WAAPA’s percussion maestro receives 2021 Fulbright Scholar Award

Fulbright-Scholar-Tim-WhiteEdith Cowan University’s (ECU’s) Coordinator of Classical Music, Tim White, has received a 2021 Fulbright Scholar Award. He is the only Western Australian of the 14 Australian Fulbright Scholars announced so far this year.

Fulbright is one of the most widely recognised and prestigious international exchange programs in the world. Each year around 850 faculty and professionals from across the globe receive Fulbright Scholar awards for advanced research and university lecturing.

Mr White heads up the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ (WAAPA’s) classical music department, where he also directs the percussion and orchestral programmes. He was Principal Percussionist of the WA Symphony Orchestra for 28 years and is passionate about music education and contemporary percussion performance practice-fields he says have grown exponentially in size, imagination and creativity in recent years.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Mr White plans to spend four months at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) in 2022. He will collaborate with the leading international scholar/practitioner Professor Steven Schick and with UCSD’s red fish blue fish percussion ensemble.

His research will explore the future possibilities of percussion and percussion education, new directions in composer/performer collaboration, and the roles of expressivity and gesture in percussion performance.

Mr White said he aimed to create new percussion repertoire and performance practices, build links between the USA and Australia in the field of music, record a DVD of new music for percussion ensemble, and present an international percussion festival in Perth in 2023.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity to work with Steve Schick at UCSD. Steve is the world’s leading performer and scholar in the field of contemporary percussion, and his teaching and his percussion ensemble red fish blue fish are at the cutting edge of the exciting new world that we percussionists are exploring,” he said

“Percussion offers music a whole new palette of sounds, concepts and ideas, and it intersects neatly with art forms like dance, theatre and video. Percussion also provides great possibilities for creativity and collaboration, and it connects very easily with people.”

“I love its potential for meaning and beauty, and it’s exciting that none of us know what the future holds for percussion.  I’m going to have a fabulous time exploring some of those possibilities,” said Mr White.


For more information on the Fulbright Scholarships, visit: www.cies.org for details.

Image: Fulbright Scholar Mr Tim White (supplied)