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Peter And The Starcatcher - Jeremy Lowe

Jeremy Lowe’s setup for the National Tour of Peter And The Starcatcher.

Jeremy Lowe’s setup for the National Tour of Peter And The Starcatcher.

Peter And The Starcatcher is a play with music where the two musicians do more foley work than play actual music. Sound effects are made using different techniques such as making whip cracks using actual riding crops, and dropping a metal chain in a bucket to make the sound of glass breaking. The musicians are set up in sound towers suspended about 15 feet above the audience on either side of the stage.

Touring with this setup is great because the layout is almost exactly the same in each city. The clamps and stands are left on the platform when it is traveled so when it arrives in the new city, the instruments are loaded on in the exact same place. So far, the set-up has been drastically changed in only two cities. Loading into The Moore Theater in Seattle proved to be difficult because of the house's small size. Therefore, the towers could not fit in their usual front-of-house position. The musician platforms were removed from the towers and we had to play backstage, looking on monitors to line up our sounds with the show.

The other odd setup was in The Eisenhower Theater at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In this theater there was a wall on either side of the stage that would have jutted our towers out too far in front of the stage, covering sight lines from the side balconies and blocking our proscenium. To fix this, the crew had to reverse our towers to fit around the walls. For our three week run here, I had to find new positions for some of my instruments. Andy Grobengieser (the MD) and I had to get used to the new view from opposite sides of the stage.

Some of the more interesting instruments in my set-up include a cuica for gorilla sounds, two pieces of steel for sword fighting sounds and a detuned violin to create the sound of a creaking door."

Peter And The Starcatcher - Tour - Jeremy Lowe
February 2014

Jeremy Lowe’s setup for the National Tour of Peter And The Starcatcher.

"Conducting a National Tour is incredibly challenging, but so rewarding. Stepping on to the podium with a new orchestra every few weeks really keeps you on your toes. Every player responds differently so you are constantly adjusting to get the desired result. I would compare it to playing a multi-percussion piece where the instruments are constantly moving."
"After a grueling four years at SUNY I still had one theory class left to finish. I was really depressed. A classmate of mine recommended me for a tour of a Broadway show. This completely changed the course of my life."
"When I first got the call to start working on Ain’t Too Proud - The Life And Times Of The Temptations, I was curious about which era the show was going to focus on. Their career began in the early 1960’s and they’re still releasing albums today."

Ron Grassi's drum set setup for Mean Girls at Archbishop Performing Arts, in Warminster, Pennsylvania.

"The main challenge that I found with this show was the very quick instrument and stick changes. Having a good pair of swizzle sticks is necessary to go from tambourine to timpani and sometimes rolls on the concert bass drum."
"The real impetus of this book is the timpani. It is definitely the driving force for the percussion inBack to the Future and it requires a big articulate sound and once again Yamaha with the Evans Orchestral White Opaque Heads just deliver."

Gene Krupa's drum solo from "Gene's Blues" from the album Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich released November 1955.

Steve Jordan's drum solo from the title track of the album Casa Loco.
Robbie Ameen's drum solo from the track "Spring Fling".

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