Innovative Percussion DMCJOU Journey for Marimba & Piano by Matthew Coley

Journey for Solo Marimba, Piano, and Percussion Ensemble (Journey for Marimba and Piano, 2005) was composed in 2004 with several ideas in mind. I wanted a work of which a competent marimba player could be featured with ensembles of varietal skill levels. The work was written so that an advanced high school group could perform it with sufficient preparation time, and all college and professional groups could easily prepare the ensemble parts. The instrumentation is such that most high school groups would be able to gather everything needed, and the technical concerns in the work keep in mind that a high school will have a wide range of skill level in their players, so through the ensemble parts there should be enough variety to meet this range. Due to the instrumentation being chosen for practicality and limitations to the technical level of the ensemble parts the piano was added not only because it always gives a great color to the percussion ensemble, but to support the ensemble with lower voicing and sustain.