ABOUT UTAH PERCUSSION
The Percussion Area has established a reputation for innovation and excellence through an extensive percussive arts experience. With successful graduates in professional orchestras, studio jobs, military bands, university teaching positions, private teaching studios, public education (HS/JH/MS directors and percussion specialist) and arts administration as well as working independently as composers, audio engineers and touring artists, the program has a proven record of preparing percussionists for professional success.
Students have the opportunity to study and perform in a diverse set of areas including solo repertoire and chamber music, orchestral percussion, non-western musical styles, rudimental percussion, mallet keyboards, jazz drum-set and vibraphone, timpani and multi-percussion.
Our faculty supports students in discovering and developing their own artistic voice while also providing a comprehensive percussion curriculum as a platform for individual interests and career aspirations. In addition to in-depth performance skills, students develop expertise in areas of pedagogy, composition, audio/video engineering, marketing and entrepreneurship; all critical to succeeding in the 21st-century marketplace.
The internationally acclaimed Utah Percussion Ensemble has won the Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Contest on multiple occasions, and as also appeared at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic. Most recently, percussion chamber groups won the 2023 chamber percussion category at PASIC (also placing 3rd ) as well as placing 2nd at the PASIC Chamber Percussion Competition 2021. In 2019, the Utah Percussion Ensemble performed at the Northwest Percussion Festival.
Past Utah Percussion Ensemble and Doug Wolf commissions include repertoire such as Gillingham’s Stained Glass and Gauger’s Past Midnight while recent commissioned composers include Anders Koppel, Christopher Deane, Askell Masson, Marc Mellits, Brian Nozny, Joseph C. Phillips, Chad Floyd, and Dwayne Rice.
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