At this month’s Percussive Arts Society International Conference in Indianapolis, Garry Kvistad and Russell Hartenberger received high honours. Russell received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Education, and Garry was inducted into the PAS Percussion Hall of Fame. Russell actually received the honour in 2020, along with co-recipients F.Michael Combs and William Moersch. But due to… Read more »
1977: FIRST NEXUS COMMISSION Bob Becker tells us that “The first piece commissioned by NEXUS came from the Canadian composer Bruce Mather in 1977. (We would premiere it in April ’78.) At that time, Bruce’s music was known only vaguely by most of us, but Robin Engelman had become an admirer. He made the commission… Read more »
1975: DIFFERENT MUSIC We continued performing our George Hamilton Green ragtime arrangements. Bob Becker was totally smitten, and says, “I was tracking down all of it”. For two appearances, we played rags and also our improvisation at the famous (or infamous) Bohemian Embassy coffeehouse in Toronto which (thanks to founder and long time CBC performer… Read more »
We are delighted to announce that NEXUS member Garry Kvistad will be inducted into the Percussion Hall of Fame this autumn, along with Ndugu Chancler and Neil Peart. Garry joined Nexus Percussion in the Fall of 2002 and is one of 18 musicians to win a Grammy award for the 1998 recording of Steve Reich’s… Read more »
NEXUS Percussion recently record with So Percussion, but Josh’s other group, NYU Steel, is a longtime performer at my biennial Drum Boogie Festival in Woodstock, NY. I had a blast talking with Josh about music in this two-part podcast, part of which featured a fun tour of my studio at Woodstock Chimes headquarters. Check it… Read more »
In 1974, I performed with the Blackearth Percussion Group at thethe State University of New York at Potsdam. The instructor in charge was, yes, Jim Petercsak. Professor Petercsak is a legend in the percussion world whose teaching has produced hundreds of fine musicians currently performing and teaching throughout the world. The NEXUS concert consisted of… Read more »
The Blackearth Percussion Group was conceived in 1971, formed in 1972 and disbanded in 1979. It was inspired in part by Jan Williams’ New Percussion Quartet of Buffalo and named after a small farm town in central Wisconsin. I was one of the original group members at age 22, along with my brother Rick Kvistad… Read more »
