Nashville Marimba Sessions

Faculty

• 

  Ji Hye Jung

  Artistic Director

  Percussionist Ji Hye Jung has been praised as “spectacular” by the Los Angeles Times and “extraordinary” by the Ventura County Star, with the Times further describing her as “a centered player who can give the impression of being very still yet at all places at once.”Jung began concertizing in her native South Korea at the age of 9, going on to perform more than 100 concerts, including solo appearances with every major orchestra in Korea. Soon after coming to the United States in 2004, Jung garnered consecutive first prizes at the 2006 Linz International Marimba Competition and the 2007 Yale Gordon Concerto Competition.With percussion repertoire still in its formative stages, Jung feels strongly about collaborating with composers to further the creation of a new voice for the art form. She has commissioned and premiered works by several important composers, including Kevin Puts, Alejandro Viñao, Paul Lansky, John Serry, Lukas Ligeti, and Jason Treuting. In 2013, she made the premiere recording of Michael Torke’s marimba concerto Mojave, and in 2014 recorded Phillip Glass’ Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra for the Naxos label.Jung frequently performs with many of today’s most important conductors and instrumentalists. For six years she has served as principal percussionist with West Coast chamber ensemble Camerata Pacifica, with whom she has premiered works by Bright Sheng and Huang Ruo. She has also recorded Stravinsky’s Les Noceswith JoAnn Falletta at the Virginia Arts Festival, performed as soloist with David Robertson conducting an all-Messiaen program at Carnegie Hall, and made her concerto debut with the Houston Symphony under the baton of Hans Graf in 2005.Other performance credits include appearances at Portugal’s Tomarimbando Festival, the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Ireland, The Intimacy of Creativity in Hong Kong, the Grand Teton Music Festival, Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and the Grachtenfestival in Holland.In 2015, Jung was named Associate Professor of Percussion at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. She previously served as Associate Professor of Percussion at the University of Kansas for six years. An active educator and clinician, Jung has presented master classes at the Curtis Institute, the Peabody Conservatory, Rice University, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, and the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland.Jung completed a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, both under the tutelage of Robert van Sice. As an artist endorser, she proudly represents Pearl/Adams instruments, Vic Firth sticks and mallets, and Zildjian cymbals.
• 

  Emmanuel Séjourné

  Guest Artist

  Emmanuel Séjourné is a musician of international renown who leads a triple career as a composer, percussionist and teacher. His career ranges from classical music to improvised music. He has been awarded prizes for Best Music for Drama at the Festival d’Avignon, the Prix de l’Academie du Disque Français, as well as the Repertoire Prize, awarded by the French Music Publishers, for his composition Khamsin. The percussionist Aurélien Gignoux wins the Victoires de la Musique 2021 by playing Attraction by E.Séjourné.His music is rhythmic, romantic, energetic, inspired both by the Western classical tradition and by popular culture (jazz, rock, extra-Européan).Many orchestras include his music in their repertoire : RadioSinfonieOrchester Stuttgart, Bamberg Symphonie Orchester, Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg Nagoya Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Sinfonia Toronto,Croatian Radio Television Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Italienne, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Camerata de Bourgogne, Sofia Soloists, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre d’Auvergne, de Cannes, Nice, Pau, Mulhouse, Bochumer Symphoniker, Wurttembergisches Kammerorchester, Paris Brassband, as numerous additional ensemble.Acclaimed by members of the percussion community, his works have been commissioned and recorded by many artists including Bogdan Bacanu et Wave Quartet (Genuin Classics 2016), Christoph Sietzen (Genuin Classics 2017) Alexej Gerassimez (Genuin Classics 2012) Gary Cook, Ju-Percussion group, Nancy Zeltsman, Marta Klimasara, Katarzyna Mycka, Adelaide Ferrière, Vassilena Serafimova.His Concertos for percussion are a great success, whether for vibra and strings (1999) as his double-concerto for vibra, marimba & symphonic orchestra played since its creation in 2012 in Bulgaria, then in China, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Turkey, Latvia, Korea and France.His concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra, commissioned by Bogdan Bacanu, has since 2005 become an major work of the marimba repertoire, played more than 900 times with orchestra.Far from being limited to the world of percussion Emmanuel Séjourné also composed many pieces for symphonic orchestra (Ketsana) as well as chamber music (commissioned by the Paris Opera and the Contrastes duet) as well as pieces for choir (commissioned by INECC European Institut for Choir).Fascinated with the relations between various forms of artistic expression, he writes music for theater and television. He composed the music for the Ballet du Rhin’s performance « Les envahisseurs », played during the two thousandth anniversary of the city of Strasbourg, and in 2004, he wrote a musical comedy « School Boulevard » commissioned by National Theater Luxembourg.Simultaneously, Emmanuel Séjourné makes a career as an instrumentalist.As a soloist, as well as with the ensemble Accroche-Note, he has so far premiered over hundred pieces of music (Donatoni, Manoury, Fedele, Hurel, Dillon, Aperghis, Wood, Kerger…) including concertos, chamber music and solos.He plays very regularly in duo with the percussionist Sylvie Reynaert.Eager to share and communicate his passion, Emmanuel Séjourné is also Head Teacher of Percussion Department at the Strasbourg Superior Academy of Music & arts and Associate Professor at HEMU Lausanne.
  His Master Classes are extremely successful all over the world. He is often invited to sit on jurys for numerous international competition: ARD Munich, Geneva, Tromp, Salzburg.
  In tribute to his many activities, he is named DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA (2019) by the National Academy of Music of Bulgaria.
• 

