Animas

by Ben Justis

Advanced Percussion Quartet

4 Players

Instrumentation:

• Crotales (low octave)
• Vibraphone
• Marimba — 5-octave
• Drums — 4 concert toms, concert bass drum
• Cymbals & accessories — splash cymbal, Zil-Bel (or brake drum), wood block
• Implements — bow, knitting needle, pencil, superball mallet

Animas by Ben Justis is an advanced percussion quartet inspired by the rugged, natural beauty of Colorado. The composer describes a landscape both breathtaking and inviting, yet ultimately indifferent to those who venture into it. That tension between beauty and danger shapes the work’s dramatic musical character, offering advanced percussionists a vividly expressive chamber work.

The music moves between ominous, eerie passages marked with a ferocious intensity, demanding close coordination as rhythmic ideas and gestures move throughout the quartet in a range of textures with bowed sounds, bass drum friction, and changing mallet materials.

This piece ships as a fully bound score. Individual parts come exclusively in PDF format.