Concerto for percussion duo and orchestra. Performed on May 14, 2024 by the Artosphere Festival Orchestra and arx duo, Corrado Rovaris conducting.

Commissioned by arx duo and Symphony Tacoma. Premiered on April 22, 2023 by Symphony Tacoma at Pantages Theater, Tacoma by Garrett Arney and Mari Yoshinaga, percussion, Sarah Ioannides conducting.

PROGRAM NOTE:

My Double Percussion Concerto for arx duo was a dream project for many years. I have known arx for almost a decade and love many things about them: the energy in their playing, their infectiously engaging personalities, and their habit of imagining percussion instruments as seamlessly integrated members of the orchestra. Above all, I admire arx for their commitment to drawing together everyone in the room – for their desire to engage with as many communities as possible in their music-making, which is a passion we share. My concerto is inspired by all these qualities. 

I wanted to deliver the goods in this music, leaning into some of the things percussion does best. This music grooves, pulses, and above all, dances. There are moments of rhythmic trickery in this piece that were influenced by my favorite contemporary dance music—work by composers like Anna Meredith and Squarepusher. The rhythmic language in these passages trades on expectation and surprise, emphasizing repeated patterns before subverting expectations. 

I think of this piece as a syncopated, slithering way for the orchestra to move together with the percussion soloists. That idea of togetherness is centrally important to the piece. Instead of engaging with the traditional soloist vs. orchestra dynamic of a typical concerto, I imagined this work as a concerto for percussion duo and orchestra, with both parties working together. The phasing section of this piece captures that kind of virtuosity: it foregrounds the artistry of how two musicians interact with one another, and with the orchestra, rather than emphasizing their technical ability as solo players.

For a percussion concerto, this piece is also very much obsessed with pitch. In that domain, my Double Percussion Concerto has an especially close kinship with Beethoven. Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that Beethoven’s favorite musical patterns have influenced composers for centuries. I suppose I’m now joining those ranks, except that in this piece I’ve worked towards an aesthetic that twists Beethoven’s turns of phrase. This concerto is partly comprised of stolen elements of Beethoven’s vocabulary, ones that have been distorted into somewhat deranged progressions that I think sound fresh.

The way this piece atomizes and twists standard classical grammar is meant to reveal once- familiar patterns as slightly strange, only partially translated bits of musical material. That aesthetic was inspired by my favorite episode of Star Trek, in which we hear an alien musical language that tantalizingly hovers just on the brink of intelligibility. 

“Darmok and Jalad” is a phrase from that alien language. The full thought is “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra,” or “Darmok and Jalad on the ocean.” These phrases convey something like “cooperation,” or “new friendship.” As Captain Picard translates it, “Darmok and Jalad” means “that a danger shared might sometimes bring two people together."

Double Percussion Concerto: Darmok & Jalad (live)

For orchestra. Performed by the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra in Woolsey Hall, 12/11/14

Asphodel

For wind octet. Performed on July 17, 2025 in Seiji Ozawa Hall by fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center. Commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

PROGRAM NOTE
Peaberry is a piece of music about coffee -- or, better said, my relationship to coffee. Coffee aficionados will know that coffee beans are not actually beans at all. They're seeds, and they start their lives inside a coffee cherry. Typically, two seeds grow in each cherry, giving coffee beans their characteristic flat-sided shape. A "peaberry" is the rare result when only one seed grows inside a coffee cherry. Because they're scarce and tasty, peaberries are a prized commodity in the specialty coffee world. 

I started home-brewing coffee during the pandemic. I've since gone all the way down the rabbit hole, becoming enthusiastic enough about each cup to seek out the subtle differences between peaberry coffee and a normal cup of joe. Along the way, it's become clear that my routine would be unfathomable without a jolt of java – a day-defining dependency that I haven't fully come to terms with. 

I know I'm not alone. Bach's coffee cantata, which must be the most famous coffee piece in the Western classical tradition, depicts a young woman's coffee habit with some combination of playfulness and moralizing concern. Here I am, three hundred years later, retracing familiar ground.

This music invokes the energy of a few too many great cups of coffee. Alongside the jolts and jitters, it takes time to slow down and linger in a gentle, wistful frame of mind – the kind of mood coffee can be especially good at tamping down. Still, the charm of an especially tasty cup of peaberry is always chattering just around the corner.

Peaberry

For brass sextet. Recorded by The Brass Project.

Ornithopter

For orchestra. Performed by the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Lenfest Hall, Carlos Agreda conducting, 3/31/18.

Caladrius

For solo cello. Recorded by Zachary Mowitz at Guarneri Hall.

Oracle

Performed by the Aizuri Quartet at Princeton University, 11/2/20.

Beet Juice

Scores and parts available at: www.nickdiberardino.com

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9_pLlMWyXfMDCXGmWHq4A

Instagram: @nickdiberardino

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nickdiberardinocomposer

Nick DiBerardino

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks