Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it was truly special to travel to Vilnius, Lithuania to perform at the 30th anniversary of the GAIDA Festival of Contemporary Music this fall. Both our Portland Percussion Group concert, and our collaboration with Colin Currie Quartet and some very fine Lithuanian musicians to give the Lithuanian premiere of Steve Reich’s Drumming were memorable, to say the least! Especially in a year when so many concerts have been cancelled or moved online, having the chance to perform for such an enthusiastic live audience in this beautiful city was so wonderful.

A special thank you to the GAIDA organizers and to the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation for their support of our trip to Lithuania!

A hearty thank you to my good friend Dr. Mark Ramirez at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for the invitation to present a virtual masterclass on Bach performance practice for marimba this week!

Thanks to everyone who attended our session with the PSU Percussion Studio at the 2020 Oregon Music Education Association Annual Conference on incorporating chamber music into the public school percussion curriculum! We enjoyed sharing some important concepts on percussion education and pedagogy!

Big thanks to Ian Flint for organizing the inaugural VMEA Day of Percussion! It was a blast to spend the day with these bright young percussionists and to be back in Vermont after so many years. Thanks to Yamaha Music USA, Zildjian, and Vic Firth for supporting the event!

We had a great time working with the winners of our 2019 Call for Scores, including Daniel Webbon, Ben Justis, and Douglas Hertz. Pairing their new pieces with Paul Lansky’s Threads (a PPG favorite) was a very fulfilling experience, and it was great to share this music with our awesome audience! Thanks to everyone who came!