ABOUT THE ARTIST:
James W. Doyle serves as Associate Professor of Music at Adams State University where he teaches percussion, music business, and directs the Brazilian, steel pan, and percussion ensembles. James regularly performs and presents clinics throughout the U.S., Australia, Japan, and has toured Southwest Asia and East Africa. He previously served as principal percussionist with the United States Air Force Band of the Golden West, was a member of the Baton Rouge Symphony, and performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the West Coast. He currently performs with the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra, as principal percussionist of the San Juan Symphony, and as a freelance and recording artist in the Rocky Mountain region. He’s recorded over 40 albums with Austin, Nashville, and Southwest-based artists and recently released an album with his Japanese/U.S. based Apricity Trio. James earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH LIGHTNING SESSION: Percussion Diversity Project
The solo and chamber ensemble percussion repertoire has significant deficiencies in diversity both regarding style and composer identity. Minoritized composers represent a fraction of the total percussion canon. This is a problem in need of creative and immediate solutions. To begin addressing these shortcomings, I developed public databases for women-identifying composers of both solo and chamber percussion, regularly commission/record works by minoritized composers, and mentor students to do the same. This process, focused on inclusive excellence and equity through the lens of music, has altered my pedagogical approach. The session will explain how I went from recognizing a problem-a serious lack of representation-to immediately leveraging my privilege to bring about change towards equity. My lightning round will provide ideas and models for injecting inclusive excellence into programming, serving as an ally to underrepresented composers, evoking change, and where we are headed next.