A Concert Celebrating 250 Years of American Music
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Highlands Center for Natural History — Kiwanis Amphitheater
1375 S Walker St., Prescott, AZ 86303
Two performances:
2:00–4:00 PM
7:00–9:00 PM
manos Percussion brings its Quarter Millennium Celebrationto the Highlands Center for Natural History for two performances in the Kiwanis Amphitheater. The trio features three classically trained percussionists with Arizona Philharmonic ties: Maria Flurry, AZ Phil’s principal timpanist, joined by Bensen Kwan and Joshua Ferrell, both of whom have performed on our stage.
This program marks America’s 250th year through European classical roots, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, ragtime, nature sounds, jazz, and contemporary voices. With 37 instruments on stage, including marimba, vibraphone, steel pan, drum set, water percussion, congas, gongs, glockenspiel, duck call, and other unexpected sounds, manos creates a program shaped by precision, curiosity, and the wide range of traditions woven through the American story.
The concert moves across American musical history through works by George Hamilton Green, Scott Joplin, Conni Ellisor, Julie Spencer, Andy Akiho, Henry and Maria Flurry, Joshua Ferrell, Liam Teague, and Robert Chappell.
You’ll hear the early twentieth-century showpiece tradition in Green’s Xylophonia, ragtime’s syncopated pulse in Joplin’s The Entertainer, and dance music of the ragtime era in Henry Flurry’s Ragtime Dances, arranged for manos by Henry Flurry and Bensen Kwan.
The program also explores newer sound worlds: Ellisor’s Concerto for Marimba, Latin Percussion and Wind Ensemble brings Latin percussion into conversation with solo marimba; Spencer’s Glowing Horizon at Dawn waits in darkness for the imagined arrival of sunrise; Akiho’s Aka (Red) connects steel pan, rhythm, and color; and Moon Storm, by Henry and Maria Flurry, brings water percussion into the trio’s sound world.
The performance also includes an audience-advised improvisation, shaped in the moment with input from the people in the amphitheater.
The Highlands Center for Natural History sits within the Prescott National Forest, offering trails, gardens, and outdoor spaces that highlight the plants and wildlife of the Central Arizona Highlands. The Kiwanis Amphitheater is an open-air gathering place surrounded by pines and juniper trees.
The stage is open to the sky and bordered by forest on three sides. From the terraced seats, you can see manzanita and the vertical lines of ponderosa trunks. It is a setting where the sounds of steel pan, marimba, vibraphone, water, and drums can sit inside the natural environment rather than apart from it.
Maria Flurry, percussion
Bensen Kwan, percussion
Joshua Ferrell, percussion
Together, the members of manos Percussion perform music for marimba, vibraphone, water instruments, steel pan, drum set, and other percussion, creating programs that draw from classical, jazz, ragtime, ambient, contemporary, and global traditions.
Saturday, May 23, 2026
2:00–4:00 PM
Highlands Center for Natural History — Kiwanis Amphitheater
Saturday, May 23, 2026
7:00–9:00 PM
Highlands Center for Natural History — Kiwanis Amphitheater
Presented by Arizona Philharmonic in partnership with the Highlands Center for Natural History.
