When percussionists Adam Cowger and Ben Wahlund named their performing duo The Screaming Norwegians, it was an homage to their North Dakota roots and -- as Cowger put it -- the goofy way he and Wahlund sometimes act when they work together.
The goofiness, however, does not extend to the music.
"Our performance is a serious thing," said Cowger, who graduated from Grand Forks Central High School in 2002 and from UND in 2006. "We're not going to come out wearing Viking hats."
The Screaming Norwegians will perform at 3 p.m. Saturday at UND Hughes Fine Arts Center's Josephine Campbell Recital Hall, Grand Forks. (Tickets will be $3 and $6.) And it would be goofy, indeed, to expect anything but an excellent performance from two such accomplished musicians.
Wahlund, a native of Valley City, N.D., is an internationally award-winning composer, educator and performer of percussion with degrees from University of Mary, Bismarck, and Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
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Cowger, who grew up in Grand Forks, is a freelance musician and private percussion instructor who lives in Monee, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago. Like Wahlund, he earned his master's degree from Northern Illinois University. He's performed with many noted artists, orchestras and ensembles, including Liam Teague, Robert Chappell, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, the New Philharmonic and Ballet Legeré.
Cowger has his own studio with about 20 high school-age students and teaches in the percussion department at Joliet Junior College. In addition to The Screaming Norwegians, Cowger plays in a Chicago tribute band called 25 or 6 to 4 The Chicago Experience that performs at casinos, large auditoriums and other such venues.
He and Wahlund met as NIU alums, and began rehearsing together, then last year performed a recital together. That led them to form The Screaming Norwegians. Their Saturday stop in Grand Forks will be part of a tour that will take them to Bismarck, Dickinson, N.D., Concordia College in Moorhead and Minnesota State University-Moorhead.
The two use various combinations of percussion instruments -- marimba, steel pan, drum sets Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets and Sabian cymbals. Their Grand Forks show will feature "Red Wagon," a Wahlund number that requires four drum sets. Wahlund and Cowger each will play one, and Cowger hopes his UND percussion instructor Mike Blake will be able to play one of the others. Other Wahlund compositions on the program will be "In The History of Man" and "The Whimsical Nature of Small Particle Physics."
Wahlund is the primary composer for The Screaming Norwegians. And, again, despite their Norwegian name, much of their music has a strong Afro-Cuban influence, Cowger said. NIU has a steel band with 50 members, founded in 1973, the first active steel band formed at an American university, that has performed throughout the U.S. and around the world. It is one of the few universities that offers a steelpan major.
From orchestra to world music, percussion is so diverse, Cowger said.
"You get exposed to a lot of different things these days. It's not just the cymbals and snare drum. There's a lot more to it," he said.
For more on the Screaming Norwegians, including video of their performances, go to www.screamingnorwegians.com .
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Reach Tobin at (701) 780-1134; (800) 477-6572, ext. 134; or send email to ptobin@gfherald.com .
If you go
- What: A performance by percussion duo The Screaming Norwegians, Adam Cowger and Ben Wahlund.
- Where and when: 3 p.m. Saturday, Josephine Campbell Recital Hall, UND Hughes Fine Arts Center, Grand Forks
- Tickets: Adults, $6; students, $3.
