Julie Strom

Theater Percussion: Developing a Twenty-first-century Genre Through the Connection of Visual, Dramatic, and Percussive Arts Julie Strom

Theater percussion is a style of composition that combines rhythms written for solo percussionist or percussion ensemble with theatricality by using tools that tap visually, aurally, or emotionally into senses or aspects of sentiment, and are made possible with the use of compositional additives such as movement, speech, props and costuming, and/or technological multimedia avenues. Although this style remains a popular repertoire choice for percussionists worldwide, without a name or direct affiliation to any one musical genre, its current status provides a vague, cross-categorization of compositional species, and is at risk of becoming an extinct performance art subgenre. This book investigates its place in music history, in addition to creating a name, which may allow for a richer understanding of this style and a renewed and enhanced interest from performers and audiences alike.