I have wanted to play drums for as long as I can remember. While I detoured briefly taking classical guitar – my first instrument at 7 or 8 years old – I spent as much time fooling around, tapping out improvised rhythms on the satisfyingly resonant guitar body as actually practicing my guitar pieces. At 10 years old I was given my first real snare drum (after receiving numerous cheaper toy drums for various holiday gifts over the years). It soon grew it into a proper kit. Like many percussionists, the first lessons I received were on drumset. I liked playing rock but was especially into jazz. I also sang in the Chicago Children’s Choir for 6 years. I had wonderful experiences singing concerts, touring the Northeast US, singing the children’s chorus parts from “Carmen” with the Grant Park Symphony, and learning fantastic music. All the while getting fantastic ear training.
I attended the National Music Camp at Interlochen, where I got a serious start on all of the traditional symphonic percussion instruments and, especially, a real introduction to the marimba. My last two years of high school were at the Interlochen Arts Academy.
I graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelors Degree in Music as a percussion performance major studying with Tom Siwe. At this point, I was very serious about music with equally strong interests in drumset, marimba, contemporary music, and orchestra. I played in jazz big bands for three years, and was introduced for the first time to the music of John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Steve Reich, as well as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Thad Jones, and of course, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Rimsky Korsakov. I played my first operas there, La Boheme and Carmen, unaware that I would go on to play so many performances of them both. I also studied with Jim Ross of the Chicago Symphony at this time.
I attended Temple University, receiving a Master of Music Degree studying with Alan Abel, of the Philadelphia Orchestra, a master teacher, mentor, and percussion guru who has had perhaps more students go on to success playing in orchestras than any other percussion teacher to date.
Along the way I performed with the Orchestra of Illinois, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Colorado Philharmonic (NRO), Tanglewood, and as an extra musician with the Grant Park Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In graduate school I took auditions to get a job. I won the Principal Percussionist with the Toledo Symphony, a position which I held for one year. Near the end of that season I won my position with the Metropolitan Opera.
At the Met, I have been fortunate to play nearly every soloistic percussion part in the opera repertory, everything from the operas of Puccini, Strauss, and Britten, the Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, the xylo and glock parts in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Shostakovich’s The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Berg’s Wozzeck, and the vibraphone part in his Lulu. I have performed regularly with the Met Chamber Players at Carnegie Hall including as a featured artist in various works by Cage, Andriessen, Babbitt, Stravinsky, and Xenakis. Our The MET Orchestra concerts have presented the best of the symphonic repertory at Carnegie Hall and around the world, including the premier of Legend for solo percussionist and orchestra by composer Hsueh-Yung Shen, commissioned for me and conducted by James Levine at Carnegie Hall.
I am a passionate educator. I have taught at The Juilliard School since 1993 and the Verbier Music Festival since 1999. My students have gained admission with all of the prominent summer festivals, performed with nearly every major orchestra including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, and Concertgebouw Orchestra, and won positions with the orchestras of Detroit, Cleveland, Houston, San Francisco, the Metropolitan Opera, and the US Navy Band in Washington, D.C.