Redwood Percussionist Making Some Noise at PAS!

On Friday, May 2nd and Saturday, May 3rd a group of Redwood’s percussionists traveled to Fresno State University and Shaghoian Hall in Clovis to perform their percussive ensemble pieces at PAS’ 34th annual Day of Percussion. 

By: Ella Chan

PAS, the Percussive Arts Society, is a non-profit organization for percussionists and percussion educators around the country, seeking to inspire, educate, and support. Every year, they host their Day of Percussion event where percussionists around can perform either a solo or duet, or an ensemble-based piece. 

This year they hosted a solo/duet portion at Fresno State University where Aiden Lupian, ‘25, and Seth Souza, ‘25, performed their marching snare drum duet “Roadrunner” and Jovial Blair, ’26, marimba solo, “Eden”. Souza’s and Lupian’s duet managed to earn them 3rd place out of 5 and Blair’s solo got her 20th place out of 23.

On day 2 the ensemble pieces were performed at Shaghoian Hall where the piece “Truncated” was performed by Souza, Lupian, and Matthias ‘Xander’ Cecena-Caballero, ‘25. The 2nd piece they brought, titled “Black Racers”, was performed by Blair, Anne Wu, ‘26, Sarah Buckley, ‘28, and Johnny Grove, ‘26.

On the two ensemble pieces, the groups managed to earn a Superior rating, the highest possible scoring bracket. 

PAS Day 1

Blair had been working on her marimba solo since November. Although she isn’t the proudest of her placement, the experience has been beneficial to her nonetheless. Through this experience alone she’s bettered her skills with playing the instrument.

She’s bettered her skill of performing in front of an audience alone. “That was my first time playing the solo with like a bunch of people in front of it whereas at CMEA it was only Joey and Adrian [Redwood Percussion Techs].”

“Going to PAS was really fun, we got to hang out in Fresno all day. It was also really fun to play a solo and hear the feedback from the judges.” Blair said, “Just little things about dynamics and tempo” which were some ideas the judges shared with her. 

For the marching snare duet, the piece holds up some more meaning for Souza and Lupian. The piece was actually written by Souza with some help from his duet partner. 

“Seth is a really good friend of mine,” Lupian explains, “we planned to do this last year but we couldn’t do it because we didn’t sign up in time. But it was definitely a highlight because we’ve been drumming with each other for so long and I know it’s something we both wanted to do.”

This duet was a great send-off for the two percussionists. 

“We went a lot farther with that piece than I thought we were going to,” Souza said, “and I’m genuinely proud of mine and Aiden’s hard work.”

Similarly, Lupian went in not knowing what to expect but the results were one to be proud of nonetheless. He shares, “They [competitors] looked like they knew what they were doing. I don’t think any of them were doing a marching snare. It was more like concert stuff, which I thought was going to get a lot more points just because it’s concert.” 

Despite his concerns, the style of performance did not affect their score, and at the end of the event the top groups got a group picture together. Souza recalls the smiling faces across the duos, a highlight for him at the event.

Putting together a performance as this was no easy task, time was not on Lupain and Souza’s side this time around. Souza had a job to juggle on top of this while Lupian had Winter Percussion, jazz band, and regular school work taking up a chunk of his time. Not to mention both of them were on the ensemble piece ‘Truncated’. 

“It’s very conflicting trying to find a good time for us to work together on it. And actually learning it, it had some hard rhythms. But other than that, it was an easy process,” Lupian said.

Souza admits that despite finishing up the music around early February they used the last 2 weeks before the event to really get the music down.

Through this, Souza was able to better his patience. He opens up, “It wasn’t clean the first time, it wasn’t clean the second time or the third but eventually it did get cleaned out. And so I just have to trust the process and know that eventually the job would get done.”

PAS Day 2

‘Black Racer’ was in the works for the group for a month or two. Some challenges the ensemble faced all together were blend and balance and playing evenly with one another.

Blair admits having to perform in PAS was a lot. “I was definitely very busy, especially that weekend but it was also really fun… It’s really cool to hear the clinicians and it’s really fun to play ensemble pieces!”

Wu recalls, “When we had a clinic right after, the clinic is in front of everyone and it was on stage for a lot of people in the audience, the clinician made us sing our parts.” Despite the experience being slightly embarrassing for the bunch, she and Grove found it helpful. “I think it was a helpful tip,” Wu said. 

Through their rehearsals and performance, they improved their musical ear and tuning into one another. Wu shares, “I’d say it’s much harder in a smaller ensemble to make sure that you’re playing directly with everyone else so if you can play well in a small ensemble then you can definitely improve in a big ensemble.”

Grove adds onto this, agreeing this is a skill he’s improved on. “It helped me a bit because me and Jovie had to match dynamics and the clinician made me set an example for what the dynamic should be. By singing the part!” 

