I am preparing for my senior recital this semester, and I am looking for some opinions of some good marimba concertos or even pieces. The only for sure marimba piece I am doing is Zivkovic's Ultimatum 1. I have really considered Ney Rosearo's (sorry about spelling) Marimba Concerto (I believe in the title it says, "...para cordas" but I dont know.
Any suggestions?

October night by micheal burritt is a great piece, but i don't really know about your skill level, so it may be too easy/hard for you. i don't think i can really make any good suggestions without hearing you play, but i would say talk to your private lesson teacher or your percussion director

I'm assuming this is a Bachelor's of Music recital. What pieces have you played before? Are you a performance major or something else?

Tangential line of questions:
Also, do you have an overall theme in mind for your recital? Most of the time recitals are just a collection of unrelated pieces. Play. Applause. Bow. Walk off stage. Play. Applause. Bow. Walk off stage. Play. Applause. Bow. Walk off stage. Yawn.
I'd encourage you to do something to make it stand out. Either work in some transitions between pieces or have some overarching theme running through the whole program.
Don't be just another recital!

Well as I said before, I will be playing Zivkovic's Ultimatum 1. I will play Keiko Abe's Tambourine Paraphrase. I may go ahead and do Stout's Two Mexican Dances. I am really consisdering Nay Rosauro's Concerto para Cordos or whatever the title is, but that is still up for grabs.
Other pieces done. Maslanka - Theme and Variations of a Love Song I believe. Keiko Abe - Frogs. Alice Gomez - Rain Dance and Gitano. Furioso and Valse. Green - The Whirlwind. Some Musser Etudes. Song of the Libra. The Tempest. Bach - Invention 4. Etude in D Minor (I believe by Gomez, but I am not sure).

The only other pieces I have thought about are maybe some other Abe pieces, maybe the two mexican dances, but i dont know. Thanks for your inputs.

The Rosauro Concerto for percussion is a great piece. I don't know Ultimatum but I played some piece by Zivkovic (something about lost souls) that was pretty cool.

Variations on Theme of Lost Love by Maslanka is absolutely incredible. Very technically demanding in sections but also lyrical and beautiful in other sections. That's one of my favorite pieces ever.

if you're thinking about Rosauro and Maslanka, I wouldn't bother with pieces like Frogs or even Furioso and Valse. They're more of first or second year of college pieces. Stout gets done to death so I'd lean away from that unless you're trying to do some sort of retrospective on marimba compositions. If that's the case, definitely do a Musser piece.

Merlin by Andrew Thomas is a great piece. Pretty common. there are some great fast sections with double stops in both hands. Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman is another great one. Interesting tonalities and a lot of difficult technical sections (but I think the music is really expensive). Gunther Schuller's Marimbology is a cool piece with a really stupid name.

Of course, anything by my old teacher, Julie Spencer, is great. i played a piece of hers called Pink Elisa Spring that is awesome. More of a jazz tune. Lots of independant scales and 32nd note rhythms in the right hand while you're comping with the left. She did another one that is similar but has a more open rhythm called Chelsea Window. One more by Julie, a piece called Cat Clock III. Two mallet piece but it uses this bizarre technique to play some really fast and impressive runs. That's a good one for an encore or something because it's exciting and it's only about 2 minutes long.

One last thing I played a piece called Altered Echoes by Lynn Glassock that was very cool. Lots of choppy parts and interesting rhythms. And you almost never hear anybody playing it.

Thanks much for all the suggestions.

Ok, I'm no expert on marimba pieces, but a piece that I am learning right now is "Parody" by Jesse Monkman. You can find it at tapspace.com. From seeing the other pieces yall have mentioned here, I imagine that this piece it much simpler that what you want, but it's just a suggestion.

hey that is a good piece. I like the jam in it, and the passionato emotion. I think I may try it. I went and downloaded it. Which reminds me, Mr. BeatMaster, would you happen to know where I could maybe hear samples of some of those pieces you mentioned. I have heard of those pieces, but haven't heard them.

A simpoler piece, that reminds me of this somewhat is Katamia. I am not sure who it is by, but I like it.

And Mr. DrumsNRoses, thanks. I liked the piece.

Katamiya is by a dude named Emmanuel Séjourné. Very cool piece. You can check that one out on Nancy Zeltsman's CD "See Ya Thursday." That CD also has Marimbology on it. Merlin is on her other CD, "Woodcuts."

My computer at work is pretty hosed right now so I can't make any clips for you to check out. What you might do is see if Amazon has any CDs with these tunes. Sometimes they have audio excerpts.

And don't call me mister. I work for a living...

Thanks much __. BeatMaster. I am sorry about the title, I have a bad habit I quess. Anyway, thanks a lot, and I will check those out.