2025 PAS Award Winners Announced
2025 PAS Award Winners Announced
by
September 30, 2025
Congratulations to each of the deserving winners of the 2025 Percussive Arts Society Awards. These recipients show the breadth and depth of our percussion community, and embody the ideals of service, education, and preserving our history.
“Without leaders like these, we would not have such a great history to celebrate at PASIC50 this year,” said Joshua Simonds, PAS Executive Director. “They give us all an ideal to aspire to.”
Learn more about each of this year’s winners below.
PAS Supporter Award
David and Colette Wood
David and Colette Wood, 2025 PAS Supporter of the Year honorees, are generous advocates for percussion and the arts. Their contributions include: the David and Colette Wood Billy Gladstone Exhibit, significant financial support for PAS initiatives, and active service on PAS committees. Beyond the drumming world, they champion outreach and education that highlights percussion’s role in the broader arts community. Their commitment, vision, and leadership embody the spirit of this award.
PAS President’s Industry Award
Jerry Goldenson, KHS America
Jerry Goldenson always had a love for music growing up, with many fond memories of playing drums in clubs and weddings as early as 12 years old. He later toured and recorded with many bands over the years, but landed in the music industry in a retail music store at Pianos N’ Stuff Music. That was the start of a musical journey that married his business acumen and education with his love of music. As with many of our leaders, working in retail was only the beginning. Jerry’s dream of combining his passion for music and business gained traction with escalating roles in all aspects of our industry, from sales, marketing, operations, artist relations and product/brand management, including gigs at Sonor, Mapex and Pearl to name a few. His industry experience and reputation got the attention of KHS America, for whom he became president in 2016. It has been a whirlwind ride but one driven by his belief that music is an essential part of life and that success is driven by finding ways to make a difference in the lives around you. Jerry epitomizes the PAS President’s Industry Award, whether it’s bringing new products to market, encouraging his employees, or maintaining an unrelenting focus on his responsibility to his team, educators, artists and our industry.
PAS Service Award
Dr. Elizabeth DeLamater
Dr. Elizabeth DeLamater is a percussion and steelpan performer, educator, and scholar. Recent highlights include the National Women’s Music Festival, the Northwest Percussion Festival, and the Honduras International Percussion festival.
Dr. DeLamater has performed, researched, and taught in Honduras, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, the Gambia, Ghana, Senegal, Japan, Taiwan, and throughout North America. She has taught at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine in Trinidad & Tobago, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Youngstown State University, and North Central College. She teaches percussion, world music, and music technology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and is the principal timpanist of the Weidner Philharmonic.
Committed to realizing the ideal that drums and percussion are for everybody, Dr. DeLamater is Chair of the Percussive Arts Society Diversity Alliance Committee. Her work has been published by Instrumentalist, Percussive Notes, Rhythm! Scene, and Panpress.
Dr. DeLamater holds degrees from Arizona State University, Florida State University, and Northern Illinois University. Her principal teachers include Vicki P. Jenks, Dr. Clifford Alexis, G. Allan O’Connor, Robert Chappell, Rich Holly, Gary Werdesheim, J.B. Smith, and Mark Sunkett
PAS Chapter Award
Tennessee
We congratulate the PAS Tennessee Chapter in winning the PAS Chapter award. Tennessee’s chapter officers are: Dave England, President; Cassidy Lester, Vice President; Bill Shaltis, Secretary; and George Barrett, Treasurer.
Lifetime Achievement in Education Award
Thomas L. Davis
In 1958, Davis was a founding member of Dick Schory’s Percussion Pops Orchestra and a recording artist for RCA. In demand as a musician in Chicago, he had just been offered a position with one of the city’s top radio orchestras when influential musician and educator Himie Voxman asked him to become the University of Iowa’s first Professor of Percussion. At that time there were no more than a half-dozen university-level percussion jobs in the country. Davis and his wife, Pat, moved to Iowa City “for a couple of years.” That couple of years turned into a 38-year tenure at the University of Iowa.
By 1959, Davis had enough percussion students to form the Concert Percussion Ensemble – then one of only a handful of university percussion groups. He formed the University of Iowa Percussion Octette in 1967, one of the first university percussion ensembles to release an LP record. In the early 1970s, Davis established the Iowa jazz area, which he headed until 1990. He also led the Hawkeye Marching Band.
Davis wrote many compositions and arrangements for an array of instruments, but most important are his works for percussion. In the mid-1960s, little repertoire existed for percussion ensemble. Davis penned dozens of original compositions and arrangements for percussion that became standard in the repertoire, influencing generations of young percussionists. A number of these works exhibit Davis’s well-known sense of humor. He was also the author of Voicing and Comping for Jazz Vibraphone, published by Hal Leonard in 1999.
That sense of humor became legendary during a memorable Iowa football halftime show. Knowing that the Purdue University Marching Band would be flaunting their infamous “world’s largest drum,” Davis worked with a local manufacturer so that the Hawkeye Marching Band could parade onto the field with the “world’s largest triangle,” a 4-foot steel behemoth. The triangle is still part of Iowa Percussion’s collection, kept in an undisclosed secure location.
Davis was born in Casper, Wyoming. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in percussion performance from Northwestern University. Students from his 38-year tenure at the University of Iowa include performers, educators, school of music deans and directors, and professionals in a variety of other fields. Notable among his many outstanding students are percussionist Steven Schick and jazz musician David Sanborn.
Professor Davis retired from teaching at the University of Iowa in 1996. To honor him, alumni, former students, and friends established an endowment through the UI Foundation that funds the Thomas L. Davis Percussion Award.
