Timber performed by Mantra Percussion at National Gallery of Art

Michael Gordon's Timber is an evening-length tour de force. Scored for six graduated, amplified, wooden simantras, the work brings the physicality, endurance, and technique of percussion performance to a new level. In this piece, Gordon shapes the music in both polyrhythmic and dynamic waves of textures—often each player's hands are in separate rhythmic "worlds," each traversing a different dynamic contour from loud to soft to loud, similar in some respects to his solo composition for percussion, XY.