BHS to host state-wide Percussion Festival
Bartlesville High School will host the annual Oklahoma Percussion Festival on March 24-25 in the Bartlesville High School Performing Arts center. Guest artists this year are Dr. Blake Tyson on marimba and Liam Teague on steel drums.
This event happened every year around the state until the pandemic in 2020. Bartlesville is proud to host the return of the event.
The two-day percussion extravaganza will get underway on Friday, with various percussion ensembles from all over Oklahoma. Friday’s schedule includes percussion ensembles from Oklahoma City University and a military duo of percussion and trombone. Various high school groups will be featured as well.
Saturday will continue with more ensembles, including the University of Oklahoma, and will feature two guest artists Blake Tyson and Liam Teague.
Dr. Blake Tyson is a member of the faculty of the University of Central Arkansas and is principal percussionist with the Conway Symphony Orchestra. He has performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the Northwest Percussion Festival, the Leigh Howard Stevens Summer Marimba Seminar, and at numerous Days of Percussion throughout the United States. His international performances have taken him to Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia. He has also performed as a percussionist with many orchestras throughout the United States and has composed many works for percussion, including “Vertical River”, “Anubis”, “A Cricket Sang and Set the Sun”, “A Ceiling Full of Stars”, and “Cloud Forest”.
Tyson will present a marimba clinic on Saturday at 1 pm and will perform with the Bartlesville High School Percussion Ensemble at 3 p.m.
Also performing with the Bartlesville High School Steel Drum Band at 3 p.m. is Liam Teague. He previously performed with the Bartlesville Steel Drum Band in 2004.
Teague is the Professor of Music and Head of Steelpan Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU), where he also directs the renowned NIU Steelband. He is also the recipient of an NIU Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor Award. Hailed as the “Paganini of the Steelpan”, his commitment to demonstrating the great musical possibilities of the steelpan has taken him throughout the world, and he has received many awards from his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago. He has also performed with many diverse ensembles which include the National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan National Symphony, Czech National Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony.
Many of the state’s best high school and college percussion ensembles will perform in Bartlesville during the event. This event will appeal to all music lovers.
For more information or to have a percussion group perform, please contact Bartlesville Percussion Instructor Steve Craft at craftsm@bps-ok.org or call 918-230-4840.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: BHS to host state-wide Percussion Festival
