The University of North Texas Percussion Ensemble is UNT’s advanced chamber percussion ensemble, featuring an auditioned group of undergraduate and graduate percussion majors. The group is under the artistic direction of Dave Hall. The group has performed internationally, recorded extensively, and presented clinics and showcase concerts at major conventions and venues around the country. The ensemble is part of a vibrant Percussion Area that features Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, Gamelan, South Indian and African Ensembles; Steel Band, Marching Percussion, and three Contemporary Classical Percussion Ensembles. The University of North Texas College of Music is the largest public university music program in the United States and one of the most globally respected. Faculty and staff include internationally acclaimed artists and scholars in composition, conducting, ethnomusicology, jazz studies, music education, music business, music history, music theory, commercial music and performance. The college presents more than 700 music events annually. Students perform in more than 70 ensembles in eight campus venues and can be viewed worldwide via free superior quality live streaming. UNT music alumni can be found around the world in impressive, award-winning careers across a wide range of music professions. Our students come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and more than 40 countries.

Dave Hall is Associate Professor of Percussion at the University of North Texas College of Music, where he directs the UNT Percussion Ensemble and teaches applied lessons and courses on percussion literature, history, and pedagogy. Before his appointment at UNT, he was Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Under his direction, the University of Nebraska Percussion Ensemble was selected to perform a showcase concert at PASIC in both 2019 and 2016 as winners of the Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Competition (IPEC), and the UNT Percussion Ensemble was selected as an IPEC Winner in 2025.

He regularly performs as a keyboard and multi-percussion soloist, collaborative chamber musician (especially in contemporary classical settings), jazz drummer, timpanist, orchestral percussionist, steel pan player, and improviser – favoring an eclectic and omnivorous approach to percussion and the arts. He enjoys commissioning and recording works for solo percussion as well as producing collaborative recording projects with his students. In addition to regular engagements in the contiguous United States, he has performed abroad in Spain, Puerto Rico, Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, and at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Dave is an active composer, published by C. Alan Publications. His works for percussion have been commissioned, performed, and recorded around the world. His music has been called “the aural equivalent of a Dali painting” (New York Concert Review). His compositions are regularly performed at notable venues including the Midwest Clinic, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy, and at major concert halls and performing arts centers in the USA and abroad. He is regularly involved nationally and internationally as an adjudicator and clinician for concert and marching percussion. Since 2019, he has been a member of the DCI World Champion Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps as Associate Music Ensemble Coordinator and Music Design Consultant.

Dave is an endorsing artist for Innovative Percussion, Pearl/Adams, Remo, Sabian, and is a member of the Black Swamp Percussion Educator Network. He is co-chair of the PAS Percussion Ensemble Committee and was recently a member of the PAS Board of Advisors. He currently resides in Denton, TX with his wife Elizabeth and their three children.