As a professional percussionist for over 35 years I've been asked to play some really strange items. At one performance of a Lukas Foss piece I was assigned the task of breaking glass beer bottles into a metal garbage can! Not only was it loud, but, I must have look strange wearing safety goggles on stage. On another occasion, during the recording of the film "Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom" I was asked (by composer John Williams) to whirl hoses in a circle above my head to create the sound of reeds in the wind. Most recently, during Monday's live CBS broadcast of the "Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular", I was asked to play Boomwackers while backing up pop superstar...
We're pleased to announce that Grover Pro Endorsing Artist Dr. Julie Hill (Chair, Department of Music & Director of Percussion Studies – University of Tennessee at Martin) has been appointed to the principal percussion chair of the Paducah Symphony Orchestra (Paducah, Kentucky) under the baton of Maestro Raffaele Ponti.
Dr. Hill will hold the Bill Ford seat beginning with the start of the 2016/2017 season.
Way to go Julie...
Our good friend and endorser, Joby Burgess, is hard to keep track of. He is touring all around the globe as one of the premier solo percussion artists.
Joby's newest endeavor, Pioneers of Percussion, is a recital program by Joby Burgess that brings together solo works by the most creative composers of the 20th century including; Toru Takemitsu, Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman and Arvo Pärt. Also included are new works by Nicole Lizée (Canada), Linda Buckley (Ireland) and Rebecca Dale (UK).
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO PROMO
Grover Pro Endorser Dr. Bill Shaltis has been appointed Assistant Professor of Percussion at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, University of Memphis, starting fall 2016.
In addition to teaching at the University, Bill is the timpanist with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra (and has to put up with my bad jokes during rehearsals). Bill had studied at the Boston Conservatory and is a protege of timpani scholar John Grimes.
From all of us here at Grover Pro...CONGRATULATIONS BILL!
Click the image below to view a sample of Bill's insightful approach to Vic Firth's Etude #1 from "The Solo Timpanist":
I met drummer Fred Eltringham last summer while playing a concert which featured music super-star Sheryl Crow. Fred provided the rock solid backbeat and rhythmic drive behind Sheryl. Fred and I got to talking after rehearsal and I offered to send him one of our Studio-Pro tambourines for his recording work. Fred just wrote that our Studio Pro model can be heard on Vince Gill's latest recording. In addition, our tambo can be heard on a new Brandy Clark recording due out in June. Also coming out (with our tambourine on it) is a new record by Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle, but you'll have to wait until June for this one also... All the production elves here like to hear that their...
