Coley, Ronni Kot Wenzell Will Drum Up Interest in Contemporary Art

Percussionists Matthew Coley and Ronni Kot Wenzell will be drumming up interest in contemporary art at 2 p.m. Saturday with a performance at the Contemporary Art Museumin St. Louis.

It will be an appealing blend of cutting edge music and art, with Coley and Wenzell accompanying the work of artist David Noonan. Coley, a lecturer in percussion at Iowa State University, said these art forms work well together.

"The music we’re doing is relevant to a lot of current times and current affairs that are happening," he said. "One of our composers is from Poland, one from Denmark, one from China, and then David Noonan is Australian and lived in London. So it all kind of fits naturally that way."

Coley, who has been playing percussion instruments for 22 years, will also riff off of Noonan’s work.

"I will perform an improvisation," he said. "I’m going to use three of his works of art to structure and inspire a three-part piece during this concert. I do a lot of work with glass percussion instruments, and when I looked at his artwork, something really struck me about the combination of his artwork and the sound of glass. So I’ll be doing this piece on glass percussion."

Coley and Wenzell use a multi-percussion setup, with a traditional drum set flanked by two tall conga drums, plus cymbals, wooden blocks, a cowbell, a ribbon crasher (a series of metal strips mounted on top of each other to produce a loud, distinctive sound), two five-octave marimbas and a vibraphone. The glass percussion reflects Coley’s interest in non-traditional instruments.

"The glass instruments I use are an (assortment) of instruments I’ve collected—found instruments, bottles that I’ve tuned. I play on a glass xylophone, glass gongs that I’ve had made," he said.

Coley has also gotten by with a little help from his friends in the ISU Gaffers Guild, which is a glass blowing organization at Iowa State.

"They’ve made instruments for me as well—some more abstract-shaped instruments—bowls and bell-type instruments, they’ve made for me," he said.

Playing glass instruments can be a bit like living in a glass house—extreme care must be exercised to make sure listeners hear more than the sound a stone makes when thrown through a window.

"I use different types of mallets, different sticks," he said. "Of course, always experimenting so I don’t have the opportunity to break anything in a performance. We have this feeling that glass is very fragile, and it is, but I’ve found that striking in certain places on these instruments—and in certain ways—will ensure that you don’t break them. And just becoming more familiar with them through rehearsal and time, I feel pretty (confident). I haven’t broken anything in a performance yet."

Coley and Wenzell, who is from Denmark, were originally brought together in August by a promoter who wanted them to premiere four new compositions in Denmark and Sweden. As far as collaborations go, they jumped right in.

"We met for the first time two days before we went on tour in Denmark," Coley said. "I flew into Denmark, we met each other, then we rehearsed for two days and we took off on tour."

Going from strangers who have never performed together to a tour two days later wasn’t easy.

"That was a big challenge because I didn’t know him personally or as a musician," Coley said. "So we tried to follow our instincts, and we kept it really relaxed, and we found that we really had a lot of fun together. So that helped things move along quickly and smoothly. We both have a passion for performing and collaborating and making new art. I think it really just came together in a way that made it all successful in a short time."

They were able to establish common ground quickly.

"We come from a lot of similar ideas, and we have similar feelings about contemporary music," he said. "I think Johan (Svitzer, the promoter) saw that in the beginning, and he thought this could be a very good thing, and it worked out."

This will be a wide-ranging performance, and something listeners don’t get many opportunities to experience.

"Percussion has kind of taken on its own sort of genre in a way, because it incorporates so many world influences," Coley said. "For example, the piece we’re playing on the multi-percussion setup is called ‘Five By Five,’ and it’s all structured mathematically around the number five. So there are 125 measures, 25 phrases, five sections, and every measure has five beats, and all the beats are divided by five. That’s also very popular and typical of percussion music as kind of the mathematical, architectural inspiration as well."

Coley has released one CD, Circularity, and hopes to have his second CD, Souvenirs, out by the end of the year. Some of the songs he and Wenzell perform will be recorded November 13 for a promotional CD. During their concerts, Coley and Wenzell play together, and also have solos. It has proven to be a great collaboration.

"We just really quickly felt that we had a connection as performers, and it’s been going smoothly," he said. "On a tour like this, one person is always jet-lagged and the other one is extremely tired from planning the tour. ... But we’re able to feel each other’s energy and make it happen, really make it work."

The concert is free and open to the public. The Contemporary Art Museum is at 3750 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 63108.

To get there, take Highway 40 eastbound to Grand Blvd., Grand north to Washington, Washington east to Spring. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday (open until 8 p.m. Thursday), 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday and closed Monday.