ABOUT Gordon Stout

SESSION TITLE: The Music of Gordon Stout

GORDON STOUT (b.1952) is Professor Emeritus at the School of Music, Ithaca College, Ithaca, N.Y., where he taught from 1980 through 2019. A composer as well as percussionist who specializes on marimba, he has studied composition with Joseph Schwantner, Samuel Adler and Warren Benson, and percussion with James Salmon and John Beck.

Many of his compositions for marimba are published, and have already become standard repertoire for marimbists world-wide. A frequent lecture-recitalist for the Percussive Arts Society, he has appeared at more than a dozen International PAS Conventions to date as featured marimbist, as well as throughout the United States and Canada, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hungary, Bulgaria, Mexico, Denmark, Puerto Rico, Italy, Greece, and Spain.. In May of 1983 he performed clinics and recitals in France, Germany, Holland and Belgium with “transcendental virtuosity” being described as “the Rubinstein of all aspects of the marimba”.

Gordon has been on the Jury of seven different international marimba competitions. On new years day in 2006 he conducted a 100 person marimba orchestra in the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan as part of the Taiwan International Percussion Convention. His composition “New York Triptych” for marimba orchestra, was commissioned by and written for the 50th anniversary celebration of the Percussive Arts Society, premiered at PASIC 2011 in Indianapolis, IN. He has also conducted marimba orchestras in Australia, Croatia, and throughout the United States. Most recently he conducted a marimba orchestra of 75 persons on 120 marimbas at Kutztown University in PA in November of 2015.

Gordon was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in November of 2012. In 2019 his newest venture was launched: G&C Music, which will be the new home of Full Circle Publications and StoutWorks. Gordon Stout owns and plays a 5.0 marimba made by Coe Percussion. It features a Deagan inspired tubular frame with Composition Resonators. For more information go to www.coepercussion.com.