‘Twas The Week Before PASIC…

Taku Touring With Cirque du Soleil

Grover Endorser Taku Hirano is currently touring with the “Michael Jackson Immortal World Tour”. This multi-media extravaganza is produced by the innovative Cirque du Soleil and the production is simply amazing!

The tour runs through the end of August 2012. Be sure to catch the show, and Taku, in a city near you.

Check out Taku’s massive percussion rig which is a work of art in itself! Combine that with Taku’s great musical artistry and you get one of the coolest Grover Endorser projects to date!

John Tafoya Signature Mallets Available for Preorder!

Our new John Tafoya Signature Mallets are now available for preorder in the Grover Pro Shop! These new models will start to ship in early November. Based on advance interest, we expect these to sell quickly!be top sellers.

If you’d rather hand select your own mallets, visit us this November in Indianapolis at PASIC 2011, booths #843-#847.

On Tour With Josh Groban

Grover Pro Artist Pete Korpela is currently touring with Grammy Award Winner Josh Groban. Pete previously toured for over three years throughout the United States with the 1st National Tour of the Tony award winning musical “The Lion King” both as a marimbist and featured on-stage percussionist.

An accomplished musician, in 2010 Pete performed with Cirque du Soleil as a musical director and lead drummer in a nationally televised project presenting the new “Xbox 360 Kinect” gaming console.

Pete recently wrote us, “I am currently on Josh Groban’s World Tour, using Grover tambourines, triangle beaters and Spectrasound Chimes. Also, I did this commercial shoot for Fox Football and it’s airing on the Monday Night Football game on FOX. I was rocking out with a Grover tambourine…I love the tunable tambourine!”

Thanks Pete!

Coming Soon…John Tafoya Signature Mallets!

We’ve teamed up with professional timpanist and renowned educator John Tafoya to create a new line of professional level bamboo timpani mallets!

Formerly Principal Timpanist of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., John left the orchestra to accept the prestigious position of Chair of the Percussion Program at Indiana University.

The Tafoya Signature Mallets will be unveiled at PASIC ’11. If you’re coming to the show be sure to stop by our display in booths #843, 845 & 847, and check them out for yourself. Do it early in the show, timpanists are sure to be fighting over these wonderful new mallets!

The New Grover Pro Tunable Tambourine

Anchors Aweigh!

We just received a large order from the United States Navy for Grover custom snare drums and bass drums. We manufactured similar ceremonial drums a few years back for the Army band (see photo). When the Navy percussionists heard and saw the Army drums, they knew immediately that they had to have a set.

These custom drums receive a special shell coating inside and out, so that the drum is completely sealed from the weather. The drums are used outside for ceremonies and the Navy percussionists can be assured that the drums will perform optimally regardless of the weather conditions.

Grover Pro Artists Are Everywhere!

We welcome percussive artists Thomas Burritt (Univerity of Texas) and Michael Sammons (University of South Alabama) to our Endorser roster. Michael recently wrote us, “”Your products provide the sound and quality for me to perform my best”.

Tom & Michael join a roster of many of the world’s finest percussionists who play and appreciate Grover Pro Percussion products!

Dr. Thomas Toner Joins Artist Roster

Professor Toner is Chairman of the music department at the University of Vermont. He holds a DMA from Eastman as well as degrees from Yale and the University of Massachusetts. His duties include conducting the concert band, wind ensemble and percussion ensemble.

Dr. Toner joined the Vermont Symphony Orchestra at the age of 18, and became Principal Percussionist a few years later. He has performed a wide variety of music with the VSO, including most of the standard orchestral repertoire, unusual 20th Century pieces (such as the solo snare drum part in Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto with soloist Richard Stoltzman), and “Pops” music with the likes of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Tish Hinojosa (where he played drum set, congas, and hand drums). Dr. Toner was the featured soloist of the VSO’s fall 2002 tour of Vermont in David Gunn’s “A Tangoed Web” (commissioned by the orchestra specifically for that occasion) and was the soloist in Shane Shanahan’s “Ahshutmas” with the Eastman Percussion Ensemble in April 2003. A frequent substitute percussionist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1993-1995, he has also appeared with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra (on their 1998 tour of New England), the Massachusetts Chamber Players, and many other ensembles in the northeast. Dr. Toner has also been a featured artist on faculty recitals at the University of Massachusetts and Dartmouth, Williams and Smith Colleges, as well as at the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) National Convention. Dr. Toner appears on recordings with the Vermont Symphony and the Robert DeCormier Ensemble, issued by Arabesque Records, and on two solo recordings of Trey Anastasio, issued on the Elektra label. In addition, he is a featured percussionist on several audio and video recordings by the vocal group Counterpoint, conducted by Robert DeCormier, and was recently heard with that group on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today”.

7 Grover Artists Featured @ PASIC ’11

We just received word that seven Grover endorsers are scheduled to be featured clinicians this year at PASIC ’11 in Indianapolis!

Here’s the lineup:

John Tafoya (Indiana University) – “The Incredibly Mysterious Roll of the Orchestral Timpanist”
Bill Elliot (U.S. Army Band) – “Accessories – A Percussionist’s Bread & Butter”
Rich Redmond (Nashville session drummer)- A drummer’s CRASH Course For Success: “How to be a successful touring and recording drummer”
Dr. John Parks – (Florida State University) Percussion Ensemble Competition Winners
Sherry Rubins (University Texas -San Antonio) – “Mind/Body/Spirit Workout”
Susan Powell (Ohio State University)- “Exploring the Performance Potential of the Xylophone”

With a roster like this you won’t want to miss it!