2021 Archives - See Below
2021 Utah PAS Percussion Festival
As with many other things, we have decided to go virtual for the festival. But we at Utah PAS will still do our absolute best to make the festival meaningful and exciting! We plan on keeping many things the same, including categories, scoring, and even prizes. The festival will have an incredible line up of the finest judges, including some of the national clinicians that we had lined up for last year's festival. Many of the categories will have two judges. You can count on getting the best feedback of the year at the 2021 Utah PAS Spring Percussion Festival!
Videos will be due on the original date of PAS, on Saturday, March 20th. We will then announce the top 3 in each division and have an awards ceremony virtually two weeks later on Saturday, April 3rd. Winner's videos will be available to view, as well as some college performances and some short videos from our clinicians.
Information regarding 2021 Spring Percussion Festival clinicians as well as solo and ensemble guidelines are available below. Registration for the 2021 Utah PAS Percussion Festival schedule will be available starting March 1st. In the mean time, please visit our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for exiting UTAH PAS news and updates!
2021 UTAH DAY OF PERCUSSION CLINICIANS
LALO DAVILA
Lalo is currently Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at Middle Tennessee State University. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Texas A & M Corpus Christi and a Master of Music from the University of North Texas. Lalo has extensive experience both as an educator, composer, author, and performer. Lalo was named Nashville’s Top Five 1998 Percussionist of the Year Award and “Nashville Scene’s” 2012 “ Best Latin Jazz Musician. Lalo has toured with many artists including the "Take 6" Summer 1996 tour of Japan. Other performances include; the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, the Nashville Chamber Chorus, the Nashville Ballet, Six Pence and None The Richer, Clay Walker, Allen Vizzutti, Arturo Sandoval, and Sherry Lewis to name a few. Mr. Davila can also be heard on Kirk Whalum's Grammy-nominated CD “Hymns In The Garden”. Currently, Lalo performs with several Latin groups including his own band "Lalo Davila and Friends". Most recently, Lalo’s voice and playing can be heard (as Jafar) in Disney’s Dual Language Series “Aladdin”, “So You Think You Can Dance”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, The movies “People Like Us”, “The Amazing Burt Wonderstone”, “McFarland USA”, and “The Equalizer”, 2012 PlayStation game “Thieves in Time”, “Star Wars”, Black Ops III, “Knights of the Republic”, and America’s Funniest 2010 Commercials. Lalo has also composed music for the television shows, “Drop Dead Diva”, “Prison Break”, “The Bridge”, and “Burn Notice”.
BRIAN ZATOR
Dr. Brian Zator is the Director of Percussion at Texas A&M University-Commerce and President of the Percussive Arts Society. At A&M-Commerce, he coordinates all percussion activities including Percussion Ensemble I, II, & III, Drumline, "Panimation" and Pan2 Steel Drum Bands, “Samba Leão” Brazilian Ensemble, undergraduate and graduate applied lessons, and the percussion methods and literature courses. He earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baylor University, Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Texas. He is also a student of world-renowned marimba artist, Keiko Abe, having performed and studied with her in Japan.
As a marimba/percussion soloist or ensemble director, Dr. Zator has performed at seven Percussive Arts Society International Conventions (PASIC), the Texas Music Educators Association Convention, the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention, the College Band Directors National Association Convention, the North Texas Keyboard Percussion Symposium, as well as abroad in Brazil, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. He has been a soloist with groups such as the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, the University of North Texas Wind Symphony, the Baylor Woodwind Quintet, the A&M-Commerce Wind Bands, the Conroe and The Woodlands Symphonies, and with college and high school percussion ensembles around the country. He made his Carnegie Hall debut with the A&M-Commerce Wind Ensemble in the spring of 2012.
