ABSTRACT
Though I have always thought of my career as being in the tradition of European chamber music, my percussion background is very much from the world of orchestral playing. My fi rst drum teacher in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, was Art Schildbach, recently retired from the Indianapolis Symphony, who connected me with my next teacher, Michael Rosen, who was then in the Milwaukee Symphony and who became a life-long friend and supporter. As an undergraduate at Oberlin, my teacher was Richard Weiner, the principal percussionist in George Szell’s Cleveland Orchestra. At Oberlin there was no percussion ensemble in those days, in the late-1960s, and I was envious of the string players who worked in small chamber music groups and got academic credit for it.
