Lisa Pegher: Percussion Pioneer

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

Lisa Pegher is a brilliant American percussion soloist and drummer. She is also a composer, improvisor and software engineer. She is known for pioneering percussion as a solo instrument within the orchestral realm and beyond, making it her life’s work to present percussion to larger audiences by commissioning, collaborating, and creating new works and performances that bring percussion to the front of the stage. We talked about her new concerto/show, "Circuits and Skins," written for her by Paul Dooley, which explores ways to meld orchestra with Electronic Dance Music, and also her project A.I.RE Artificial Iintelligence Rhythm Evolution. You’ll hear about her perspectives on self-care, social media, the value of mentors, and a fascinating variety of her performances during this episode. (the links to the video performances from the podcast are linked to the show notes on my website, where you'll also find the transcript and this episode on my YouTube:

https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/lisapegher

Lisa Pegher Website: https://www.lisapegher.com/music Original Merch for sale to support this channel and series: https://www.leahroseman.com/beautiful-shirts-and-more

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The podcast theme music was commissioned from composer Nick Kold, and you can use the timestamps to navigate the episode.

Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:24)the story of Lisa’s first drum, breaking boundaries at a young age as a soloist, Schwantner concerto (13:34) vibraphone improvisation (16:48) love for the vibraphone (18:46) great teacher (22:29) yoga, getting in the zone (24:19) No Reply (27:24) love for marimba, the importance of a solid technique (30:13) dealing with burnout (31:38) Player of Games, AI, Fate Amenable to Change (34:40) A.I.RE Artificial Intelligence Rhythm Evolution show (38:03) demo using AI (39:31) thoughts about improvisation (43:34) new merch available! (44:28) intro to Matthew Rosenbloom’s Northern Flicker (47:03) excerpt from Northern Flicker by Matthew Rosenbloom (50:17) the challenges of notating percussion scores (52:43) the fun of found objects (55:40) Splice, the joy of coding (01:00:51) TROMP percussion competition experience and value of community (01:03:43) Paul Dooley Circuits and Skins, bringing EDM audiences into symphonic music (01:06:02) Imperfection project with SideFire trio free jazz (01:12:38) excerpt from Fire from Imperfection with the SideFire trio (01:13:44) taking risks (01:15:45) collaboration with Andrew Knox Imaginary Windows (01:22:45) Water Runs Up from Minimal Art: Imaginary Windows (01:25:35) overwhelm with social media and promotion (01:32:52) equity and inclusion in music