Hovel by Alan Mackwell

Hovel, a work for six percussionists, emerged from an opportunity I received to write for Mantra Percussion during their residency at the University of Colorado Boulder. As I listened to as much percussion ensemble repertoire as I could in preparation for this piece, I found myself particularly attracted to the many countless sounds of found percussion; soon enough I found myself discreetly hitting PVC pipes and wooden boards at the local hardware store near my childhood home in Santa Fe, New Mexico and scouring the desert landscape for new sounds I could use.

During my sonic explorations, I could not help comparing my obsessive collection of junk to the family of pack rats that plagued my mother's house for decades; stealing nuts and bolts from the back porch, destroying the grill in search for trinkets, and hauling it all off to their bizarre treasure hole in the backyard. In some ways, Hovel is a strange sonification of the pack rats' eclectic home.

Hovel was premiered by Mantra Percussion on March 25, 2026 at the University of Colorado Boulder.