On the beat

Press, 7 January 1987, Page 26

On the beat

Percussionists they're the ones at the back of the orchestra who play the xylophone and crash the cymbals — right? Duncan Catanach sits up straight in mock indignation. “Every percussion-' ist will tell you about the comments of being the noisy ones at the back. About the second-class-citizen attitude,” he says. What attracted the Christchurch musician to the percussion sectton was not the noise, but the variety. “Percussionists play many different instruments. There are three main ones: timpani, drums and xylophones, but then there are things like marimba, and the triangle and the cymbals.” It is to get experience on the many instruments that he is heading to Manchester in September (if his enrolment is accepted) to the Royal Northern College of Music. It is one of the best music colleges for percussion in Europe, he says. “I wanted to go there because Graeme Johns, a former Christchurch percussionist, is teaching there and because other people confirmed that it was a good school.” Until now music has been a hobby that came second to university and work for the 21-year-old musician. He has decided if he wants to be a professional percussionist he needs to concentrate his attention on his music. That is exactly what he plans to do in Manchester. To help financially he has in the last 10 days banked two cheques: one for a $7OOO Jack McGill

Music Scholarship and one for a $lOOO Post Office Excellence in Music Award. The awards will help enormously, he says. “I don’t really want to work while I’m there because I have gone a long way and spent a lot of money to study and that is what I want to concentrate my effort on. The grants cut down the time I have to stay in New Zealand to earn money to support myself." The fees for the course are £3500 a year. At this stage he plans to go for one year although “I do not think that will be enough.” It is important to be at a college and mixing with other percussionists, he believes. “I want to go as much for the stimulation of working with other percussionists as anything.” He intends to take his marimba with him but most of the other instruments he will play will belong to the college.

“Percussionists are not very rich people because

they keep on collecting instruments of all kinds.” From January to September the instruments he plays will be those of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, which has offered him work on contract. He is looking forward to playing regularly in an orchestra. Eventually he wants to be an orchestra percussionist. “I’m looking forward to concentrating for a while on my music. I want to give that a go and see what happens.” One of the conditions of the McGill scholarship, administered by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, is that the recipient must have done as much as passible in New Zealand in his chosen field. Duncan Catanach says he has travelled the country to learn techniques from different teachers. New Zealand suffers by being isolated and from not having a lot of visiting percussionists to update techniques, he says.