The Oregonian
Percussionist, Panist & Composer Andy Akiho
Oregon, USA - To begin Chamber Music Northwest’s latest Summer Club Series concert, at Mississippi Studios July 17, composer and percussionist Andy Akiho invited audience members on stage to see him play up close. Several did, some gathering around his gleaming steel pan on the small stage and others looking down from the balcony above like spectators in an operating theater.
....Both at Mississippi Studios last week and at Doug Fir Lounge the week before, the parts of the program that fit the venues best were Akiho’s. His instrument, a beautiful, fully chromatic version of the traditional Trinidadian steel drum, is unorthodox in the chamber music world, and his playing is compelling—informed by classical training and animated by an undercurrent of rock rhythm and melodic sensibility, he pushed the steel pan envelope in solo pieces, exploring timbres with different mallets and alternating the tuned parts of the instrument with clattering beats around the rim.
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