6 - Indiana University, Doctoral Degree Work, and International Experiences
Career Phase Three (1982 - 1993)
Over the years, since my work with Darius Milhaud, I, and many others, had serious thoughts to the possibilities for the solo percussionist. By the 1980s percussion had taken hold in a big way. Many US and European percussionists were working with contemporary composers to develop a significant repertoire of solo percussion literature and I wanted to explore that. In 1982, I decided to leave NYC to attend a doctoral program in Percussion Performance at Indiana University (IU). The completion of the degree took ten years and witnessed some mostly exciting moments with some doubts and stress thrown in to the mix.
In the end, IU and the Doctor of Music degree was about a more intensive journey into worlds of performance and academia. I became a better percussionist. The New Music Ensemble was demanding and time consuming and it was exactly what I wanted to do. In 1990, I was a winner in the Indiana University concerto competition and performed Robert Suderberg’s “Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.” I was teaching percussion majors and non-majors. I wanted to know more about Ethnomusicology, Jazz History, and Early Music performance. I took time and course work to investigate these disciplines and areas of study. I met international professionals and students that are to this day some of my closest friends and colleagues. I arranged many concert series and events on campus and in town and facilitated visits of international guest artists.
During this phase (1987 – 1990), I took time off from graduate studies and traveled to Basel, Switzerland to teach and lecture at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and to Germany, to perform with the Stuttgart Opera Company in Stuttgart. We also toured and performed in Strasbourg, France and in the former USSR at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, and the Kirov Theatre in what was then Leningrad. While on tour, we performed symphonic works, but the focus of my work with them was to play the marimba part to the Bernd Alois Zimmerman, “Die Soldaten.” I also did my Fredonia sabbatical teaching semester during this phase (spring, 1989).
A visit to IU from leading Ethnomusicologist Peter Cooke, with an expertise in amadinda (xylophone) music of Uganda, and the residencies of musicians and dancers of the Ghana Dance Ensemble started my thinking toward travel to Africa. Through the calm guidance of mentors Dr. Ruth Stone and Dr. Beverly Stoeltje, I applied for, and received, a Fulbright Senior Scholar grant for research in Ghana, West Africa.