Hartenberger-Kingfisher (SP)-2M (8 hands)

Kingfisher is the name of a small town on the Chisholm Trail in rural Oklahoma a few mile from my birthplace. The Chisholm Trail was established by Black Beaver, a Lenape guide, and Jesse Chisholm, a Cherokee merchant, and was used to drive Texas Longhorn cattle from Texas through Oklahoma to Kansas railheads. The town of Kingfisher was founded during the Oklahoma land run of 1889 and was named after an early resident, King Fisher. I chose Kingfisher as the title of this piece because of its connection to my early childhood, but more significantly, I use the syllables of the name King-fi-sher as a rhythmic motif in the piece.

The structure of Kingfisher is patterned after two dance/drum suites from the Dagomba culture of northern Ghana as taught to me by the great Ghanaian master drummer, Abraham Adzenya. I also use variations of rhythms from the bell pattern timelines of drum ensemble music from the Akan and Ewe people of central and southeastern Ghana.

- Russell Hartenberger

• Number of players: 4
• Difficulty: Intermediate/advanced
• Instrumentation: 2 marimbas (4.6 and 5 octave) 8 hands