There is so much music in the city at this time of year, that it feels like a bit of a blur.

The first of three excellent choices on Sunday is the TorQ Percussion Quartet, young guys with a keen sense of spectacle as well as a knack for striking the right object at the right moment in precisely the right manner.

They have a great sense of humour.

Here is something that TorQ member Richard Burrows wrote on the quartet’s blog, summing it all up neatly: “Not only do we strike things with our menagerie of mallets and sticks, but we bow, we scrape, we use knitting needles and chopsticks, we dip metal instruments into water to bend pitches, we dampen and amplify, and most importantly we listen.”

The boys launch a new disc on Sunday, Dec. 4, at Lula Lounge, which is a fun, open space in and of itself. Doors open at 7, for those who want to come early. The show starts “8-ish,” in true Lula custom. The cover is but $5.

Here’s a sample of what they do:

Here’s a new piece, “Thrown for a Loop,” by quartet member Daniel Morphy, premiered at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre two weeks ago (I’m having trouble with this video file, so I apologise if it doesn’t work well):

http://g.virbcdn.com/_assets/_swf/virb_video.swf

John Terauds

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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