Percussion Ensemble opens Musical Arts series
Press Release Date: 10-03-2007
Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s Musical Arts Series, in conjunction with the Red River Arts Council, opens the 2007 concert series with the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16, in the SOSU Fine Arts Recital Hall.
There is no charge for the Musical Arts Series performances. An educational program will be presented for Durant schools on the same date.
The Nuclear Percussion Ensemble was founded in 1986 by Henry Claude as a means of justifying and using all of the percussion instruments he had collected over a lifetime. Claude’s intention was to create innovative percussion band music based on ethnic traditions of the world adapted with symphonic composing techniques. The band is now composed of Claude, Matthew Henry and Adam Rugo. Each has other avenues for their musical calling. Henry is a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Rugo teaches for Young Audiences, Drum Headquarters, the Metro South Arts Council and Everyday Circus and plays with the Egyptian belly dancing troupe Final Veil, as well as the original rock band Madahoochi. Henry teaches percussion studies programs through the University of Missouri–St. Louis Music Department.
Claude is a performer, composer, inventor, session musician, specialist in drumset, vibraphone, and orchestral percussion. He has made more than 30 recordings with the St. Louis Symphony and was recently appointed Percussion Ensemble Instructor at Webster University.
Henry is a performer, educator, clinician, multi–instrumentalist, specialist in Afro–Cuban drumming and drumset with a Master’s Degree in Orchestral performance. He is the UMSL Director of Percussion Studies. He performs regularly with jazz trio Octopi, salsa orchestra La Solucion Latina, percussion duo HaZMaT, and leads the Latin Jazz group Musica SLESA.
Rugo is a performer, educator, clinician, multi–media artist, instrument builder, dance accompanist, specialist in West African an Caribbean hand drumming. He has most recently developed “SoundScape Adventures,” a new Young Audiences program to give children experience making sound effects and storytelling with sound. His two–disc African Ensemble instructional CD set, "Let’s Play Djembe," was released in the fall of 2005.
