SAN DIEGO — What do Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Todd Rundgren have in common with acclaimed percussion master, orchestral conductor and University of California San Diego music professor Steven Schick, a 2014 Percussion Hall of Fame inductee?
Stylistically speaking, very little. Unless, that is, Wonder, Rundgren and McCartney each begins exclusively performing a cutting-edge repertoire of intensely demanding contemporary music by visionary 20th-century composers. More specifically, compositions of artistic daring that require a performer to possess instrumental brilliance, pinpoint dynamic control and an ability to capture the emotional essence in even the knottiest music.
Happily, Schick's captivating new album, "Weather Systems I: A Hard Rain," places him directly alongside Wonder, McCartney and Rundgren in at least one key way.
