I had a chance to have a chat with Nathan Daughtrey, Director of Operations of the Classical Marimba League, when here was here in Minnesota. This wasn’t a formal interview but I thought I would share the marimba related items we talked about.

The Classical Marimba League started about 3 years ago and was initially led by Mr. Dunnington. The marimba competition accepted CD submissions of the marimba performances this year. In future years, Nathan would like to require video submissions.

The three winners all flew into Minnesota to perform (one from Taiwan, the other two are persuing degrees here in the US). In the future Nathan would like to tie the competition concert into other events possibly including other Days of Percussion or PASIC.

Nathan has composed many works for percussion, I asked him about “The Yuletide Marimbist” which is a book of Christmas pieces arranged for marimba. A CD is also available for purchase. Nathan stated that he started these pieces as a intermediate level but the compositions ended up being a bit more advanced than that when they were finished.

I also asked Nathan about the Vic Firth Concert Podcast since that is one of my favorite marimba destinations on the Internet. He said the he is thrilled to contribute to that project and that this is a great way to provide free access to percussion literature performed at a high level instead of just a video camera of someone in their practice room. I couldn’t agree more and hope that this website continues to deliver high quality videos of percussion performances.

I realized I was taking pictures as part of the event but forgot to take one with Nathan. If you are interested, head over to Facebook and become a fan of the Classical Marimba League to see some photos.