Percussion in the Personal:
Highlighting Individualized Practices
Call for Proposals
For many percussionists, training is rooted in drum set, marching, or orchestral traditions. While the prevalence of snare drum- and keyboard-based pedagogy suggests a monolithic instrumental practice, the contemporary percussion landscape encompasses a staggering diversity of styles, techniques, materials, and media. Today, many percussionists cultivate highly individualized practices beyond their core training. These personal practices develop through intimate connection with a specific instrument, body of work, genre, style, or tradition. We take as inspiration figures such as Max Neuhaus’s work at the intersection of percussion and sound art, John Bergamo’s fusion of non-Western traditions, Sarah Hennies’s work built from repetition and fragility, or Susie Ibarra’s improvisational practice built on the rhythms of nature. As hosts we are interested in what other personalized practices are at work within, or on the margins of, our community today.
PASIC 2026 Artist Applications
PASIC 2026 Artist Applications will open for submission on January 6, 2026. Please prepare before creating your submission by reading the information below. All applications will be due January 26, 2026, when the application form will close. To apply to present for NM/R, fill out the general PASIC application when it is open and choose the New Music/Research category.
We invite proposals for performances that represent the multitude of personalized practices within the percussion community. Orienting concepts may include, but are not limited to, specialized practices (work-centric or improvisatory) built around:
- specific instruments or objects
- innovative techniques
- interdisciplinary media
- (ex. percussion-as-film, percussion-as-visual-art, etc.)
- distinct modes of interpretation
- (ex. historical re-imaginings, approaches to notation, discursive norms)
- distinct modes of classification
- (ex. genre/subgenre, roles of composer/performer/audience, etc.)
Proposals should clearly describe the nature and context of the applicant’s personal practice. All proposals that meet the above criteria and qualify for inclusion on the 2026 PASIC New Music/Research Day will be given complete and careful consideration. Submissions from artists of all genders, races, ethnicities, nationalities, backgrounds, and stages of study or career are welcome, and submissions from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color are particularly encouraged.
Please note that all expenses, as well as the securing of instruments and funding sources, will be the sole responsibility of the artist(s) themselves. This includes all logistical and financial considerations associated with the performance. Please prepare and submit your proposal with these considerations in mind.
Focus Day Hosts: Dustin Donahue, Michael Jones, and Reed Puleo
