Yellow After The Acid Rain arranged by Kyle Scully

Yellow After The Rain (1971) was written by the late, great Mitchell Peters (1935 – 2017), a musician who achieved renown for his time with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and eminence for his illustrious composing career. It’s an understatement to say that its reputation precedes itself: Yellow After The Rain remains noteworthy amongst marimbists as both an introduction to the four-mallet-technique and as a frequently performed audition piece. 50 years after the debut of Yellow After The Rain comes Kyle Scully’s Yellow After The Acid Rain (2021). Arranged as a parody, Yellow After The Acid Rain augments and embellishes the original’s melodic structure in an attempt to both honor and satirize the notability of its predecessor, while turning it into something much more chaotic and challenging. Requiring a 5 octave marimba as opposed to the original’s 4, and with added implements including a concert bass drum and suspended cymbal, Yellow After The Acid Rain frequently sounds like the purposeful antithesis to Yellow After The Rain, although it retains the signature virtuosic movement that requires the entire breadth of the marimba.