2025 DAY OF PERCUSSION
Sunday, 13 April 2025, 12.40-5.30pm
Doors open at 12:30pm
The Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance invites percussionists to the Day of Percussion! It will include three venues full of workshops, clinics, masterclasses and a concert. This is a free event, suitable for school and university students, emerging professionals, and percussion enthusiasts of all ages. You are warmly invited to participate and perform in the events throughout the day.
Teacher participants can be provided with a professional learning certificate for 5 hours on request.
What's on
Please click here for the scheduled time of events
Flamenco Percussion Workshop: Cajón, castanets, and palmas
Extraordinary flamenco ensemble Arte Kanela Flamenco present a workshop focussing on the intricate rhythms and techniques of Flamenco percussion instruments including cajón, castanets and palmas. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet these incredible artists ahead of their Musica Viva Australian tour. Suitable for percussionists, dancers, and flamenco enthusiasts alike! Maximum participant number is 25.
Activating acoustic percussion instruments with live effects
Join percussionist and PhD candidate Zela Papageorgiou as she demonstrates how to integrating live electronic effects with acoustic percussion. In this performance-presentation, Zela will explore creative approaches to improvisation where she considers her instruments as the musical collaborators!
Technical Skills: Friction instruments, mallets and techniques
Who said percussion was just about hitting things? Louise Devenish (Monash University Percussion Coordinator) will demonstrate a range of exciting percussive techniques that go beyond striking, scraping or shaking through performance and demonstration. Participants will have the opportunity to try out musical, technical and creative techniques based around friction, and will take home their own friction implement! This class is suitable for secondary and tertiary level students.
Orchestral Percussion Clinic
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Principal Percussionist Shaun Trubiano offers insights into orchestral percussion technique and sound. This workshop will focus on orchestral mallets, cymbals and ringing instruments.
Drum clinic: Drumming in Wartime to the birth of modern music
Highly sought after jazz and contemporary drummer Danny Fischer leads you through a history of drum techniques, and shares ways to apply them to your drumming. Learn how European and US rudimental military drumming techniques evolved for use in music for entertainment purposes, and how they can be used in jazz and contemporary music today.
Let's Talk Basics: The Expectations and Reality of Percussion Practice
No instruments? No worries! Anna Kho offers practice advice about how we teach and learn percussion between school and home environments. Whether you're a teacher or student, professional or amateur, this is a great opportunity to revise how to demonstrate and apply basic fundamentals to support our practice, such as set-up, grip, and practice on limited to no instruments at home. Anna is an experienced percussionist, teacher and education researcher, with insights and expertise spanning jazz, singer-songwriting, and classical percussion. This session is supported by Yamaha Music Australia.
Concert!
A highlight of the Day of Percussion, not to be missed! Featuring special guest artists together with performers from the Monash undergraduate and postgraduate percussion studios, this exciting concert will showcase not only familiar percussion instruments but also the AirSticks, and exciting new gestural percussion instrument. Listen to the gentle groove of Ivan Trevino’s new marimba quartet, the quirky beauty of wah-wah tubes in music by JuRi Seo, and the joy of large percussion ensemble performance by Emmanuel Sejourné, alongside music by Elena Kats-Chernin and much more.
Informal questions and conversation
All are welcome to chat one-to-one with faculty and students during this time. Ask about our undergraduate and postgraduate courses in percussion, our audition process, explore the many ways to connect with percussion at the Sir Zelman School of Music through a Bachelor of Music, our range of double degrees, music electives and other majors, have a look around our facilities, or just say hi to students or staff to talk percussion because we love it.