Plaga – Notes

Many years ago (@1980 – 1983?) Karen Pincombe and I formed a percussion duo and named ourselves Plaga. We played many concerts. 

Some that I recall:

• A performance for the Orchestra London “Interiors” fund-raising initiative. I think we probably played at a few of these, but the one at the Labatt estate is particularly memorable. We had finished the gig & had packed up & were on our way home. I had a small 22” calf-skin bass drum in a case – strapped to the roof of the car. It obviously wasn’t sufficiently tied down, because it blew off the roof while we were driving on Highway 22. Truly lucky that no one was driving behind us!! The bass drum was A-OK & I still have it. Still have that amazing case as well. It’s beyond me how we packed all that equipment into my Honda Civic Hatchback and the small car Karen was driving at the time.

• Two performances – one at Bishop Cronyn Church with Orchestra London, the other at Talbot Theatre (UWO) with a faculty/ student orchestra. We played “Science” my concerto for Percussion Duo and Chamber Orchestra. The Orchestra London concert was the premiere performance of the original acoustic version. The UWO performance was re-orchestrated for electronic drums.

• A performance at the Masonic Hall in Mount Brydges. We had decided to be more “business professional” so we had a generic – one size fits all – concert ticket printed. While we had advertised quite heavily in the town, the attendance was predictably disappointing. I recall that we refunded the admission charge to all attending. As memory serves, only our immediate families (including a contingent from Oshawa) - as well as the family who lives beside me - were present. The subject of this painting is a replica of the concert tickets that we used.

• Plaga loosely means “beat” in several European countries – an apt name for a percussion ensemble.