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N. Scott Robinson

Picture of N. Scott RobinsonN. Scott Robinson, world percussionist, scholar, and teacher, has performed on the Grammy Award-winning CD Harlem Renaissance with the Benny Carter Big Band. He has also performed or recorded with Glen Velez, Marilyn Horne, Paul Winter Consort, Malcolm Dalglish, Robert “Tigger” Benford, Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, Howard Levy, Layne Redmond, John Clark, Steve Gorn, Jon Gibson, Jeanie Bryson, R. Carlos Nakai, Peter Phippen, Benoit Moerlen, Giovanni Hidalgo, Vivien Ellis, Gary Stroutsos, Art Baron, J. D. Parran, Eugene Friesen, Paul Halley, Slats Klug, Bob Cheevers, Andrew McKnight, Michael DeLalla, Sandy Weltman, Carolbeth True, Gordon Lowry, Nóiríin Ní Riain, Peter Zummo, Daniel Palomo Vinuesa, Randy Crafton, Mark Holland, Peter Mayer, Jim Mayer, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Washington Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Gerald Alston. Scott has worked under the direction of composers John Cage, George Crumb, Halim El-Dabh, and Annea Lockwood, having recorded two CDs with the Annea Lockwood Ensemble. He has studied with Peter Erskine, Glen Velez, William Moersch, Naná Vasconcelos, Malcolm Dalglish, Keith Copeland, South Indian musicians N. Amrit, B. Shree Sundar Kumar, N. Seetharaman, T. V. Vasan, Srirangan Kannan, N. Ganesh Kumar, and T. H. Subash Chandran, and Shona musicians Chaka Chawasarira and Cosmas Magaya. Scott has produced two CDs of his music including World View (1994) and Things That Happen Fast (2001) both released and distributed internationally by United One Records/Qualiton Imports. He also has an instructional video published called Hand Drumming: Exercises for Unifying Technique (1996) distributed by Wright Hand Drum.

As a solo artist, Scott brings a breadth of diverse experience in world percussion traditions to the stage and classroom. He has given clinics on diverse styles of hand drumming at the Japan Percussion Center in Tokyo, Japan in 1994, for the Percussive Arts Society Washington-DC Day of Percussion in 1995, and at the Percussive Arts Society International Conventions in Nashville, TN in 1996, in Anaheim, California in 1997, and at the Maryland/Delaware Day of Percussion in 2004. Scott was Artist-in-Residence for Percussion Department of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky in 2004 and for the Percussion Department of Northern Illinois University in DaKalb, Illinois in 2005 where he gave intensive clinics and workshops on his unique approach to hand drumming and percussion. Active internationally, in 1999 he was invited to teach samul nori percussionists West African rhythm for The Seoul Performing Arts Company in South Korea. In 2000, Scott toured Australia with Malcolm Dalglish performing his own solo pieces for tambourines and a variety of folk music. Scott was the only soloist invited to perform at the 2001 Korea Drum Festival in Seoul, Korea. In 2003 & 2004, he was invited to be a part of the Seoul and Busan modern dance improvisation festivals and the Seoul Drum Festival with his trio Handful in South Korea. In 2005, he was invited by the Department of Indian Music at the University of Madras in Chennai, India to lecture on modern frame drumming and world music. His performance experience includes appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Apollo Theater, St. Peters, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Knitting Factory all in New York City as well as The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington-DC, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Blues Alley in Baltimore, and internationally in Tokyo/Japan, Seoul/South Korea, Victoria/Australia, Kryoneri/Greece in 2008 & 2011, Montelparo & Recanati/Italy in 2010 & 2011, Freiburg Im Breisgau/Germany in 2009 & 2011, and Chennai/India in 2005.  He has performed and taught at both national and international music festivals including Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, Percussive Arts Society International Convention, International Native American and World Flute Association Convention, North American Frame Drum Association, Inc., Tamburi Mundi, Frame Drums Italia, Greek Frame Drums Meeting, Native Rhythms Festival, Philadelphia International Hand Percussion Day, Musical Echoes, ArtScape, Shepherd University Percussion & Drumming Festival, Potomac Native American Flute Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon Concert, Yosemite Flute & Art Festival, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Explosions Percussion Festival, Thunder on the Bay American Indian Festival, MOSAICS - Missouri Festival for the Arts, Herdeljezi Festival of Roma Music,  Many Moons Asian Festival, Kent State Folk Festival, and  Valley Flute Festival.

As an Adjunct for both the Literature Division and the Instrumental Music Division, Scott teaches courses in world music, American music, and popular music, teaches applied music-world percussion lessons, and leads the World Music Ensembles at Towson University in Maryland. Scott has also taught at Montgomery College in Maryland, Shenandoah University in Virginia, The University of Akron in Ohio, and at Kent State University in Ohio. His interviews and articles have been published in Modern Drummer, Percussive Notes, Rhythm, Dulcimer Players News, Batera & Percussão (Brazil), the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 2: Performance and Production, and The Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (volumes 1 & 2), among others.  He has contributed to the text books Dance in My Life with Kim Chandler Vaccaro, Listen to This with Mark Evan Bonds, and World Music:  A Global Journey with Terry Miller & Andrew Shahriari.  As a composer, his percussion music has been published and internationally distributed by HoneyRock Publishing. Scott has presented papers at regional and international meetings of The Society for Ethnomusicology in 2002. He is a graduate of Rutgers University (B.A. in 1994) and Kent State University (M.A. in 2002, 2003 ABD for Ph.D.). His music has been featured on the nationally syndicated Public Radio International show Echoes by John Diliberto, among others. In 2004, he was awarded a Senior Performing Arts Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies for the study and research of Carnatic music in southern India during 2005/2006.

N. Scott Robinson's website: http://www.nscottrobinson.com

Office: CA 2106
Phone: 410-704-2679
email: nrobinson@towson.edu