Performance

Performance is at the center of my life’s work. I have always been drawn to creating music that feels alive in the moment—music shaped by improvisation, close listening, physical movement, instrumental color, and an awareness of the particular audience and space.

Although I perform on a wide array of percussion instruments, I do not think of them as a collection of separate voices or demonstrations of different traditions. I bring them together as one integrated instrument. Handpan, frame drums, drum set, cajon, djembe, riqq, darbuka, bongos, balafon, gongs, cymbals, woodblocks, electronics, and other sound sources become parts of a single personal language.

My work draws from jazz improvisation and rhythmic traditions from around the world without attempting to reproduce any one tradition literally. I am interested in discovering meaningful connections among them and allowing those connections to become part of my own artistic voice. Technology and live electronics can extend that vocabulary, but they remain in service to the musical idea.

Improvisation is central to my performances. Even when a program has an established structure, the music remains responsive to the moment. I want audiences to experience the sense that something is being discovered in real time. Storytelling and cultural context are often part of that experience, helping listeners understand the histories, relationships, and encounters behind the music.

Solo Percussion

My solo work presents percussion as a complete concert language rather than as accompaniment or instrumental display. A solo performance may move between layered rhythmic intensity, melodic handpan passages, global percussion traditions, electronics, humor, storytelling, audience interaction, and moments of silence or spaciousness.

The instruments are arranged as an integrated performance environment—almost like an expanded global drum set—allowing me to move fluidly among different sounds without breaking the musical continuity.

Current and developing solo programs include:

• Transcultural Percussion — working title; a concert placing instruments, rhythms, musical ideas, and stories from different parts of the world in conversation

• Handpan Illuminations — a spacious concert experience centered on the handpan and expanded by frame drums, gongs, flute, and other acoustic percussion

• Percussion Playground — a fun, highly improvised, and interactive program that invites audiences into the creative process. Using an expansive collection of percussion instruments, rhythm games, spontaneous composition, storytelling, and audience participation, I create a performance shaped partly by the people and energy in the room. The program can be adapted for families, community audiences, festivals, libraries, and educational settings.

• Max Roach and Alice Coltrane: Rhythm, Spirit, and Sound — working title; a focused solo program inspired by two artists who represent important dimensions of my musical journey. Max Roach embodies rhythmic innovation, compositional imagination, and uncompromising musical mastery. Alice Coltrane represents a journey toward understanding sound as a spiritual and healing modality. Rather than functioning as a conventional tribute, the program brings these influences together through my own musical language, moving between rhythmic invention, improvisation, melody, spaciousness, and contemplative sound.

Additional solo performances can be shaped for festivals, museums, universities, theaters, libraries, and intimate listening spaces.

The Art of the Duo

The Art of the Duo grew from my experiences traveling as a musical diplomat. It explores the intimate conversation that takes place between two people when sound becomes a sacred language.

The duo format allows both artists to remain fully individual while creating a third, shared voice. Because there is nowhere to hide, it requires trust, vulnerability, responsiveness, and deep listening. Each collaboration reveals a different relationship between percussion and melody, timbre, culture, movement, language, and improvisation.

Current featured collaborations include:

• Dave Ballou — trumpet: spontaneous composition, chamber-like clarity, and the music documented on Inner Play

• Chelle Fulk — violin: Celtic music placed in conversation with global rhythmic traditions and improvisation

• Chao Tian — yangqin (Chinese dulcimer): the cross-cultural Dong Xi collaboration, shaped in part by our work and travels in China

• Presenter-paired collaborations: programs in which I create a new musical conversation with an artist from the presenter’s community

I am also exploring new duo partnerships across multiple genres and artistic disciplines, including spoken word, dance, theater, and other forms. This expansion reflects the larger purpose of The Art of the Duo: discovering how two distinct artistic voices can meet, communicate, and create a shared language in real time.

My work with the late actor and spoken-word artist Charles Williams provides an important example of this interdisciplinary possibility. An excerpt from our work can honor the collaboration while demonstrating how spoken word and percussion can interact as equal artistic voices.

Sounds You Can SEE

Sounds You Can SEE brings together percussion, composition, improvisation, theater, technology, and visual storytelling. In my live scores for silent film, sound does more than accompany the image—the instruments become characters within the drama.

The scores require precise synchronization while leaving room for spontaneity. Rhythm can reveal physical comedy, suspense, character, atmosphere, and emotional subtext. Each performance is both a musical concert and a renewed encounter with the film.

Programs include:

• Charlie Chaplin films, including The Immigrant, The Cure, and The Adventurer

• Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr.

• German Expressionist cinema, including Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

• Dadaist and experimental films by artists such as Man Ray and Hans Richter

• Ballet Mécanique and other rhythmically driven avant-garde films

Recordings and Current Projects

Recordings are another extension of my performance identity, particularly when they preserve the openness and risk of live interaction.

Recent and developing projects include:

• Inner Play with Dave Ballou—spontaneously composed trumpet-and-percussion duets recorded without overdubs

• Hand Pan Odyssey—a forthcoming project exploring the handpan’s melodic, rhythmic, contemplative, and improvisational possibilities

• A developing solo project drawing inspiration from the rhythmic innovation of Max Roach and the spiritual and healing dimensions of Alice Coltrane’s music

• An emerging Celtic/global collaboration with Chelle Fulk

• Ongoing live-film scores and audiovisual work under Sounds You Can SEE

Supporting Materials I Will Supply

General Performance

• A strong solo multi-percussion video

• Recent or unpublished footage showing my integrated percussion setup

• Solo performance photographs

• A solo handpan performance

• Links to selected recordings, including Inner Play

The Art of the Duo Reel

I will create a 90-second to two-minute overview reel demonstrating the variety of The Art of the Duo. It may include:

• Dave Ballou — trumpet

• Chelle Fulk — violin

• Chao Tian — yangqin

• Charles Williams — spoken word, presented “In memory of Charles Williams”

• A closing suggestion of future collaborations involving music, spoken word, movement, theater, and other disciplines

Possible opening language:

The Art of the Duo
Two distinct voices. One shared language.

Possible closing language:

Ongoing collaborations in music, spoken word, movement, and more.

The existing Inner Play Reel can provide a more extensive look at the Dave Ballou collaboration, while the new overview reel will communicate the breadth of the entire series.

Additional Duo Videos

• A complete performance with Dave Ballou, possibly “Where the Ocean Meets the Sky”

• A strong performance with Chelle Fulk

• A Dong Xi performance with Chao Tian

• A spoken-word excerpt with Charles Williams

Sounds You Can SEE

• A concise overview reel or strong performance excerpt

• A Chaplin excerpt demonstrating musical synchronization and comedy

• A contrasting dramatic or experimental-film excerpt

• Photographs showing the live percussion setup with the projected film

Additional Visual Materials

• Strong photographs representing solo percussion

• The Art of the Duo

• Handpan performance

• International collaboration

• Sounds You Can SEE

• Recent and unpublished performance footage Marcus may not have seen

Related Bookable Programs (Example only — needs to be updated for PERFORMANCE)