Patrick Roulet is the Percussion Area Coordinator at Western Washington University where he teaches percussion and world music and directs the WWU Percussion Ensemble. His previous teaching appointments have included full-time tenured positions at Towson University and Southern Utah University and eight seasons as the percussion instructor at the New England Music Camp in Maine.
A seasoned pedagogue with over 20 years of experience, he has taught all levels and ages of percussionists from beginners to collegiate undergraduate and graduate students. His emphasis on core competencies within the larger field of percussion has enabled his students to excel as performers and teachers in a wide range of musical pursuits from solo and chamber percussion to jazz, world, and popular music. Many of his students have earned scholarship awards and performance honors and have gone on to professional careers in music.

Patrick enjoys the unique challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration and frequently seeks out opportunities to work with composers, dance choreographers, and artists. Recent projects include the landmark recording of the early percussion music of Michael Colgrass, the musical score to The Traveling Feet with the Deep Vision Dance Company in Baltimore, and performances utilizing kinetic light instruments created by artists Jenn Figg and Matthew McCormack.
As a freelance percussionist he has performed with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera Orchestras, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, the Seattle Chamber Orchestra, Opera Lafayette (Washington D.C.), and the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet in Seattle. His performances as the principal timpanist of the American Sinfonietta and the Bellingham Festival Orchestra have frequently been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and his performance of Joseph Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion was praised by critics as “utterly in control and inspiring.”

His research on the life and music of jazz vibraphonist Milt Jackson has been referenced by jazz scholars and was featured as the cover story for Percussive Notes, the official journal of the Percussive Arts Society (PAS). Other research interests include the music and culture of the traditional xylophone of Ghana and its application to the pedagogy of the western marimba. His article, “Teaching the Marimba through West African Gyil Methodologies” (Percussive Notes, (July 2010): 16-21.) was based on his studies with Aaron Bebe Sukura at the University of Ghana in 2006.

He has arranged several collections of music for keyboard percussion including Church Hymns for Marimba, Folk Songs for Marimba, Christmas Carols for Marimba, and Johann Sebastian Bach: Music for Marimba published by Meredith Music and the Beatles for Vibraphone, the Beatles for Marimba, and Christmas Songs for Vibraphone published by Hal Leonard.

He earned degrees in percussion performance from the University of Washington (DMA), Boston University (MM) and the University of Michigan (BM). His teachers have included many of the leading percussion performers and educators in the United States including: Michael Crusoe (Seattle Symphony), Tom Collier (University of Washington), Charles Smith (Boston Symphony), Tom Gauger (Boston Symphony) Michael Udow (University of Michigan), Laurence Kaptain (University of Michigan), Salvatore Rabbio (Detroit Symphony, PAS Hall of Fame), Randall Eyles (US Air Force Band), Ken Harbison (National Symphony), and Garwood Whaley (Author/Educator).
Patrick has performed and presented at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) and the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. He is a Yamaha Performing Artist and endorser of Grover Pro Percussion and Vic Firth.

For more info: http://www.prpercussion.com

The works contained in this project reflect an important period in the musical development of composer Michael Colgrass from his first composition, Three Brothers written in 1951, to one of his most popular chamber pieces, Variations for Four Drums and Viola written in 1957.