Brett Cavanaugh, nervous, tapped his drumstick against his forehead.
The SF State Percussion Ensemble was making its debut within a week, and he was struggling with a song.

The ensemble was going to play with students from middle school as well as professional musicians who had toured around the world.

He wasn’t the only one who was anxious.

“I’m a little nervous just because we haven’t had too much time to rehearse the material, and some of it is really difficult, so it’ll take some practicing,” said Ken Wills, 39, a humanities major and a music minor. “So yeah, we’ve got our work set up for us, but it should be a lot of fun. Performing is a little bit stressful, but it’s always rewarding in the end, when it’s over.”

Even their teacher, Allen Biggs, said the songs were difficult.
“We only meet once a week, and we only had a month to put this together, and these are three pieces that would challenge professional musicians,” Biggs, 44, said.

“You know, I keep thinking of this slogan ‘Si, se Puede!’ [Yes, we can!]. If you don’t tell people that it’s impossible or that it’s really difficult or something—we just do it, you know what I mean? (…) It’s really exciting, and the group plays with a lot of heart, and they just go for it. And I love that.”

The festival took place on Saturday, Feb. 23. Biggs organized the event in order to give middle school and high school students the opportunity to see SF State and to learn about its music department.

Musicians from the Martin Luther King Junior Academy opened the show.

Chanetta Richardson, 14, is in the eighth grade at the MLK Junior Academy.
She said that she has been playing for three years and had practiced the piece that she was about to perform for two of those years.

“I feel very excited and I feel ready,” she said. “I believe we’re ready. We’re going to stick it out, work through it.” Richardson says she practices music both at school and at home, but she doesn’t want to be a professional musician. She wants to be a vet.

There was a xylophone solo by Jules Christenson, 12, from the San Francisco Waldorf School and a marimba solo by Jinil.

The SF State Percussion Ensemble opened with a song called “Music for Pieces of Wood,” which is played by hitting small wooden sticks against each other. The last piece was called “Bonham,” after Jon Bonham, the late drummer from the band Led Zeppellin. Biggs prefaced the song by saying, “This piece is going to be big, it’s going to be loud, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Afterwards, Daniel Wright, 19, who played with the ensemble, hugged members of the audience and said, “It was fun, and the teacher is great.”

Their show was followed by a performance by the Orient Express, the drum line from the Extra Action Marching Band and SF State alumni Tommy Kesecker, Annette Aguilar, and Allen Biggs.

After the show was over, Biggs said, “I was really proud of all the participants. I thought it went really, really well.”