Steve Reich: Drumming

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Dan Johnson wrote in the New Haven Advocate: "So studied in the Yale percussion program under Robert Van Sice; Todd Meehan and Doug Perkins peeled off of So Percussion to focus on teaching, and have since teamed up as a duo. As one of the most highly touted young new music ensembles out there, So Percussion has taken pains to build a body of work that foils and surpasses expectations. Most of the laurels they've received were thrown at their interpretations of contemporary classics for percussion, especially the music of Steve Reich—and with good reason. Their recording of Reich's Drumming (written around 1970-71), is even more hypnotic than the composer's own, perhaps owing in part to So's place in a generation of performers for whom Reich's work has finally won a spot in the canon. The unique virtuosity Reich and similar composers demand of their performers, namely purity of timbre and total rhythmic precision, are at last the mother tongue of certain conservatory students—especially percussionists. But even among this new breed of musician, So's Reich rocks especially hard."