Cory
Hills
Emerging Artist Award, Music Composition
Percussionist, composer, and educator Cory Hills thrives
on breaking down musical barrieres through innovative and creative
endeavors. He received his bachelor's degree (percussion performance
and music education) from Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois, and his master's degree (percussion performance) from
Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane, Australia. In 2005, Hills was
awarded a research fellowship to Institute Fabrica, United Colors of
Benetton's research center for the contemporary and exploratory arts
located in Treviso, Italy. Currently, Hills is a doctoral fellow in
percussion performance and music theory at the University of Kansas. He
has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, Queensland Choir,
and Topeka Symphony, and soloed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra
and the United States Army Band.
An advocate of new music, Hills has commissioned and
premiered dozens of new works for solo percussion. He is the creator of The Percussive Art of Storytelling, an
interdisciplinary arts performance that brings contemporary music to
children in accessible ways. As a member of SI2, an interdisciplinary
arts duo, Hills is a featured performer at the 2008 convention for the
International Society for Improvised Music (Denver) and the Days of New
Music Festival (Chisinau, Moldova; June 2009). In addition, Hills
sponsors the annual Con/un/drum Solo Percussion Composition Competition
designed to increase the solo perscussion repertoire. Hills is a
frequent guest artist and clinician throughout the United State and
Europe, giving numerous master classes and recitals. He is endorsed by
Vaughncraft Percussion. For more more information, please visit
www.coryhills.com
Artist Statement
Storytelling is a method of communication that has
spanned the ages. Whether the stories serve as oral histories,
religious doctrines, or simple bedtime entertainment, they have become
an important stple of mankind. Many of these stories are percussive;
either in the rhythmic structure of the iambs, or in the onomatopoeia
of the words. Hills' project, The Percussive Art of Storytelling, aims to fuse elements of contemporary-classical percussion with
elements of vocal storytelling.
The connection between vocal storytelling and percussion
can be seen throughout history in countless cultures, from African
griots to Japanese yukara epics of the Ainu people to Harikatha by
bhagavatars from India to the p'ansori tradition of Korea. While the
art of storytelling is slowly fading away, the onset of globalization
brings the opportunity to tell stories of another people to new
audiences. One can perform a story from Japan to a class of
first-graders in Kansas and expose these students to new and exciting
cultures. Hills uses many of these existing stories as models
while he creates new stories that combine various cultural elements.
The result is a library of stories written by Hills that he tells
orally while performing originally composed percussion music. These
stories have served as a vehicle to bring complex classical and
contemporary music to children in fun and accessible ways. |