Lifetime Achievement in Education Award
Rich Holly
Rich Holly is a drummer, percussionist, composer, producer, arts leader and arts consultant. With performance credits around the world, award-winning audio and film productions, and decades of both university and nonprofit leadership experience, Rich is a frequent consultant for artists and arts organizations.
From 2015 – 2023, Rich was the Executive Director for the Arts at NC State University. Prior to his appointment at NC State, Rich served as the Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Northern Illinois University, where he was also Professor of Percussion for 32 years. Rich began his career in higher education as the Director of Percussion and Jazz at Western Colorado University.
Rich has been active in numerous arts ventures. Currently serving as a board member for Music Therapy Retreats, Rich was recently Chair of the Board of Directors of Triangle ArtWorks, and currently serves as a member of the President’s Advisory Board for Triangle Youth Music and on the Advisory Board of The NEXT Festival of Emerging Artists. Active in the Percussive Arts Society, Rich served as the President of PAS in 2005 and 2006 and has also served on the Council of Past Presidents and the Board of Advisors.
Rich’s production credits include serving as Session Producer for several releases by the MusicEducatorsDR label, Executive Producer of The Nile Project’s 2019 award-winning release Tana, and Executive Producer and music arranger for the full-length feature film The $30,000 Bequest. He composed and performed the music for the multiple award-winning film All the Possibilities.
As a percussionist, Rich remains active as a solo performer and clinician, and has appeared over 400 times at schools, colleges, universities, conventions and festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Asia and South America. Rich received his formal training at the Crane School of Music of the State University of New York at Potsdam and East Carolina University.
Rich was a founding member of the Abraxas Percussion Group, and has performed with the Long Island Holiday Festival Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of New York, and the North Carolina Symphony. For 11 seasons Rich was Timpanist of the Illinois Chamber Symphony.
As a drumset artist, Rich has appeared with Allen Vizzutti, John Fedchock, Ethel Merman, Red Skelton, Bob McGrath and Sesame Street, Petey Pablo, Terminator X, and many others. From 1984 to 1999 Rich played drums and percussion with Inner City recording artists Rhythmic Union. Rich’s articles have appeared in almost every major music journal, and from 1986 to 2002 he was the Associate Editor for Percussive Notes magazine. His published percussion compositions are sold around the world, and his popular book, “Majoring in Music: All the Stuff You Need to Know,” is available from booksellers world-wide. Rich is honored to be on the artist rosters of Yamaha Music Corporation of America, Sabian Cymbals, Ltd., Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets, and Latin Percussion (LP Music), and is the proud recipient of the 2024 Yamaha Legacy Award for his commitment to music education.
Lifetime Achievement in Education Award
Douglas J. Wolf
Professor Douglas Wolf has devoted his life to advancing percussion education through every aspect of his distinguished 42-year career as a master teacher and performer.
The University of Utah Percussion Ensemble received international acclaim under the direction of Professor Wolf. His students won the Percussive Arts Society’s Percussion Ensemble Contest in 1987 and again in 1991. The Ensemble performed at PASIC on both those occasions and in 1989 also became the first percussion ensemble invited to perform at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic; which opened the door for other percussion groups to participate over the years.
Professor Wolf was deeply committed to challenging his students and advancing the percussion ensemble repertoire through a series of commissions. His influence inspired composers David Gillingham, Tom Gauger, Raymond Helble, Henry Wolking, Ardean Watts, Richard Elliott and others to write exciting new works for the percussion ensemble genre. Those commissions became the centerpiece of three CD recordings titled CLASSIC WORKS FOR PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE Volumes 1,2, and 3. The musical excellence displayed on those recordings inspired a generation of percussionists, and continues to be a benchmark for percussion ensembles today.
As an ambassador for percussion, Professor Wolf arranged for the University of Utah Percussion Ensemble to perform on a worldwide television broadcast at the Crystal Cathedral for Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power in 1991. In 1995 the Ensemble also produced a PBS television special with KUED television. Enthusiasm for percussion soared at the University of Utah under Professor Wolf’s leadership and percussion students filled two percussion ensembles, a marimba ensemble, and an honors youth high school percussion ensemble.
Professor Wolf also used his own performing commitments as an opportunity to reach young percussionists with thousands of performances over a life-time career. As Principal Percussionist with the Ballet West Orchestra it was customary for Professor Wolf to invite students into the orchestra pit for an up-close visitation. As First-Call Percussionist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, the USO routinely used Professor Wolf’s teaching skills to mentor students on tour. And, for eight years, the Brough/Wolf vibe/marimba duo toured extensively giving clinics and concerts for the Utah Arts Council. Today, Professor Wolf’s former students hold prominent positions teaching and performing throughout the United States.
Professor Wolf has been deeply involved with the Percussive Arts Society for the past 50-years. During this time, he served 12 years as the founding Chair of the PAS Percussion Ensemble Committee. He also served eight years on the International Board of Directors and another eight years as President of the Utah Chapter of PAS. In 1998, Professor Wolf was honored by the Percussive Arts Society with the Outstanding Service Award.
Professor Wolf’s exemplary teaching at the University of Utah has been praised by the Utah Music Educators Association Special Recognition Award, the Utah State Board of Education Outstanding Service to Education Award, and the Utah Chapter of PAS Lifetime Service Award. Professor Wolf retired in 2018 and was awarded Professor Emeritus status by the University of Utah School of Music.
Upon arriving in Utah, Professor Wolf established the annual Utah Percussion Festival which after several years became the Utah PAS Day of Percussion. He worked tirelessly to promote and host this event. The Day of Percussion has grown to an enrollment of approximately 800 students who each year participate in solo/ensemble performances and attend clinics by the nation’s leading percussion artists. The Utah Day of Percussion which Professor Wolf began, has been promoted by PAS as a model nationally and internationally.
