First Name:
Dr. Brady
Last Name:
Spitz
Main Title:
Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Percussion Activities
Office Location:
Room 124, Broyhill Music Center
Phone Number:
828-262-4979
Email:
Type:
Area(s):
Dr. Brady Spitz is a percussionist, timpanist, and educator now serving as the Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Percussion Activities at the Hayes School of Music. Dr. Spitz was previously based in Martin, Tennessee where he was Assistant Professor and Director of Percussion at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He has extensive performance experience with classical, contemporary, and world percussion in a diverse group of musical environments. He has performed with orchestras in Houston, San Antonio, Arkansas, Hawaii, and Louisiana, among many others. Dr. Spitz maintains an active freelance percussion schedule and has appeared on stage alongside artists such as Idina Menzel, Weird Al Yankovic, and The Who. As a chamber musician, he has worked with a diverse group of artists, including Claire Chase and Mario Davidovsky. His duo Sonic Boom is working to create a repertoire for organ and percussion where very little has existed before, yielding upcoming international engagements.
He has given performances and clinics across the United States, as well as performing at the Percussive Arts Society’s International Conventions in 2005, 2008, and as a featured soloist with Hamiruge’s 2009 appearance. He was the director for the Houston Baptist University Gamelan Ensemble’s appearance at PASIC in 2019 and is formerly artist-in-residence at the Indonesian Consulate in Houston. He maintains an active research interest in Lou Harrison’s American Gamelan repertoire and the American Gamelan movement.
Dr. Spitz holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Rice University, where he was awarded the Benjamin Armistead Shepherd Teaching Fellowship. He also holds a Bachelor of Music Performance in Percussion, magna cum laude, from the University of North Texas College of Music and a Master of Music in Percussion Performance from Louisiana State University. His teachers include Matthew Strauss, Richard Brown, Mark Ford, Christopher Deane, Brett William Dietz, Ed Soph, Paul Rennick, Jim Atwood, Jose Aponte, Poovalur Sriji, and Ed Smith.
Dr. Spitz is an endorser of Innovative Percussion and Black Swamp Percussion.