Zauberkraft (Magic Power) for solo percussion was written for Danish-American percussionist, Timothy Lutte and premiered by him at the 1996 Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in Nashville, Tennessee.

As the title suggests, the work is expressive of my intense fascination with the nature of enigma, and a passionate desire to awaken the ( ) which slumbers inside every “fact” of life. As human beings, we are gifted with the ability to know this: that “I” is the sum total of everything we have experienced up until now. Somehow the multitudinous diversity of information gathered by eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin flow together into one unified experience which is...

In Sonnets to Orpheus , the mystical poet Rainer Maria Rilke arrives at this deep epiphany:

Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß Be, in this Night of abundance,
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne, Magic Power at the Crossroads of your Senses,
Ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn. Sense their strange meeting.

Und wenn dich dass Irdische vergaß, And when the Earthly forget you,
zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne. to the silent Earth say: I’m flowing.
Zu dem raschen Wasser sprich: Ich bin. To the rushing water speak: I am.


In every culture of the world there are individuals who maintain a constant, conscious connection with the mysterious power which flows underneath all things. They are called by many names: shaman, magician, sorcerer, poet, artist, visionary, prophet, pioneer, genius, sage, saint, messiah. All have undergone a similar and complete metamorphosis of consciousness, and every utterance they make is a complete expression of ( ).

This piece places the performer in the role of shaman. The performer speaks from the center of many different disciplines of percussion - keyboard (marimba), pitched percussion (timpani), non-pitched multiple percussion set up (cymbals, concert bass drum), hand drumming - in a language which is a mantra-like synthesis of disparate musical genres. I hope to provide the opportunity for concert percussionists to discover a new realm of virtuosity which will unify a vast abundance of specialized techniques into a dynamic whole.