Each year, the Percussive Arts Society receives live, one-take performance submissions from college percussion ensembles and judges the performances blindly. When a school wins, it must wait three years until it is eligible to re-enter the competition.
The University of South Carolina Percussion Ensemble last took home a victory in 2021 and eagerly awaited the chance to apply again this year. Its patience paid off.
South Carolina was honored as one of three colleges to win the 2024 Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Competition (IPEC) on June 17. The gap to reapply technically made it a back-to-back win.
Dr. Scott Herring, one of the directors of USC’s ensemble, likened winning the IPEC to a sports team winning an NCAA championship.
“We prepare the music to the highest level that we can. I had in my head that there was a couple of the pieces that I thought would really be good submissions,” Herring said. “That's why I played one of those both semesters, so we could have multiple recordings. But we worked on those extra hard, and the students are just super talented.”
The schools that win the IPEC are invited to perform at the Percussive Arts and Society International Convention (PASIC) in Indianapolis, Indiana. Herring said thousands of people attend and listen to the performances.
Doctoral student Julia Ross is studying percussion and heading into her fourth and final year of the program, making this the second IPEC win she’s contributed to.
“I would like to perform full time when I finish here, whether that's in an orchestra, or military band or just freelancing. Any opportunity I have to be able to play in front of people, sort of get the adrenaline flowing — I think that's that's really beneficial for me,” Ross said. “Particularly going into auditions and just knowing that the adrenaline, that sort of being able to use the adrenaline for good, any opportunity I have for that is useful for me.”
The ensemble is made up of students from the School of Music, majors and minors alike. Some students were in their first year for the 2021 win, like Ross, and now will get to close out their final year with the same honor.
Fourth-year music education student Marshall Robinson said he doesn’t take this achievement for granted, even though it's his second IPEC win.
“It's a really cool opportunity for us to showcase our hard work because there are tireless hours that go into this,” Robinson said. “The adrenaline is definitely through the roof. It's hard to describe the feeling you have of a thousand people watching you perform, but it's really cool being able to share this moment again with people that went my first year as well.”
Robinson said he hopes to use PASIC to help him network with other music educators so that he can improve teaching in public schools.
“Thousands of people that attend this conference, not only to watch us perform, but there's clinics, and there's ensembles you can watch,” Robinson said. “It's a great way to build connections, to take that next step into my career as a future educator. It's a great way for me to build connections with other percussionists from around the world that I can talk to and kind of pick their brains about things they do, their methods, their techniques, things of that nature.”
Ross said she thinks PASIC will be a special experience for younger students who are attending for the first time, especially those from South Carolina who have admired the program.
“To be able to share in this experience now as a full-fledged student here, I think that will not only reaffirm for them that they made good choices in coming here and that it's really helping them personally as a musician but then also inspire them to keep that momentum going and continue to improve in their musical skills," Ross said.
This fall marks the School of Music’s centennial, which Herring said makes this win “an extra special cherry on top.” He said performing at PASIC helps the longevity of the program with recruiting since middle- and high-school students also attend the event.
“The other people in my field who do what I do, to see that this group is having a sustained history of winning this competition — that will hopefully lead them to push their students to consider Carolina as a place for a graduate degree," Herring said. "If high school students are seeing us perform there, hopefully, this will be a help with recruiting in the future for students, especially not from the region, folks from outside of our region."
Robinson said USC’s three wins prove to prospective students that you can be successful as part of the percussion ensemble.
“Being selected twice in four years is pretty rare,” Robinson said. “And with the centennial, it's a great way to showcase, also for our alumni, the ones that have helped us get to this point because the first time that they went to PASIC was 10 years ago. The alumni really helped lay that foundation, so being able to celebrate them as well for the centennial is a great honor that we have.”
