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I
hold a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Central Michigan University
and a Master of Music Performance (emphasis in jazz studies and ethnomusicology)
from Bowling Green State University. I am a specialist in Haitian, Cuban,
and West African folkloric drumming, and have done extensive field research
and performance of this music throughout the United States and abroad,
including extensive fieldwork in Ghana, West Africa, where I have studied
and performed with several master musicians in the cultural context. I
continue to study and perform traditional Afro-Haitian and Afro-Cuban
music for dance classes and religious ceremonies throughout the greater
New York City area. Apart from my world music background, I am also an
accomplished drumset artist, jazz vibraphonist (winning several awards
nationwide for arranging and soloing), and symphonic percussionist. I
travel extensively as a clinician (world percussion, drumset, and vibraphone)
for Latin Percussion, Yamaha, Sabian, and Vic Firth. . |
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I have recorded and toured with the Robert Hohner Percussion Ensemble and can be heard on the DMP releases Different Strokes, World Music Tour (DMP), and The Percussion Music of David Maslanka (Albany). I have also toured and recorded with Smallstone artists Five Horse Johnson (Blues for Henry, Double Down). I-Town recording artist Paso Fino, Rising Sign (9-piece salsa band), PIONEROS del RITMO (latin jazz sextet), the Brian Murphy Trio, and most recently with MARASSA DUO, and Philly based artists KURSTEN BOUTON and URBANA. I am currently an adjunct instructor of percussiuon at ElizabethtownCollege in Central Pennsylvania and freelance percussionist in the Philadelphia and greater New York City areas. From 2000 - 2007 I was Director of Percussion Ensembles at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Duties included directing the Percussion Ensemble, the Cornell Steel Band, the Cornell "Boogie Band," and the CU World Drum-Dance Ensemble, as well as being a guest lecturer in several music courses. Previous to that I was Visiting Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University of Toledo. I am the co-author of Vodou Drumset: Traditional Afro-Haitian Rhythms Applied to Drumset (Carl Fischer Publications), founder and president of House Panther Press, and am published through Drop6 Media. |
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