ABSTRACT
The panel discussion 'On the Nature of Percussion Masterworks' presented at the Percussive Arts Society International Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 10 November 2011. Within the last half-century, the amount of serious concert music for percussion has grown to the point where it is impossible for one to perform all of it in the span of one career. The author see what they do-performing solo percussion music or chamber percussion music-as very fluid and always changing. So what author has to say is historical in the sense that, for him, what he knows best concerns what was happening for a decade and a half beginning in 1980 when he first became an active participant in the seeking out of masterpieces, past and present. The author hope would be that, as they promote the work of the great composers who wrote these percussion masterpieces through exceptional and definitive performances.