  Ivan Trevino

  Guest Artist

  Ivan Trevino is a Mexican-American composer, percussionist, teacher, and arts advocate. Recognized around the world for his contributions to percussion literature, Ivan’s music has been performed across five continents in 25 countries. His music distinctly threads indie-pop sounds with a contemporary classical aesthetic, and his body of work spans storytelling, singing marimba players, cello rockers, and an ever-present social consciousness. His newly commissioned works include music for The San Diego Symphony Orchestra, The Juilliard School, and Grammy-winning quartet, Third Coast Percussion. He is a multi-award recipient of the Percussive Arts Society’s International Composition Contest and has been the featured composer and performer on NPR’s Performance Today.An active educator, Ivan serves on the faculty of the Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin, where he joyfully teaches a studio of undergraduate and graduate percussionists and music creators. Ivan received the 2024-2025 Teaching Excellence Award from Butler School of Music for his contributions to student learning and teaching innovation. In 2025, he was appointed Fellow to the Florence Thelma Hall Centennial Chair in Music, an honor recognizing creative excellence in the field of contemporary classical music.Previously, Ivan served on faculty at Baylor University and as co-director of the Eastman Percussion Festival at his alma mater, Eastman School of Music. He is currently an artist and clinician for Marimba One, Innovative Percussion, Black Swamp Percussion, Pearl’s Malletstation, Meinl, and Zildjian Cymbals. In 2021, Innovative Percussion and Ivan collaborated to design his own line of signature series marimba and vibraphone mallets, which are used by percussionists around the world.Ivan is also known for his work as a drummer with Break of Reality, an international touring cello rock quartet. As a member of the ensemble, Ivan was selected as a music ambassador by the U.S. State Department. Break of Reality has released five studio albums, is on regular rotation on National Public Radio, and has over 100 million streams on Spotify and Pandora Radio. A Texas native, Ivan resides in Austin with his wife Amanda and their children, Henry and Oscar.
• 

  Nancy Zeltsman

  Guest Artist

  Nancy Zeltsman has been a leading marimba specialist for over 40 years. She first came to prominence as the marimbist of the duo Marimolin. Nancy has had a hand in more than 150 pieces having been composed for the marimba, and has recorded approximately 10 hours of commercially-released music. She has performed concerts and taught hundreds of students around the world, including through 15 years of Zeltsman Marimba Festivals. Nancy was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 2022. Zeltsman is Professor of marimba and chamber music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and at Berklee College of Music, where she has taught percussionists and marimbists since 1993. She has been a Guest Artist at University of Michigan teaching two weeks per year since 2021. Nancy's most recent recordings are purple music and the single Poconos (by Leo Blanco/arr. Zeltsman), both released in the fall of 2023. She will perform and record a new solo program in 2025, along with new chamber music projects.