TCU Percussion Festival

We prefer you only perform published music you have purchased. If you are performing an arrangement of a copyrighted song, you will need to prove that you have permission for the arrangement.  If proof is not available at the site, TCU and our recording contractors will not produce archival recordings.

Joey Carter is active as a vibraphonist, drum set artist, percussionist, pianist, organist, and arranger. He performs regularly as a piano soloist, with his own trio or quintet, the local artist Johnny Reno, and as a freelance and recording session musician.   He has been a featured soloist at the Umbria Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Pori Jazz Festival, the Honolulu Jazz Festival, and festivals in Copenhagen, Salzburg, Verbier, and Budapest. Joey has appeared in concert with Peter Erskine, Randy Brecker, Cedar Walton, Chris Valdala, Ed Shaunessy, Alex Iles, Marvin Stamm, and many others. Joey is a member of and composer for the original jazz group Bertha Coolidge which won Album of the Year (Live at the Caravan of Dreams 030201 in 2002), best Jazz Group (2003, 2004), Best Live Show (2008), and was inducted into in the Fort Worth Weekly music Hall of Fame in 2018. Joey has arranged music for movies (including Spy Kids 3D), drum lines, big bands, musicals, and many popular music projects.

Joey has taught music theory, ear training, jazz history, jazz ensemble, jazz improvisation, and private lessons in percussion and jazz piano at Texas Christian University since the fall of 2000. He received his Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance at Texas Christian University in May of 2000 and a B.M.E. from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1991.

Emily Lemmerman is a professional pan builder and tuner, the first woman to tune for Panorama in Trinidad, the only woman to tune for any Panorama worldwide, and the first American to tune for Trinidad’s large band category.

As a professional pan tuner, Emily Lemmerman has uncommon access to and perspective on the global steelband landscape. She travels to work with bands around the world- not only as a tuner, but also as an educator, clinician, adviser, and performer.  With a formal background in classical music, after a full-time, six-year apprenticeship with Ellie Mannette, and with over 20 years of experience in the field, Emily is one of few people intensively immersed in the broad range of major steelband communities that exist around the world. Emily is a passionate advocate for collaboration and celebration of the diversity that enriches the many successful pan programs that bring joy to communities across the nation. She is very active internationally, working regularly in the Caribbean and Europe. Emily is a charter member of the NSSBE steering committee and serves as Assistant Editor for its newsletter.

Emily first played a steel pan in 1994 during her percussion studies at Ithaca College with Gordon Stout and Ted Rounds. Her love of the instrument led her out of the orchestra and into the panyard. This path led her to Appalachia, the adopted home of Trinidadian and renowned steelband craftsman Dr. Ellie Mannette. She traveled to West Virginia to attend his annual summer workshops and perform with many of the great artists in the steelband community. These experiences influenced her work back at Ithaca, where she began her advocacy of the steel drum as an orchestral instrument. After earning her performance degree in 1998, she moved to Morgantown to study steel drum construction with Dr. Mannette, whose symphonic vision of the instrument continues to inform and inspire her work.

Lemmerman apprenticed with Dr. Mannette and worked for his company full-time from 1998-2004. Here, she honed her building and tuning skills and served as the director of his steelband workshop for four successful seasons. After leaving Morgantown for Austin in 2004, she remained lifelong friends with Ellie.

Emily has played in many Panoramas- in London, New York, St. Vincent, Antigua, and Trinidad, performing on Quadrophonic, 9-Bass, 4-Cello, Double Seconds, Tenor, or playing rhythm. She performed for many years with the Invaders Steel Orchestra– the band that Dr Mannette founded in 1937- and was proud to be a member of the 2009 Panorama champion Silver Stars Orchestra. She has also enjoyed playing with Power Stars, Skiffle Steel Orchestra, Tokyo Steel Orchestra, Katzenjammers, and the Harvard Harps in Trinidad and Tobago, Croydon Steel Orchestra in London, Crossfire in New York Panorama, with the South East Steel Orchestra in St Vincent and with the West Side Symphony in Antigua.

Emily has tuned for the Croydon Steel Orchestra in London Panorama since 2011, and in 2013 she broke the glass ceiling when she was hired as the first woman to tune for Panorama in Trinidad, and the first American to tune in the large band category, blending for Ray Holman and the Skiffle Steel Orchestra from San Fernando during the great year of “Sapna”- for which she also performed in competition. She travels extensively to tune, perform, and clinic with steelbands globally, from Switzerland to Barcelona to Laventille to Seattle. She has tuned for Antigua’s West Side Symphony since 2015, and for Panorama in 2017, she tuned for Boogsie Sharpe and the mighty Phase II Pan Groove.

