Stravinsky’s Les Noces ft. The Percussion Collective

Saturday, February 7, 2026 | 7 PM
Houghton Chapel, Wellesley College

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The Program

Stravinsky’s Les Noces
Noah Horn, Music Director

Originally conceived as a ballet for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Stravinsky’s Les Noces (The Wedding) evolved into a fiercely original concert work for vocal soloists, chorus, four pianos, and percussion. Using Russian folk texts and propulsive, percussive writing, Stravinsky paints a vivid picture of a peasant wedding—complete with ritual, anxiety, celebration, and social expectation.

Far from sentimental, Les Noces is bold and raw, collapsing the boundary between folk tradition and modernist experimentation. Stravinsky considered it one of his most important works, and it remains a thrilling and rarely performed gem of the choral repertoire.

Alongside Les Noces, the program features Garth Neustadter’s Memory of Water, ft. the Percussion Collective. Memory of Water is a luminous meditation on the cyclical nature of time, memory, and renewal. Through shimmering harmonies and evocative textures, Neustadter invites listeners to reflect on the ways water carries both history and possibility—an elemental counterpart to Stravinsky’s ritualistic vision.

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The Percussion Collective

At the height of his legendary career, performer and pedagogue Robert van Sice has brought together an extraordinary group of young artists who are redefining the concert experience. The Percussion Collective transcends the medium of percussion, offering performances that surprise, inspire, and move audiences on a profound emotional level. Hallmarks of van Sice’s artistry—precision, sonic refinement, and dynamic onstage communication—are vividly realized in this ensemble. Drawing from an exceptional pool of talent, The Percussion Collective flexibly adapts in size, presenting exquisitely curated programs for a wide range of venues and settings.

Since its founding in 2018, the Collective has distinguished itself through close collaborations with leading composers to expand the repertoire for percussion. Grammy Award winning composer Christopher Theofanidis wrote Drum Circles as their first orchestral offering, a concerto in which four members of the ensemble and the orchestra’s percussion section encircle the stage, creating a striking theatrical and spatial effect.

Premiered with Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony to great acclaim, the work has since been performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra (Michael Stern), Hartford Symphony (Carolyn Kuan), Curtis Symphony at Verizon Hall (Yu Won Kim), Colorado Symphony (Brett Mitchell), Baltimore Symphony (JoAnn Falletta), and most recently the Florida Orchestra to open its 2023–24 season and the Phoenix Symphony to open its 2024–25 season. Emmy Award winning composer Garth Neustadter extended this tradition with his concerto version of Seaborne, performed with the Louisville Orchestra (Teddy Abrams), Boise Philharmonic (Eric Garcia), and the Florida Orchestra (Michael Francis).

In recital, the ensemble’s breathtaking unity is fully on display. Neustadter’s Seaborne, a 30 minute multimedia masterpiece created in collaboration with video artist Kjell van Sice and commissioned by The Brookby Foundation, portrays the majesty of the sea through sound and image. The Percussion Collective has performed the work more than thirty times across the United States and will release a newly recorded CD of it next season. Other recent highlights include recitals at the Cornell Concert Series and the Frost School of Music in Miami, the premiere of a new choral percussion work by Alejandro Viñao at Yale University and New York’s Kaufman Music Center, and new commissions by Ke Chia Chen and Kenji Bunch, including collaborations with violinist Paul Huang under the auspices of Washington Performing Arts.

The roster of The Percussion Collective features some of today’s most esteemed and dynamic young voices in the field. Members are drawn from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Camerata Pacifica, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and hold faculty positions at institutions including the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, the University of Maryland, the University of Kansas, Mannes School of Music, Michigan State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Massachusetts. With artists representing Europe, Asia, and the United States, The Percussion Collective embodies a new generation of virtuosi at the forefront of innovation in concert design and performance.

What’s Interesting About This Concert

  • A Ballet Without Dancers: Les Noces began its life as a ballet—and though this performance is not staged, the music itself is so rhythmically driven and theatrically vivid that it almost moves on its own. The score tells the story through sheer sound, with voices and percussion acting like dancers in their own right.

  • Striking, Unusual Forces: With four pianists, multiple percussionists, and a chorus constantly in motion, Les Noces pushes the boundaries of what a choral work can be. Its sound world is bracing and electric, unlike anything else in the repertoire.

  • Folk Texts, Modern Voice: Though based on traditional Russian wedding poetry, the piece feels modern and urgent—highlighting the collective nature of marriage, the pressures of tradition, and the ecstatic chaos of communal life. It’s a ritual as imagined by one of the 20th century’s most daring musical minds.

  • Approximately 90 minutes. There will be no intermission.

  • Attendees should park in the Founders Lot located next to the Chapel (enter through College Drive).

    Map to Founders Lot

  • Wear what makes you feel comfortable!