Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." To do so, his music employs the technique of phase shifting, in which a phrase is slightly altered over time, in a flow that is clearly perceptible to the listener.
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre of the marimba is warmer, deeper, more resonant, and more pure. It also tends to have a lower range than that of a xylophone. Typically, the bars of a marimba are arranged chromatically, like the keys of a piano. The marimba is a type of idiophone.
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a vibraphonist,vibraharpist, or vibist.
Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist, composer, and educator. Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the prevailing two-mallet technique. This approach caused him to be heralded as an innovator, and his sound and technique are widely imitated. He is also known for pioneering fusion jazz and popularizing the duet format in jazz, as well as being a major figure in music education from his 30 years teaching at the Berklee College of Music.
Jason Marsalis is an American jazz drummer, vibraphone player, composer, producer, band leader, and member of the Marsalis family of musicians. He is the youngest son of Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis and the late Ellis Marsalis, Jr.
Gordon Stout is an American percussionist, composer, and educator specializing in the marimba.
Donald J. Bonebrake is an American musician who first emerged as the drummer of the punk rock band the Eyes. He is best known as an original member of and drummer for punk band X, of which he is still an active member.
Stuart Saunders Smith is an American composer and percussionist. After having studied composition and music theory at three music institutions, Smith is currently based in Vermont, United States, with his wife Sylvia. He has produced almost 200 compositions, half of which were written for percussion instruments with a focus on the vibraphone.
Douglas William Walter, DMA is Professor of Percussion at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Music, and was the first marimba and vibraphone artist to win a First Prize in the Concert Artists Guild Competition in NYC.
Matthias Dahms is a German virtuoso vibraphone and marimba soloist, percussionist and composer. He has been a percussion soloist ever since 1990, giving concerts and drum courses and mallet-instrument classes in Europe as well as overseas.
Steve Shapiro is an American music producer, session musician, and jazz vibraphonist.
Point of View is the thirteenth album by the American jazz group Spyro Gyra, released in June 1989 by GRP Records. At Billboard magazine, the album peaked at No. 120 on the Top 200 Albums chart.
Mallet Quartet is a composition by Steve Reich scored for two marimbas and two vibraphones, or for four marimbas. It was co-commissioned by the Amadinda Quartet in Budapest, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, by Nexus in Toronto, So Percussion in New York, and Synergy Percussion in Australia. It received its world premiere on December 6, 2009, at the Bela Bartók National Concert Hall in Hungary and its US premiere at Stanford University on January 9, 2010.
Clair Omar Musser (1901–1998) was a marimba virtuoso, a conductor and promoter of marimba orchestras, a composer, a teacher, a designer of keyboard percussion instruments, an inventor, and an engineer for Hughes Aircraft.
Roland Haerdtner, orig. Härdtner is a German marimba player, a soloist for mallet instruments, percussion and timpani. Since 1993 he is principal timpanist and percussionist of the Badische Philharmonie Pforzheim.
Tony Miceli is an American jazz vibraphonist and educator. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey.
Emmanuel Séjourné is a French composer and percussionist, and head of percussion at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. His music is influenced by Western classical music and by popular music.
Christos Rafalides is an acclaimed jazz vibraphonist, composer, and educator based in New York City.
Anthony Kerr is a British jazz vibraphone player, who has performed and recorded internationally with Georgie Fame, Charlie Watts, BBC Big Band, Robbie Williams, Joe Lovano, Jacqui Dankworth, and Courtney Pine. His compositions have been broadcast on BBC Radio.
Michael Waldrop is an American drummer, percussionist, composer and music educator. He is notable as a virtuoso percussionist in both jazz and classical idioms; with equal focus on drumset and keyboard percussion (marimba/vibraphone). Since 2014 he has been a recording artist for Origin Records.
