Rich Holly's Percussion Place

Assorted ramblings and occasional updates in the world of percussion.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Spirituals Festival

Last night I performed in Detroit with Robert Sims at a festival of Negro Spirituals that was organized by and featured the ensembles of Brazeal Dennard. Mr. Dennard is a very kind and obviously very talented musical director who is in his 60th year of choral conducting. In addition to Robert Sims, the well-known spirituals composer, arranger and performer Jacqueline Hairston was there. It was great to get to meet these older-generation musical giants who continue to be so productive.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Service

Today I had a performance with lyric baritone Robert Sims at the Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago (although it's called a chapel, it's huge, and it's just like a European cathedral). This was the annual memorial service that the University of Chicago hosts, and it's quite an affair. This year's keynote speaker was Julian Bond, the Chairman of the Board of the NAACP. He is an extremely engaging speaker. Besides really digging the music that Robert and I performed, I greatly enjoyed hearing Mr. Bond speak. If you're ever in the vicinity of where he'll be speaking, take the time to go - I believe you'll agree with me.

I just had a gig canceled, I was going to be "beamed in" (my favorite phrase for when I'm doing a video conference) to the NAMM convention in LA later this week. Oh well, there's always next year!

Friday, January 12, 2007

Great Fun

Last weekend the PAS Executive Committee met for four days, and we accomplished a great deal. There are MANY terrific things on the horizon for PAS. We'll be moving to temporary office space in Indianapolis in early April, and we should have our permanent office, museum and library space built out and ready to move into one year after that. There are many programs we'll be engaging in, too, so the future is very, very bright for PAS and percussion awareness and education.

While in Indy, we were lucky enough to see the Indianapolis Symphony perform. They are an excellent orchestra. After hearing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on a regular basis for nearly 25 years, I was not sure what to expect. But the ISO is terrific, it was a real joy to hear them perform live.

We also were able to go to the Indianapolis Colts' playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs. It was fantastic! The Colts looked great on both offense and defense. If they can play the way they played last weekend throughout the playoffs, they will be very hard to beat. Of course, I'm a Chicago Bears' fan, but I also just love the game, so it was easy to cheer for the Colts. Now we have to get the Bears to dispense with Seattle this coming Sunday and all will be looking good!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I can hardly believe it's 2007. Where do the years go?

I start my new officer position for the Percussive Arts Society as Immediate Past President, a two-year term (after which I will have completed my 8 years as an officer - whew!). Gary Cook of the University of Arizona is the new President, Steve Houghton (Indiana University and well-known performer and author) is the President-elect, Lisa Rogers of Texas Tech University is the Vice President, Steve Beck of Pro-Mark is the Treasurer, John R. Beck (no relation) is the Secretary, and Michael Kenyon is the Executive Director. Together we comprise the PAS Executive Committee. Our first meetings as a committee are for 4 days later this week in Indianapolis. There is much exciting work going on with PAS, so I'm really looking forward to these next two years and what we'll be able to accomplish.

I have some performances coming up with the awesome lyric baritone Robert Sims. Robert specializes in spirituals, and for the past couple of years we've been collaborating and performing around the country. On January 15 we're performing at a celebration of Martin Luther King's life at the Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago, and on January 26 we'll be performing in Detroit.