As an integral component of percussion studies at Northern Arizona University, the NAU Percussion Ensemble performs extensively on campus and throughout Arizona.  The development of chamber music performance skills is at the core of the ensemble’s existence.  The ensemble repertoire comprises a wide variety of musical and ethnic styles, including standard works, contemporary, theatre works, percussion orchestra, marimba band, steel band, African drumming ensemble, Brazilian batucada, commercial/jazz, and transcriptions.  This ensemble affords numerous opportunities to feature NAU percussion students, guest artists, and occasional guest ensembles (i.e. Ashe African-Inspired Drum & Dance Ensemble; the Sinagua High School Percussion Ensemble; the Fort Lewis College Percussion Ensemble).

The ensemble also provides performance opportunities for both arrangements and original compositions by NAU students.  Membership of the ensemble primarily is made up of percussion performance and education majors, but also is  available to music minors and majors of diverse academic disciplines.  Membership is by audition or permission of the instructor.

Fall Semester

1 rehearsal per week (Thursday, 7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.)

Spring Semester

2 rehearsals per week (Monday and Thursday, 7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.)

Recent Performance Activity

In August of 2003, the NAU Percussion Ensemble’s recording of the eighteen-minute work, Oneiro, by composer Christopher Shultis, was released on AlbuZirque Records.  The NAU Percussion Ensemble recently performed for the Society of Composer’s Conference (2002), the Music Teachers National Associate State Conference (2001), the NAU President’s Convocation (2001), and frequently performs at the annual Arizona Percussive Arts Society Festival of Percussion.

Percussion Ensemble Participation

Percussion ensemble serves as a core experience in the undergraduate percussion program.  The percussion ensemble experience brings the percussionist to the foreground, musically, instead of the general experience associated with large ensembles where the percussionist serves to provide color, to provide emphasis of accent or weight, to provide dramatic effect, to provide pulse, and occasionally, to provide historic or geographic setting.  The percussionist, typically relegated to accompanying roles from behind the ensemble, is put directly in front of the audience with the responsibility to express all aspects of musical performance: melody, harmony, rhythm.  Of direct importance to music education, the percussion ensemble is central in the performance of some of the most provocative chamber music of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

The percussion ensemble serves as an invaluable laboratory for the purpose of supplementing and expanding on the applied percussion lesson.  Not only does the percussion ensemble rehearsal allow for the student to refine auxiliary percussion instrument techniques, but the session also allows for impromptu mini-clinics regarding performance techniques on percussion instruments which fall under the category of uncommon or specialty techniques (i.e. bowing, harmonic-induction), world/ethnic, electronic or electronically-enhanced, borrowed, constructed, prepared, and effects.