Percussionist Sam Wilson of Riot Ensemble writes about Georg Friedrich Haas’s Solstices, in which he has the hardest job: “A pianist can feel where their keys are even if the music is extremely complex; a violinist has a constant physical connection with their instrument; a trumpet player always knows where the valves are. For me, holding up four sticks to hit a vibraphone in the dark was a challenge. … This required some serious focus and some particularly motivational pep talks into the mirror. What Haas was asking surpasses muscle-memory. I needed to discover how to manage absolute physical reproduction; how high up you hold your sticks, exactly where you’ve planted your feet, and quite how sweaty your hands are on any occasion.” – The Guardian
