My albums, and the music I write for percussion.
Archetypes
Diatribe · with Nathan Sherman, viola
Five works inspired by Jung, commissioned by the Sherman | Petcu duo.
Totemic
Ergodos · with Nathan Sherman, viola
The duo's debut, with Berio's Naturale and three new commissions.
Alex Petcu: In Time
RTÉ lyric fm
My solo album, from Steve Reich to Bach and new Irish music.
I've played on most of Crash Ensemble's albums. Two to start with:
Free State · Crash Ensemble, Crash Records, 2021
I'm the soloist in Dónal Sarsfield's The Snare Piece.
Wingform · Barry O'Halpin and Crash Ensemble, Crash Records, 2022
Barry O'Halpin's hour-long piece for the ensemble. I play percussion and, with Máire Carroll, oscillators.
Music I've written for percussion ensembles of different sizes. Score samples are below; for full scores and parts, get in touch.
A piece designed to bring a bit of fun and joy when there is so much constant bad news in the world.
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Filmed at the Everyman Theatre. October 2024
For this piece, I wanted to see what I could do with a very limited amount of material. I wrote small snippets, one bar, two bars, half bars in length, some of them just a few notes. I then cut them out and arranged them in various ways. This 10 minute piece is the result of those experiments ...
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Filmed as part of the Hugh Lane Series. September 2023
Writing this piece was an experience to say the least. When I started it was the middle of lockdown and we had a 5 month-old at home. The majority was written during the times when my daughter was napping in the sling with me. One would think this would result in some chilled out, sleepy music, but it ended up being anything but. I think my goal was to create this ultimate live experience. We had all been deprived of that for more than a year by the time the premiere came around, and having six percussionists in surround sound with huge setups, was the opposite of what we had all experienced that year. Time to bring back live performance with a bang!
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Filmed at the MTU Cork School of Music. July 2021
Something I had been interested at the time of writing this piece was people’s preconceptions of what things sound like and the interest they show when the actual sound deviates from their expectations. For example, one can imagine what a metal pipe might sound like, probably from having heard one crashing on the floor. Drill two holes in just the right spots however, then hang it up and strike it with a vibraphone mallet, and the sound you’ll hear is suddenly surprisingly different.
When asked to write this piece I wanted to make use of this idea, to write something that would provide enjoyment to the listener and lastly, be fun to play. A piece in two halves, the first uses the familiar sound of drums (mostly), while the second part introduces some pieces of scrap into the mix, with both familiar and unfamiliar sounds of those said pieces of scrap being heard!
The title refers to the extensive use of cross-rhythms and the individual paths that each player’s line takes throughout the piece. There is a culminating moment right in the middle where everything comes together. Visualising how the piece would look as a diagram, I imagined it as an X.
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Filmed at the MTU Cork School of Music. October 2021
Short piece written and devised for Sounds From a Safe Harbour festival 2015. I wanted this piece to use some unusual sounds while at the same time being fun for both performers and audience.
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Recorded at the MTU Cork School of Music. September 2015