IC's World Class Percussion Studio
Mention the marimba among percussionists in the know anywhere in the world, and Gordon Stout’s name will come up. Hailed as "one of the best marimba players in history" by Young Concert Artists, Stout has been on the faculty at IC since 1980. This October, Stout is off to the weeklong International Australian Marimba Festival to perform a solo recital, give a master class, judge a competition, and share the conducting of the marimba orchestra—some 50 marimbas performing together! A fellow presenter is Kevin Bobo, M.M. '99, who now teaches percussion at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Stout is the primary percussion teacher at IC, though most of the 24 or so undergraduate percussion majors study privately with part-time faculty member Conrad Alexander during their sophomore year. While Stout is known internationally as a marimbist, as a teacher he takes a "total percussion" approach; all undergraduate percussionists, regardless of major, are expected to be proficient on the entire array of percussion instruments. The marimba, though, provides the opportunity for in-depth study of the melodic and harmonic elements in the music of the great masters, so percussionists at IC can often be found practicing and performing transcriptions for marimba of, for instance, Bach's music for solo violin or cello.
One of the more visible alumni, Valerie Naranjo, M.M. '82, is a percussionist for the Saturday Night Live band and was one of the founding percussionists performing with The Lion King on Broadway. She is also known for her pioneering efforts in West African keyboard percussion music. In 1988 her playing of the gyil's traditional repertoire in Ghana's Kobine Festival of Traditional Music led to the declaration of a chiefly decree that for the first time in the Dagara nation women be allowed to play the instrument.
Naranjo recently reminisced about Gordon Stout: "One of my early marimba assignments was to learn and perform Gordon Stout's famous Two Mexican Dances. Three years later, it was actually Leigh Howard Stevens who suggested that I attend graduate school at Ithaca College and study with Gordon. Classical percussion, as most music, is a vibrant world, a kaleidoscope of ever-changing innovation and re-creation. Occasionally, an artist or teacher comes along who single-handedly bears a major influence on that community—one whose efforts pave the way for others to advance on an instrument. Gordon Stout is one of those artists and teachers. Graduate school at Ithaca was a wonderful experience in other ways. For example, we music performance majors were required to learn how to use the library—a requirement that has served me very well, as I spent several pre-Internet years doing research in libraries in South America and West Africa. Grad school was also a crisis of confidence for me. I was fortunate to have had the compassionate guidance of Gordon and his wonderful wife. Gordon Stout is one of the single biggest influences on my life and career."
Other notable percussion alumni include
- Tom Burritt '93, professor of percussion, University of Texas at Austin
- David Gluck '89, professor of studio composition, State University of New York at Purchase
- Thom Hasenpflug '89, M.M. '93, professor of percussion, University of Idaho
- Gifford Howarth '92, professor of percussion, Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania
- Taryn Lott '05, public relations coordinator, Boston Symphony Orchestra
- Charles Peltz '83, conductor of wind ensemble, New England Conservatory
- Dane Richeson, professor of percussion, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin
- Tony Steve, professor of percussion, Jacksonville University, Florida
- Naoko Takada, M.M. '01, international marimba soloist, www.naokotakada.com
0 Comments