We had another great year at the International Percussion Institute, held at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Thanks to Lisa Nicol for hosting this great event, and to all of the participants to performed and shared with us and each other throughout the week!

It’s such a pleasure to hear and evaluate all of these wonderful performances by students from around the state today! Congrats to everyone on their beautiful playing and for performing today at the Oregon State Solo Contest!

We had an incredible day today at the inaugural Portland State University Percussion Festival, hosting and working with students from Cleveland, Glencoe, McMinnville, Mountainside, Thurston, West Linn, and West Salem High Schools! Congratulations to all the students and their directors for such mature and polished performances all day long!

A special thank you goes to Dr. Colin Hill for being a wonderful Guest Clinician, and to Dr. Joel Bluestone, Jonathan Greeney, and Paul Owen for some awesome snare drum and timpani workshops with all of the students in attendance.

It was so wonderful to once again join Caballito Negro for another performance of John Luther Adams’ ephemeral songbirdsongs at Portland State University. For this performance we were also lucky to share the stage with Savannah Gentry (piccolo) and PSU Grad Student Paul Burdick, who both sounded fantastic!

It was wonderful to spend another weekend meeting and collaborating with percussion colleagues from around the world at this year’s Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and especially to continue as a member of the Percussion Ensemble Committee! This year’s showcase concerts were all a complete success!