Ithaca College

The piano-percussion duo Strike, comprised of pianist Jeffery Meyer and percussionist Paul Vaillancourt, will give a free recital on Monday, April 20, at 8:15 p.m. in the Hockett Family Recital Hall at Ithaca College.

All the music on the program was composed in 2007 or 2008 specifically for these performers by Chen Yi, Daniel Koontz, Brooke Joyce, and Jim David.

The work by Chen Yi features folk music elements from China, specifically those of the Meng, Yi, and Miao people. The work by Brooke Joyce, entitled "Sacred Trees," was inspired by trips to the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa, which contains the remnants of several large Native American burial mounds and various ancient trees that grow in the area.

Paul Vaillancourt, associate professor of percussion at Columbus State University, is principal timpanist for the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra and performs regularly with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. He has been a featured soloist at the Banff Music Festival, the Aspen Summer Music Festival, with the National Arts Center Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, the CSU Wind Ensemble, and the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic. 

Born in Chicago, Jeffery Meyer began his musical studies as a pianist, and shortly thereafter continued on to study composition and conducting. He is the director of orchestras at the Ithaca College School of Music, as well as the founder and artistic director of the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic in St. Petersburg, Russia.  In 2008-9, he assumed the position of music director of the Water City Chamber Orchestra, Northeast Wisconsin's only professional chamber orchestra.