2024 Wrap Up

Happy 2025! Last year, I didn’t get to this till March, but I’m proud to say I’m writing this on Dec. 31, 2024.

Like I keep saying, it’s nice to look back, take stock of what happened, and reflect a bit. Archiving all of this along the way is me smelling the roses while it’s happening and helping me be able to write this blog a little faster. Let’s get to it!

Two and a half years since retiring from the military, things still haven’t changed much and might’ve actually gotten busier. Gigs with Herr Metal, Dr.FU, Nowhere Men, and Eyes of the Nile continue as the classical stuff does.

EOTN have been traveling a lot more. In January, we drove down to Florida for two shows - Conduit in Orlando and the Heavy Metal Beach Party in Miami Beach. This was a Saturday night send off party for the 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise (the biggest heavy metal cruise in the world!) the following day. We shared the stage with about 5 other bands (all using my kit-ugh) and the let’s just say, making it all happen was a bit of a cluster. But the gig itself was a total blast. Completely random, my friend Javon happened to be in town playing with the Cleveland Orchestra and was staying across the street! We even got a visit from Bobby Koelble, the guitarist from Death, and our sound engineer/drummer friend from NOVA, James Alesio. If that wasn’t enough, the husband and wife photography team of Glenn and Wendy Woodell who usually shoot us in Virginia Beach just happened to be down there as well!

We were also featured on a couple more podcasts - Matt’s Mosh Pit and Metal Euporia!

We continue to perform at Tally Ho, Elevation 27, State Theatre, Orange County Fair, Phantom Power, and added some new venues - Amos Southend (NC), Ember Music Hall (Richmond-where 3 of my hometown friends surprised me with a visit!), ODC (MD), Conduit (Orlando), Recher (Baltimore), and Broken Goblet (PA). Next year, we’re heading to Pittsburgh (at least twice), Rochester, McHenry, IL; Dunellan, NJ; and more to be announced soon. The Orange County Fair is always a good time since for the past two years we’ve been joined by Chris Caffery (Savatage, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Doro) on stage for a couple songs.

We made the obligatory stop to Stephen Keeler’s amazing Rock Fantasy Records and filmed an amazing video that we used to reveal the complete album we would play at the August Tally Ho show. Check it out!

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15oMUh76fu/

Check out our schedule and all other info at https://www.eyesofthenile.com/

In the classical world, the biggest news is that I’ve been appointed Principal Percussionist/Assistant Timpanist of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra. I’ve been playing with the ASO on and off for the past 15+ years with some concerts as Principal, so it’s an honor to take on this role for real. I’m looking forward to what the future holds for this orchestra! Highlights of this past season include Appalachian Spring, Carnival Overture, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite, Shostakovich 5, Carmina Burana, Higdon’s Concerto 4-3, and Gavilan’s Piano Concerto (hardest vibraphone part I ever played!).

Other performances include the goth rock Sanctus show in Melbourne, FL (the second of three times I’d be in FL in ‘24), Andrew Simpson Ensemble (performing music composed by Andrew for silent films), American Festival Pops Orchestra, American Pops (Michelle Yeoh in attendance!), a clinic at Marshal Middle School, my debut with the 21st Century Consort, and a handful of church gigs. I’m continuing teaching at Catholic University and helping coach the amazing kids at Maryland Youth Symphony Orchestras. This summer I also helped out the Williamsburg High School Band Camp. It was hot!

Here are some pics capturing the year in music.

This is the second year in a row I kept track of all the books I read, but I don’t think I shared on my blog yet. I love reading more and more and hope to dive into even more books in 2025. Here is what I read this year.

Concerts I went to - Metallica (Gillette Stadium!), Trans Siberian Orchestra, Atarashii Gakko (fun teenage catchy Japanese pop), Styx/Foreigner/John Waite, Slipknot, and Ottoboke Beaver (ferocious Japanese punk/metal).

It’s always nice to contribute to new music and that happened again when I was asked to record some more songs for the new, full length Animal Ion album due out January 18. I’m on the songs “Tuff,” “I Won’t Change,” and “One Track Mind.” You can also listen to some tunes here.

I did some traveling - Florida 3 times all for musical reasons (one of them I can’t reveal till 2025), Tennessee to visit my Dad on his 90th birthday-

Then MA for my niece’s baby shower (Greyson!) I went up again for Xmas and got to spend more time with the little cutie.

In June, I took a trip to the beautiful city of Toronto. Of course, I hit every Rush site I could handle.

Enough said!

Cool art, but the location is pretty dreary.

Legislative Assembly of Ontario, where the Moving Pictures cover was shot.

