Between them, Trevor Barroero and Fred Morgan will play 52 percussion instruments with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Bongos, gongs, glockenspiels, vibraphones, chimes, tam tams, finger cymbals, triangles, crotales, xylophones, bass drums and full-sized 5.0-octave marimbas that measure 8 feet.
They will bang, scratch, thump and clash with mallets, metal brushes, drumsticks and bouncy balls like the ones in your kids’ toy box.
Percussionist Fred Morgan, left, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra principal percussionist Trevor Barroero, rehearse for their performance of the U.S. premiere of Laura Vega’s “Ángel de Luz” percussion concerto at the Tucson Symphony Center on Monday morning.
It will be a spectacle like nothing you have ever experienced at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Barroero predicted.
“It’s a massive undertaking. This is by far one of the more challenging compositions Fred or myself has tackled,” Barroero said.
And the audience at the TSO’s “Elgar’s Enigma Variations” concert performances on Friday, Oct. 18, and Sunday, Oct. 20, will see every muscle flex, twitch and dash as the pair perform the U.S. premiere of Spanish composer Laura Vega’s “Ángel de Luz” percussion concerto.
Vega composed the 18-minute single-movement work in 2014-15 and premiered it in her native Canary Islands in 2015. It has not been played since.
In a video she shared with the TSO, Vega describes the piece as atonal, but Barroero, who is in his third season as the TSO principal percussionist, said the work has “some gorgeous moments where we are playing beautiful melodies.”
“Then, of course, there are moments people will expect from a percussion concerto,” said the 31-year-old Tucson native. “Very drummy, pulsating sections as well. It really goes through all these special phases of percussion music.”
This weekend’s performance comes 10 years after Barroero’s TSO solo debut as the winner of the orchestra’s Young Artist Competition. At the time, he was studying at the University of Arizona with then-TSO principal timpanist Kim Toscano. The following year, he returned to the TSO to sub for Toscano on Mahler’s Third Symphony, which the orchestra will perform in January with guest soloist mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as part of the 2025 Tucson Desert Song Festival.
Barroero said one of the biggest challenges of Vega’s concerto is following her notations on which instrument is played and with what implement: The mallet? Drumstick? Bare hands?
It requires a lot of logistics, figuring out how to navigate all those instruments in the small space in front of the stage.
“To do it as a solo and as a featured instrumentalist in the front of the stage, I think that’s the joy,” Barroero said. “The audience gets to experience what we do, which is usually at the back of the stage and goes unnoticed.”
The concert, the second in the orchestra’s Classics series, is bookended by Sibelius’s “Finlandia” and Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations. Venezuelan composer Inocente Carreño’s love letter to his home island of “Margariteña” precedes the concerto.
Venezuelan conductor Christian Vásquez, who, like TSO Music Director José Luis Gomez, played violin as a child in Venezuela’s El Sistema youth orchestra, will be at the podium.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $14-$95 through tucsonsymphony.org.
Tucson Symphony Orchestra principal percussionist Trevor Barroero and fellow TSO percussionist Fred Morgan take centerstage at this weekend's TSO concert.
