Kickin' It 2.0 is an arrangement for drum kit and piano trio of Ho's work Kickin' It, for drum kit and piano (PE168).
Vincent Ho explores a range of performance practices and playing techniques in Kickin' It 2.0. Movements packed with precariousness and frenzy sit alongside others that bathe in the resonant spaces between gestures. Ho's compositional approach here provides players with an opportunity to display their versatility, as Kickin' It 2.0 demands not only virtuosic technique but creativity in interpreting more improvisatory performance realms.
Kickin' It 2.0 was inspired by a number of elements: the art of improvisation, the music of Squarepusher, jazz, gamelan music, Chinese folk music, and the crime novels of James Ellroy. Compositionally speaking, the work brings together three separate streams I have been developing in my musical language over the past seven years. One is my experience in writing for percussion instruments, most especially in the works for acclaimed percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie (two concertos and two solo works). Another is my ongoing pursuit in developing my pianistic language – the tactile and gestural elements (or "signatures") that define my own performance practice for the instrument. The third is my own manner of string writing that I have been developing over the same period of time. Kickin' It 2.0 therefore represents the confluence of all three streams. The players are all featured on equal levels of importance as they maintain their constant dialogue with one another while covering a wide expressive range.
The evening ended with a powerful and energetic reminder of what percussion music can be about when its intensely idiomatic conventions are translated with deft skill into all instruments. Ho's Kickin' It 2.0 was a tribute to percussion as rhythm, haunting timbre, and pure power, an aphoristic anthem to all percussion pieces everywhere. What a positive success and a formidable way to end the evening, with Glennie kickin' it to the end.