Where Rush recorded the live album, "All the World's a Stage"

Rush on the Walk of Fame

Henderson Brewery-home of Rush beer!

Oh, there are other things in Toronto! I also hit Casa Loma, CN Tower, Hockey Hall of Fame, Niagara Falls, Toronto Islands, St. Lawrence Market, Nathan Philip’s Square, Harbourfront, Music Garden, Kensington Market, and the Royal Ontario Museum. Oh, and an amazing dinner at Antler.

Well, I think that about sums things up. Here is to another eventful year. On the horizon is a trip to Cancun, China, and Iceland. Maybe I’ll fit some gigs in between that too. Happy New Year!!

2020: The Wrap

There isn’t much to say about 2020 that we don’t already know. It left a lot of people unemployed, furloughed, relocated, and struggling mentally as well. I’ve been holed up at home most of the time and grateful I have a job that supports me. It still isn’t easy not seeing people as much and I think we’ve realized how much we need human interaction. As great as Zoom is, it’s obviously not the same.

I had the time to put together some projects that would have NEVER have happened if it wasn’t for the pandemic. Not one to sit around, there ended up being a ton of music projects. And reading!

January started with a massive bang as Eyes of the Nile (Iron Maiden tribute) opened up a show at Tally Ho (first time!) to a pretty damn nice crowd. There’s some great footage here. A couple days later, I’d realize that I would be playing there again the following week.

I wrote about this in an earlier blog (RIP Neil Peart 1952-2020), but it was one of the craziest times of my life. I flew to NAMM (in Anaheim), flew back a couple days later (to Virginia), last minute sub gig (on one week notice) for the Rush tribute, Sun Dogs at a sold out Tally Ho Theatre (Neil Peart just died the week before), flew back to NAMM (Anaheim!) the next day, shot a video of Rush’s Limelight for Soultone Cymbals, and flew back to Virginia that same night/morning. This was in a span of 8 days. A couple hours later I was rehearsing a concert with the US Navy Band and Johan De Meij conducting his own works (some of the hardest xylophone I ever had to play). The same week, De Meij also conducted a program of his own arrangements for brass and percussion with Barclay Brass. Some of his timpani parts were a challenge!

A couple more Dr.FU, Eyes of the Nile, and Nowhere Men (acoustic Beatles tribute), and classical gigs later, the pandemic hit. Things got cancelled one by one and while the concerts with the Navy Band all got cancelled (including trips to Norway for the International Tattoo) and Singapore, funerals went on mostly as planned albeit “modified.” We started doing a ton of video productions from home and I contributed audio and video to these “virtual collabs":

• When I’m 64 (drumset/vibes)

• Luz for clarinet and percussion (cajon, claves, shaker)

• Dance of the Rose Maidens mallet quartet (xylophone)

• 1812 Overture finale (bass drum)

• “Instruments from a Distance” which was a short percussion demo demonstrating the coolness of percussion:) I played a little drumset, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, conga, marimba, glockenspiel, castanets, timpani, vibraphone, and tambourine.

• Double Stroke Roll explanation

• Stars and Stripes Forever (bass drum)

• Mahler 2 (excerpt-timpani 1)

I also recorded Pomp and Circumstance (timpani and bass drum) for the virtual graduation for New England Conservatory graduates.

Nowhere Men recorded a bunch of collabs that I edited:

• She Loves You

• The Inner Light

• Dear Prudence

• This Boy

• The Night Before

• With A Little Help From My Friends

• Because

• Taxman

• I Call Your Name

• Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

• You’re Gonna Lose That Girl

• From Me To You

I recorded multi cam drum videos for these great songs:

• Red Barchetta (Rush)

• Tom Sawyer (Rush)

• The Mirror and the Ripper (Volbeat)

• Still Counting (Volbeat)

• Siberian Sleigh Ride (for Transiberian Orchestra contest)

• Cult of Personality (Living Colour) (and mini lesson)

• Vital Signs (Rush) (in editing mode)

The band collabs were:

• Hang On For Your Life (Shooting Star)

• Dreams (Van Halen-with musician friends)

• The Evil That Men Do (Iron Maiden-with Eyes of the Nile)

• Indians (Anthrax, updated with Navid singing and special guests)

• Learning to Live (Dream Theater, updated with Zink on vocals)

These were fun duets where I played both parts:

• Telemann Duet : Allegro

• Philidor Timpani Duet

I also recorded some albums for some amazing musician friends-

• Navid Rashid 6-song EP (currently being mixed by Steve Brown-Def Leppard, Trixter, Dennis DeYoung, and many more)

• Three songs for Zink Hossain’s band Shumaun. Their new album is slated for a summer 2021 release.

