Maryville College Tartanband plans for a musical ‘Recursion’ during April 13 spring performance
March 20, 2023
Recursion, according to conventional definitions, involves a process — most often used in mathematics or computer science — in which a function calls on itself as a subroutine.
Another definition, in the words of scholar Douglas Hofstadter, might be “a situation where a thing is defined in terms of simpler versions of itself.”
For Dr. Eric Simpson, associate professor of music and director of bands at Maryville College, the term also applies to the Tartanband, which performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 13, at the Clayton Center for the Arts. Titled “Recursions,” the musical theme “has to do with how we find ourselves in the same place over and over again, but also never at the same place,” according to Simpson.
“Think strange loops, infinity symbols, Mobius strips, recursive figures and other things,” he said. “This year, the Tartanband has been in a kind of strange loop themselves: They are the Tartanband, which is also the Pep Band, which is also the Tartanband, etc. But we’ve also had a year that looks backward in many ways — and the reboot of the Highlander (Marching) Band has often seemed like its own kind of recursion.
“We’re doing a new thing, but it is also the old thing, but it’s completely different because it is the new thing. And a lot of the difference has to do with ‘when’ more so than ‘how.’ For example, there used to be an athletic band here at MC, and now there is one again — but it’s not the same.”
The program will feature works by John Barnes Chance, Shimon Buskila, Andrew Boysen, Omar Thomas, Erika Svanoe, Alex Shapiro, and Johann Sebastian Bach, each piece designed to revolve around the idea of recursiveness, Simpson said. The opening number, Thomas’ “Mother of a Revolution,” is “built from a sequence of four notes … that can’t decide if they’re going to be triumphant or defeated, and they change until they erupt in a kind of disco jam,” Simpson said.
That four-note idea continues through the selection by Chance that circles back on itself, and a work by Bach that explores the four-note concept as well through a paradoxical and self-referential loop, he added.
“We’re also playing a piece by Erika Svanoe that imagines what would occur if Mary Shelley met her own creation, the Frankenstein monster,” he added. “Spoiler alert: They dance the tango, and we have to deal with the question of, if you dance the tango with a fictional character that you created, who leads?”
It’s a challenging program, he said, but the ensemble’s more frequent performances this academic year as the Pep Band have helped students develop as both individual musicians and as a unit.
“They’re rising to the task,” he said. “They’ve also shown a lot of resilience while they’ve taken on a variety of new responsibilities this year.”
The Tartanband will perform “Recursions” at 7:30 p.m. April 13 in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt Theatre of the Clayton Center for the Arts on the Maryville College campus. The concert is free and open to the public.