Bilic-Tafate-M (Edition Svitzer)

Tafate by Ivana Bilic is a four mallet solo scored for 4.6-octave marimba. Bilic writes that this piece began as an improvisation, "I was exploring the folk heritage of my homeland and looking for some simple tunes to improvise on. Although our music is strongly rhythmical and rich with dances and storytelling, there is no particular percussion instrument except for occasional rattles and funny noise makers. Still, many of the folk string instruments use repeating notes, rhythmical writing and patterns that are similar to the ones we use in percussion music. And the marimba with its warm and mellow, yet rhythmical and hypnotic sound was the ideal playground for variation and interpretation of those basic sonorities. There is also the tradition of melisms and free improvisation over a pedal point which I have used for the middle section. The music is not organized around a specific key but rather exploring different modal landscapes around the tone E."