Emily Lemmerman lives in Austin, Texas with her toddler twins. She continues to build and tune steel drums in the style of Dr. Ellie Mannette, and strives to achieve the level of excellence he so passionately modelled. It is in honor of Dr. Mannette, his support, and his impact on her life that she chose the name “Barracuda” – a legendary instrument of his design – for her company.

Examples of her tuning can be heard in many places, including Austin, Texas, Denton, Texas,London, England, Barcelona, Spain, New York City, Seattle, Washington, and in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Emily Lemmerman also works prolifically as a composer, arranger, clinician, lecturer, and advocate for the art form. She is published by Boxfish Music and founded Austin’s vibrant Inside Out Steelband Camp in 2007. Her composition “Mesa Drive” was featured at the New Music Showcase at PASIC 2017. She has served as a clinician at many different programs, including the Ellie Mannette Festival of Steel, Croydon Steel Orchestra, University of North Texas, the University of the West Indies, and the McCallum High School Fine Arts Academy in Austin. She has served as a judge at the Virginia Arts Festival PanFest Panorama contest, and arranged for its mass band workshop. Emily’s library project, which collects unpublished charts from composers around the world, is helping to preserve music from the ephemeral Panorama seasonal traditions, and strives to promote more diversity of voices within our community. Emily regularly acts an an advisor and resource for research projects internationally. She presented at PASIC 2019 a showcase concert entitled the “Ellie Mannette Memorial Symphony of Steel.”

Read more about Emily in the Trinidad Guardian, Tom Tom Magazine, on Dr. Jeffrey Jones’ Panorama blog, the Swiss Steelband publication PANCH in October 2014, February 2015, (search for LEMMERMAN to find the archived newsletters) and PANCH in 2018 (search MANNETTE to read the eulogy she wrote for Ellie for this German newsletter.) She is also interviewed by Pan Magazine, and When Steel Talks, and once more recently in the Trinidad Guardian. She can be heard on episodes #134 and #135 of Pete Zambito’s Percussion Podcast, and is recognized as the first female pan tuner in Angela Smith’s textbook Steel Drums and Steelbands – A History.

Ben Maughmer is a percussionist/musician from the Dallas Fort Worth Area. In 2023, after completing his thirteenth year as associate director of bands at L.D. Bell high school, he retired from full time teaching in the state of Texas after nearly 30 years of service. Mr. Maughmer is proud to remain active as a consultant for the L.D Bell band program as well as servicing multiple other schools districts throughout the state and country.

Prior to working in HEB Ben worked for seventeen years teaching in the Birdville Independent School District, the last 11 years of which were Associate Director of Bands at Haltom High School, located in the Dallas – Fort Worth area. Under his direction the Haltom High School Percussion Ensemble won the 2004 Percussive Arts Society International call for tapes contest and performed a showcase concert at the 2004 PASIC convention in Nashville Tennessee. In 2019 the L.D Bell chamber percussion ensemble won 1st place in the PAS chamber ensemble contest held at PASIC.

As a performer and instructor Ben has accumulated forty years of drum corps experience, twelve DCI world championships, and four Fred Sanford high percussion titles. Ben is starting his nineteenth year teaching the Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps, where he assists in the coordination of the music ensemble for the corps as well as instruction of the percussion section. Prior to joining the Blue Devils instructional staff in the fall of 2005, Ben served on the instructional staff of the Bluecoats from 2003-2005, the Cavaliers from 2001-2003 and Blue Knights from 1992-1998.

He earned his Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of North Texas where he performed with the world champion U.N.T. drum line for three years and served on the instructional staff for three years.

Ben is an Educational Artist for Ludwig-Musser, and is sponsored by Pro-Mark drumsticks, Evans drumheads, System Blue, Ludwig/Musser and Zildjian Cymbals. His professional affiliations have included, Texas Music Educators Association, Texas Band Masters, and the Percussive Arts Society. He is an active clinician, judge and arranger in the United States, Japan and China for marching band and Drum Corps. In 2013 Ben traveled to China to serve as a judge and clinician at the 16th Annual Beijing Students Arts Festival. In 2016 Ben traveled to Beijing on a clinic tour where he gave twenty-two clinics in eleven days including training for the top marching programs in the city as well as the Peoples Liberation Army and Navy percussionists.

Ben served on the staff of Metro Alliance Indoor Percussion Ensemble. He has served as a judge in the indoor percussion circuits NTCA, TCGC, MEPA, IPA, RMPA, MIA, NWAPA, and WGPO.

Ben lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with his wife Maya and their four children, Bianca (22), Benjamin (19), Phoebe (17), and Theodore (16).

