Jonathan Lucke is set to perform his senior percussion recital in Warner Concert Hall on Saturday, March 16th at 12:30pm.
Hailing from Las Vegas, Nevada, Lucke grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee. He began playing at a young age, starting private lessons when he was in early elementary school. His dedication to percussion was fervent: he went so far as to pursue musical education at boarding school to keep practicing at a high level when his teacher at home left for graduate studies.
“There were no other teachers in Clarksville,” he said in an interview. “I would have had to drive to Nashville every day to go see them.”
Lucke studied percussion at Interlochen Arts Academy for two years, where he discovered his love for contemporary music.
“Where I grew up in Tennessee, there was no orchestra, so I was exposed to this closed world where the only options were playing in a band, playing in a marching band, or teaching music,” he said. “Through Interlochen I got exposed to all these different worlds. I realized what contemporary music is, and that I really liked it and wanted to study it.”
Lucke’s recital program reflects his love of contemporary music. The program opens with Elainie Lilios’s Immeasurable Distance (2018). He found Lilios through his mentor Ross Karre, who introduced the two over email. It is one of Lucke’s favorite pieces to listen to and one of two solo performances in the program. “It’s for some percussion instruments that are electronically amplified using a max patch,” he said. “So that’s been really great.”
Elliot Cole’s Postludes (2012) is his other favorite piece to listen to and to play. It is an ensemble piece for four instrumentalists and bowed vibraphone, two on either side. Three movements of the piece are interspersed throughout the program. He will be joined by Stephanie Block, Aidan Marckel, and Ruby Martin for the 3rd movement, Will Dahle, Brin Jaeger, and Nathanial Valsania for the 5th, and Cendan Dillon, Mateo Gregorio, and Zeyi Guo for the 8th.
He had wanted to perform Postludes for years, and he jumped at the opportunity to include it in his senior recital. “The 8th movement of Postludes is one of the most beautiful things ever, period,” he said. “It’s been in my music library since 2017 — it’s just really pretty.”
The program also features the world premiere of Nina Fukuoka’s With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes (2022). When Lucke was looking for another quartet to play, Karre reached out to Fukuoka for the score and secured it for his performance.
The second solo piece in the recital is for marimba: Roger Reynolds’s ten-minute “Autumn Island” from Islands of Archipelago. The piece, handwritten in Reynolds’ highly particular notation, is informed by his work as an engineer. It is complex and difficult to read, and was a major undertaking for Lucke. “According to Ross, at least, it’s one of the hardest marimba solos ever written,” he said. “And after playing it, I definitely agree.”
Lucke will end the recital with Harrison Birtwhistle’s The Axe Manual (2000) for piano and percussion, a piece recommended to him by contemporary music ensemble conductor Tim Weiss, for which Lucke will be joined by pianist Immanuel Mykyta-Chomsky. At 35 minutes, it is the longest piece on the program, and will be the first performance by an undergraduate. “It’s always been programmed by grad students,” he said. “A lot of times it’s canceled because it’s too hard.”
A jack of all trades, Lucke is a Double Degree student studying Percussion in the Conservatory and Biology in the College. He also has a concentration in Pedagogy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement (PACE) and a minor in Environmental Studies. A well-rounded percussionist, he doesn’t have a particular favorite instrument.
“A lot of other percussionists have one instrument that they really love and are really good at. And then they have other instruments they like, and one or two that they just hate that they’re not good at,” he said. “I guess because I don’t really specialize in any one instrument, I’ve always tried to be pretty good at all of them.”
After graduating from Oberlin, Lucke wants to pursue graduate school at the University of California San Diego to continue studying contemporary music. “That’s the dream goal right now,” he said. He is also considering pursuing a master’s degree in biology.
Lucke’s drive and determination are evident in his ambitious recital program and commitment to multiple fields of study. It is clear that his senior recital will be one to remember.
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