“It’s definitely made me better working in an ensemble and like paying attention to musicality.” Blair shares. 

Buckley adds how she was worried to mess up despite being in a smaller group. It was a struggle to hear the music around her.

“I feel like I was super scared of tearing and getting off.” Buckley said, “But I think overall we did pretty good, I was just scared about getting off tempo or slowing down.”

“I was super scared I was going to mess it [bell set duet] up because I couldn’t hear anything but my mom recorded it and I listened back to it sounded really good.” She shares. However, she did not let her nerves get the best of her and she performed proudly.

The challenges didn’t stop when it came to the music, but also in the instruments they had to use. Wu shares another struggle was carrying several instruments around with them. “We had to constantly had to be taking things back and forth like cymbals and stuff. Music itself wasn’t that difficult, but organizing the setup and all those things is the hardest part of doing a percussion ensemble piece.”

Regardless, members such as Grove were pleased with the experience and their results. “It wasn’t the best run but it was good,” he admits. Buckley was very proud of her and her team’s work.

Wu pointed out that being organized was an essential aspect for the group to work together. “Being organized is super important… So being prepared for all of that, and for a general life lesson being organized is going to help you succeed!”

For their piece ‘Truncated’, the three were pretty pleased with their results. Lupian admits that for them to, it was a rougher run. They faced some timing issues in the beginning which he can only describe as, “It sounded like we were surprised with what we were doing, like we weren’t ready.” But luckily enough, it cleaned up in the end earning them the superior rating. 

They had been working on the song around the same time as the ‘Black Racer’ ensemble had, roughly a month.

Lupian expresses, “Literally, because of concert band, winter percussion, we had no class time to work on it because Joey [percussion instructor] would always run other stuff and Mr. Ray would always run concert stuff.”

Managing whether the ensemble tune or the duet had priority was a challenge for Souza and Lupian. However, Lupian shares that, “Ultimately, it was an even balance of both, practicing both multiple times each week.”

Souza adds to this, “It was stressful because if we wanted to practice the duet, it would sacrifice the trio piece. But if we wanted more time with the trio then it would sacrifice the duet, so bouncing between the two was stressful.”

Despite their limited time to work on the song, they managed to make do with the equipment they had available. Souza shares that a challenge for them was the lack of the required equipment needed in one spot. 

“We would have some of our stuff at Redwood, then it would be at COS or Ridgeview, one or the other. So it was just getting everything in one place and finding a time that everyone could work with,” Souza said.

The other ensemble faced a similar challenge regarding equipment as well. 

Although it may not seem like the biggest issue, Caballero explains, “You don’t get the full experience unless you’re playing with the actual instruments you have to play with for the piece because the layout was super challenging. We struggled with making sure we had the right amount of instruments for the piece and having to share them between different people and stuff like that.” So being unable to receive proper access to the equipment definitely created a slight road bump for the group. 

Even past the technical challenges that came with the song, Lupian admits ‘Truncated’ was a hard piece. “The rhythms were pretty challenging, I’d never seen a piece arranged the way it was. We had so many instruments to work with, so it was a lot of movement.”

Caballero similarly expresses this difficulty, saying they could practice rhythms all they wanted on a drum pad, but putting it into motion with the instruments was a different experience.

After their performance, the three players picked up on skills similar to the members of ‘Black Racer’. Caballero shares how his background with Chamber Orchestra requires him to ‘use his musical ear’. Despite this, when it came to a percussion ensemble, especially without a conductor, he found it to be slightly different. 

“Everything is all just really loud and in your face and rhythms are a little less forgiving when it comes to percussion than it does with orchestra and stuff like that because percussion really is just rhythm!” Caballero said. Through this experience, he has managed to further improve and develop his musical ear. 

For Lupian, the experience reminded him to take a step back and focus on the smaller details whether it came to dynamic or technique. 

All together they learned to play with one another and make music, not only play it. 

Looking past the musical side of the experience, the performance was mutually meaningful for the trio.

I’d always wanted to perform something outside of marching band with them [Souza and Caballero], so that was really fun for me.” Lupian shares.

Souza said that though they managed to get the work done, they still had fun at rehearsals, and hanging out after was a great time for him.

Similar to Lupian, Caballero greatly appreciated getting work alongside two of his best friends. “It was a lot of fun, it was something that was pretty challenging and so we took it pretty seriously. I’d say the highlights were definitely just getting to work with Aiden and Seth on something that was a little bit more challenging.”

Without a doubt, these amazing musicians getting to participate this year in PAS has been an insightful and enjoyable experience. And after picking up some new tips and tricks when playing, they’ll be able to enhance their future musical endeavors!

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