Escape Ten is a percussion duo formed in 2012 by Dr. Annie Stevens (Associate Professor, Virginia Tech) and Dr. Andrea Venet (Associate Professor, University of North Florida). Ardent about exploring all genres and expressing these creatively through the world of percussion, much of their repertoire includes innovative arrangements and compositions commissioned exclusively by the duo. The duo has performed and lectured at over 35 universities, at five international conferences, and was featured on NPR’s “Performance Today.”

Most recently having been invited as guest artists to the Prairie Music Residency in Saskatoon, Canada, and Montreal  for the Day of Percussion, they maintain a steady performance schedule touring nationally and internationally, consistently featured as chamber artists and clinicians at music festivals, concert series, conferences, and universities. Select appearances include the U.S. premiere of John Psathas’ double concerto for percussion and orchestra with the Roanoke Symphony in 2022, as well as performances at the Ágora Actual Percussion and WASBE 2019 festivals (Spain), the Academy of the Performing Arts (UTT) in Trinidad, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the Eastman Summer Percussion Festival, and at the Leigh Howard Stevens Marimba Seminar. Through a collaboration with composer Eric Guinivan, they are the recipients of a marimba duo commission awarded from the prestigious Fromm Foundation entitled Illuminations (2018).

Alongside signature mallets through Malletech, they have their own publication series of works written for the duo through KPP. Escape Ten has released two albums: Our Favorite Things (Ravello 2020) and Colours of a Groove (2014). Their inaugural performance endeavor was a three-week cross-country tour where they drove from Virginia to LA performing in 10 cities across the country. Their name ‘Escape Ten’ originates from their trademark roadtrip style performance tours in a Ford Escape, with many miles traveled on the I-10. Escape Ten proudly endorses Malletech, DREAM Cymbals, Black Swamp Percussion, and Remo drumheads.

Annie Stevens, an active soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. and internationally, is the Associate Professor of Percussion at Virginia Tech and Director of the Virginia Tech Percussion Ensemble. As a member of Escape Ten since 2012, the percussion duo has performed and lectured at over 35 universities, at four international conferences, and was featured on NPR’s “Performance Today.” As an active soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. and internationally, she has been featured at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the College Music Society National Conference, the International Computer Music Conference, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S., the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference, as well as the Spanish cities of Alicante, Otinyent, and Buñol,

Recognized as “impeccably responsive” (Roanoke Times), she is the principal timpanist for the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra where she presented the U.S. Premiere of John Psathas’ Double Concerto, The All-Seeing Sky, alongside Andrea Venet. She has performed with the festival orchestras of the Music Academy of the West, the National Orchestral Institute, and the Aspen Music Festival, as well as with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Banff Evolution Ensemble (Canada). In 2023, she was awarded an Alumni Enterprise Award from the Music Academy of the West. At Virginia Tech, Annie received the 2021 Excellence in Research and Creative Scholarship Award and the 2019 Diversity Award. She can be heard on the albums, Our Favorite Things (Ravello Records) and Colours of a Groove by Escape Ten, and Blue Earth County with the Kelly Rossum Quartet. Annie holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.), Rutgers University (M.M.), and Northwestern University (B.M.). Annie is an artist for Malletech, Black Swamp, Remo, DREAM Cymbals, and currently serves as the Chapter President of the Virginia/D.C. PAS Chapter and as a member of the PAS University Pedagogy Committee.

Andrea Venet is a percussion artist, soloist, educator, and composer specializing in contemporary and classical genres who is currently Associate Professor of Percussion and head of the department at the University of North Florida. An international soloist, chamber musician, and clinician, Andrea’s performances include the WASBE & Àgora Actual Festivals (Spain), Banda Sinfónica de la Provincia de Córdoba (Argentina), Steve Weiss Mallet Festival, Kyoto City University University of Arts, PASIC, Eastman School of Music, Celebrate Marimba Festival, PASIC, and with the PMR Brass Band (Canada). You can hear Andrea on albums This Prismasonic Rock I Stand (named after her percussion concerto with wind symphony), Our Favorite Things, and Colours of a Groove. 

A passionate educator, Andrea directs the UNF percussion ensemble, teaches applied lessons, pedagogy, methods, percussion literature, and co-directs the UNF NuMIX ensemble. Her areas of research and creative activity include composition, pedagogy, improvisation, marimba and voice, and historically informed Baroque performance practice techniques for playing Bach on marimba. Andrea is commissioned regularly; her works have been performed internationally; premieres include the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and by Grammy-Award winning Third Coast Percussion. Venet’s compositions and arrangements are published with KPP, Tapspace, DrGlockenAV Publications, in addition to articles published with Percussive Notes and Rhythm!Scene. Andrea holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.), Rutgers University (M.M.), and Arizona State University (B.M.). Andrea is an artist for Malletech, Black Swamp, Remo, DREAM Cymbals, and currently serves on the Percussive Arts Society Board of Directors.