• Composer/Guitarist D.J. Sparr’s new album Hard Metal Cantüs. See previous blog.

Two of the biggest projects were labors of love-my new book “The Rite of Spring- A Percussionist’s Guide” and my first teaching course called The Single Stroke Roll. I wrote about them already in detail, so check out the links! I also made a list of some of my biggest pieces of advice for musicians called 13 Strategies in Becoming a Successful Musician. I really feel like anyone can benefit from this (for life), so check it out!

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And more:

• Virtual masterclass for DMV Percussion Academy

• Virtual masterclass for UMASS Lowell percussion studio

• Friday Night Live live stream with Herr Metal and live show at Middle(metal!)burg Barn

• Live stream (and podcast) with the all new viola duet “Violacentric” playing three Bach Inventions (marimba and viola)

• Two live shows (the second closing out 2020 on NYE!) outside the State Theatre with Nowhere Men

• Multiple podcasts with the metal folks at Somewhere in Time

NOT musically related, I got through these books:

• I Will Teach You to Be Rish

• Far and Wide (Neil Peart)

• Far and Away (Neil Peart)

• Random Acts of Kindness

• The Infinite Variety of Music (Bernstein)

• Sebastian Maniscalco autobiography

• Liberty: Life, Billy, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Liberty Devitto)

• Rules of Thumb

• Bulletproof Diet

• Leonard Bernstein autobiography (Burton)

• Crime and Punishment

• Confess (Rob Halford)

Homeownerwise, I had three trees cut down and a new roof put on!!

And finally, I want to share an excerpt from my current reading (The 12 Week Year). This hits the nail on the head for me:

In most areas of life, we have very little control over our outcomes - especially when dealing with other human beings.

We can try to INFLUENCE our outcomes. We can change what we are doing and see how that impacts our desired outcome. But we can’t control our outcomes.

So it’s critical to pay attention to and know what you do have control over, versus what you don't have control over.

By knowing this, you can both make smarter decisions, and have healthier reactions in all of life’s situations.

Here are some things you can control as we head into the new year…

You can control what time you get up in the morning.

You can control how much effort you put into today’s work.

You can control whether you ask for help when you need it.

You can control what percentage of time you let yourself be distracted throughout the day.

You can control what opportunities you pursue, and what energy and effort you put into realizing them.

You can control having the right equipment and supplies around you, and how you take care of them so they’ll be ready when you need them.

You can control your training and preparedness for whatever you will be taking on.

You can control where you focus your emotional and intellectual energy and intention.

You can control how you treat others.

You can control what you bring to any given situation.

You can control your decisions and actions.

You can control your mindset.

You can control you.

At a foundational level, you control your thinking and your actions, and that is about it. But that is enough, IF, you are intentional with it.

If you’ve made it this far (Bueller…Bueller…??), thanks for reading and Happy New Year!!!

-Chris

The Rite of Spring-A Percussionist's Guide

I wrote a book!

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This was NOT the plan. There was NO plan. During this pandemic (around April/June 2020), I revisited an old paper I wrote in grad school about the percussion parts in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” I always thought it could be in Percussive Notes magazine (the classical percussion version of Modern Drummer magazine) and began to read through it 25+ years later. I contacted the Percussive Arts Society about publishing it (as an article) and they were all for it. While editing it, it got longer and longer - way too long for an article in a magazine. I thought - ebook! And then it occurred to me, this could be both - paperback AND ebook. Why not? And that’s what it became.

That is the extremely short version, but it’s all in the Preface:)

This book discusses all the editions of the scores/parts and many of the discrepancies between them. These discrepancies have resulted in many different ways of interpreting the parts - since 1913! My goal was not only to shed some light on these issues but offer many options, ideas, anecdotes, and personal experience into performing/conducting this monster of a work.

Percussionists and conductors will both benefit from this book and it’s my hope that it will not only be enlightening, but used as a resource for many years!

Also covered:

• Choosing the right instruments

• Creating the ideal sound in specific passages

• Choosing an ideal set up, especially for the timpanists

• Practical performer considerations within the context of real orchestral experience

• Historical context that helps all of the above

• Thinking about the specific sounds for each instrument’s part

• Options for performing certain passages

• Musical examples providing harmonic and rhythmic context with other percussion instruments and the rest of the orchestra

  Not only will percussionists and timpanists benefit from this, but conductors as well.

  If you’re interested, check it out here!

For the diehard fan, I made a video of the section from 3 before 65-71 and 72-79 . Check it out!