Steel Drum Band and Percussion Ensemble to perform in Nashville

Ohio Northern University’s Percussion Ensemble and Steel Drum Band will begin a tour to historic Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., on March 30. The ONU band is under the direction of Dr. Sarah Waters, assistant professor of music, who will take her students to Elder and Seton High Schools in Cincinnati before heading to Nashville.

The ONU Steel Drum Band and Percussion Ensemble will perform works for percussion and steel drums by composer Gary Powell Nash, a professor of music at Fisk. These works will include a concerto for horn and percussion ensemble that features Brandon Guillen, a second-year pharmacy major from Lima, Ohio, and “Deformation3,” which will feature A. Lewis Jones II, a junior music education major from Lima, Ohio, on drums.

In addition, David Kosmyna, assistant professor of music, and Waters will present Nash’s “Six Interlocutions for Trumpet and Percussion,” a piece for trumpet and percussion soloists.

Fisk’s world-famous Jubilee Singers originated as a group of traveling students who set out from Nashville in 1871. Although the group struggled at first, the students eventually performed throughout the United States and Europe.

The Jubilee Singers introduced much of the world to the spiritual as a musical genre. Each Oct. 6, Fisk University pauses to observe the anniversary of the singers’ departure from campus in 1871. In 1954, Fisk became the first private black college to have its music programs accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.

Published: Fri, 03/30/2012 - 11:03am