Dr. Zator and the A&M-Commerce percussion ensemble were one of the three winners of the 2010 PAS International Percussion Ensemble Competition and performed a showcase concert at PASIC 2010. In 2012 they released “Epic Proportions,” featuring music from their showcase concert. The ensemble also presented a concert at PASIC 2006 featuring works of Minoru Miki and in 2007, released a CD entitled “Sohmon III: New and Unknown Percussion Works of Minoru Miki.”
Dr. Zator has two solo CD's released on Equilibrium Records: “Zamiki: Music for Solo Marimba” and a chamber-works CD entitled, “Zoomorphs”. He is the primary keyboard artist for the Smartphone app, “Pocket Percussion Teacher”, providing instructional videos for marimba. He is also the author and performer on several iBook publications providing detailed video instructions and full-length performances for popular marimba solos including Yellow After the Rain, Rain Dance, Sea Refractions, and The Tempest. He was a member of The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps and taught the University of Michigan drumline. Active within the Percussive Arts Society (PAS), he currently serves as President, and held previous positions of President-Elect, 2nd Vice President and Secretary on the Executive Committee. He has also served on the PAS Board of Directors, the Keyboard and Percussion Ensemble Committees, written reviews for Percussive Notes, and has adjudicated the PAS International Percussion Ensemble, Composition, and Solo Marimba competitions. Dr. Zator is proud to be a performing artist and clinician for Innovative Percussion, Evans, Sabian, and Black Swamp.’
ANDY SMITH
Musician, educator, and composer, Andy P. Smith is recognized internationally, having enjoyed a diverse career for over two decades. His most recent projects include CD recordings, Finally Here with Angel Roman and Mambo Blue, and Transparency featuring Latin Jazz group Batuquê Trio (batuquetrio.com). Andy’s recent compositions include: Vento no Ritmo (Wind in Rhythm) for flute trio with leg rattles commissioned by Deanna Hahn-Little; Fora da Caixa, an experimental graphic score for percussion trio; Two Maracatu for Drum-set Duo (a popular youtube video features Andy with drummer Marcus Finnie); and Brazilian Suite for Tambourines, premiered at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center. 2017 will include new works for 10-Can Percussion and Caixa Trio.
Smith lives in El Paso, Texas, with his wife Amy Smith (Caixa Trio) and their children. There, he serves as Director of Percussion Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. Smith taught as Adjunct Percussion Instructor at Middle Tennessee State University from 1999-2008 and serves as the Percussion Instructor for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts, a state sponsored program for elite college-bound musicians. His career has taken him from the recording studios of Nashville, TN to Tanglewood, Ravinia and the Hollywood Bowl. He has traveled to Ghana West Africa and the Caribbean to be immersed in African diasporic rhythm. In 2012, Andy was awarded a Tinker Foundation grant to study contemporary Brazilian jazz drumming in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Other recent performances include the Jazz Education Network Convention, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the Lotus Music Festival, El Paso Symphony Orchestra, and grant sponsored workshops with Bernard Woma, Musical Ambassador to Ghana.
In 2016, he performed and presented at the Jazz Education Network International Convention–Afro-Brazilian Roots and Contemporary Trends in Brazilian Styles for the Rhythm Section–and at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention–21st Century Samba-jazz Drumset–accompanied by Latin-jazz group the Batuquê Trio.
The recently formed B-line Trio (blinetrio.weebly.com) is an innovative jazz percussion trio featuring Andy with colleagues Brian Mueller and Brian McNulty. The trio performs clever arrangements of jazz, choro and popular music and specializes in residencies and percussion festivals where the three present master classes together and separately in diverse “break-out” sessions.
Andy is published by Row-Loff Publications. Additionally, Andy self-publishes his works for solo percussion with electronics, percussion and other chamber ensembles, and Latin-Jazz combo (andypsmith.squarespace.com). Smith has also contributed to Percussive Notes, a publication of the Percussive Arts Society. He is endorsed by Pearl/Adams Musical Instruments, Evans drumheads and Innovative Percussion Sticks and Mallets.