Charles Ives penned that statement nearly a hundred years ago, and I believe we still haven't fully realized all the possibilities of percussion sounds, but I've been trying! If you are looking for a professional percussionist for live performance, recording, or as a consultant for your compositions or arrangements, please read on. And if what you see addresses your musical needs, I hope you will contact me.

I began playing drums at the age of 10 and was playing professionally by age 16. I also began dilligently studying percussion as a teenager, and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became with the huge number of available instruments and the vast possibilities of different sounds these instruments can produce. In college, I majored in percussion performance, and even though my primary subject areas for my Master's and Doctoral degrees were conducting and composition, I continued to expand my percussion knowledge and skill by keeping it as my secondary area of study for those advanced degrees and pursuing every opportunity to play professionally.

Even now, after fifty years as a professional musician playing in rock, pop, jazz, and concert bands, recording studios, musical theater, opera, ballet, and symphony orchestras—including thirteen years as Principal Percussionist of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra—I continue to explore new and old instruments and their incredible range of sounds. I particularly enjoy learning and perfecting my skills on a number of different percussion instruments from around the world like the Talking Drum, (top photo) and Shekere (left) from West Africa, the Cajón (below right) from Peru, and the ancient Moorish/Portuguese square drum called the Adufe (below left), among others. I perform on many of these instruments here in Portugal with guitarist, Edward Morgan in our duo A Pair of Aces.

Those of us of a certain age may recall the American artist and painter, Bob Ross, who hosted The Joy of Painting instructional television show on a number of public television networks around the world in the 1980s and 90s. Often, as Bob approached the completion of an episode and its particular painting, he would dip the tip of his brush into some white paint and make a number of tiny dabs around the painting creating the appearance of sparkles of light that brought the painting to life. I like to use percussion in much the same way as those happy little dabs of white paint. While people often think of using percussion to provide a beat—which it can certainly do—I believe percussion's real magic comes from adding those sparkles of light and authenticity that bring a piece of music to life.

Of course, I also play all the usual percussion instruments like Timpani, Marimba, Xylophone, Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Chimes (Tubular Bells), as well as the numerous drums, cymbals, gongs, and other accessory instruments. Sometimes, I even play a whole bunch of them at the same time! The photo below is a portion of my setup for George Crumb's Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) which I had the honor of performing for the composer in 2005. Whatever the instrument(s) needed, I am quite versatile and adept at playing them in traditional, contemporary, and avant-garde idioms as well as in numerous world-percussion styles. So, whether you need a percussionist for live performance, recording, or as a consultant for your compositions or arrangements, please contact me. I would love to talk with you about your musical and percussive needs!