About me
Practicing, rehearsing, performing, and teaching – four things you can almost always find me doing. I am passionate percussionist, composer, and teacher with years of experience in many musical styles including jazz, percussion chamber music, orchestral music, improvisation, and Afro-diasporic music.
As a percussionist, I strongly believe in being a total percussionist. This means that I value being well-rounded in the multi-faceted world of percussion including: mallet/keyboard percussion, drum-set, orchestral percussion, hand drums, steel pan, and the other instruments that have yet to be invented. By becoming technically proficient in all of these areas, I have a fundamental understanding of the inner-workings of many kinds of music. This is an exciting place for me to be which I have spent many years working towards and am diligently navigating.
As a composer, I see writing and creating music as part of my musicianship. They are not inseparable and, in fact, inform each other. Because of this, I often want the music that I write to be things that I can play. I feel attached to this writing style and see it as an easy way to amplify my voice in the music. Similarly, the subject of my music is often very personal and includes things that I have struggled with.
As an educator, I strive to create the total musician. This philosophy focuses on not just being able to play the “grooves” on the drum-set or the scales on keyboard instruments. Although that is extremely important, I want my students to have a holistic understanding of how they fit into the music they are playing. My students will learn how to play with intensity, patience, direction, focus, confidence, and accuracy.
I am currently the principal percussionist of Longmont Symphony Orchestra, the percussionist of the B.A.D. ensemble directed by 2016 Pulitzer finalist Dr. Carter Pann, and the percussionist for the Plein Air Sound Collective. I have premiered music by Abigail Kellems, Jessie Lause, Blake Clawson, Veda Hingert-Mcdonald, Brian Ellis, Miggy Torres, Ziyu Wang, Katrina Toner, Lawton Hall, and Grammy nominated Pascal Le Boeuf.
Currently, I am a Teaching Assistant at the University of Colorado – Boulder where I am studying to receive my Master’s in Percussion Performance under the direction of Dr. Douglas Walter and Mr. Carl Dixon. I specialize in vibraphone, solo percussion repertoire, and improvisation.
I first began studying percussion at the age of 12 in my hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee – about thirty minutes outside of Nashville. I quickly became very passionate about the drum set and learned other percussion techniques from the guidance of private lesson instructors, mainly Mr. Keith Dudek. I received my Bachelor’s in Percussion Performance at the University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM) under the direction of Dr. Shane Jones, Chelsea Jones, Dr. James Pendell, and Dr. Brady Spitz. During this time, I focused primarily on being a well-rounded musician. Examples of this include:
- Completing a travel study in 2019 at the Dagara Music Center in Medie, Ghana where I studied West African dancing, singing, and playing including the djembe drum, kpanlogo drum, the gyil, and multiple supports parts.
- Winning 1st place in Tennessee’s Day of Percussion Collegiate Keyboard Competition (2019)
- Touring in the West Tennessee region with “Pacer Pans,” a steel pan calypso band (2018-2022)
- Competing in 2019 and 2021 at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention Collegiate Percussion Chamber Competition
I have always tried to learn all that I could about music, persistently and doggedly questioning. This exhaustive nature has lent itself well to the study of percussion, but I’m not only interested in percussion – I identify myself as a multi-instrumentalist and composer. I am particularly interested in how the mastery of percussion will influence the other instruments I play and the music I write, and how the limitations I have on other instruments will inform my overall musicianship. One of my dreams is to have a small home recording studio where I can experiment with all of these skills in an electro-acoustic idiom. I am also interested in sharing, collaborating, and theorizing with the experimental music community. I believe my personal interests in jazz, experimental improvisation, and world percussion traditions (like Ghanaian or Brazilian music) can exist in this community in a unique way. I am enthralled with the idea of sharing and creating things within the percussion community and the greater art community. There are permeable lines between teachers and performers of music, especially within these styles, which is exactly where I want to be. This synthesis of music has empowered me as a musician and a thinker.
