Bill Cahn, a founding member of the NEXUS percussion quintet (1971 to present) and former Principal Percussionist in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (1968 to 1995), has been appointed to The Eastman School of Music’s percussion faculty in beginning in September 2008. He will be joining Michael Burritt, the school’s new Professor of Percussion, in working with sophomore through senior percussion majors. Bill will also be presenting workshops and masterclasses.

This new appointment comes on the heels of Bill’s service as Visiting Assistant Professor of Percussion at the Eastman School in the 2006 fall semester, during the sabbatical leave of John Beck. (Professor Beck retired in the spring of 2008 after 40-years on the Eastman faculty).

Bill is an artist-in-residence at the Showa Academy of the Arts in Japan (1998 to present), and at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2000, 2003 & 2005). Since 1980 he has been a guest artist-in-residence at numerous universities and conservatories all over the world, presenting

workshops on percussion performance and the business of music. He has conducted educational and pops programs with symphony orchestras, and his compositions for solo percussion, percussion ensemble and percussion with orchestra/band are widely performed. His fourth book, “Creative Music Making,” was published by Routledge Books in 2005.

Bill has received the Rochester Philharmonic League’s FANFARE AWARD (1988) for a “significant contribution to music education in Rochester,” Mu Phi Epsilon’s MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR AWARD (1993), and with NEXUS, the TORONTO ARTS AWARD in music (1989), the BANFF CENTRE FOR THE ARTS NATIONAL AWARD (1997), and induction into the Percussive Arts Society’s HALL OF FAME (1999). In 2006 Bill received a GRAMMY Award for his performance with Paul Winter on the DVD titled, “2004 Solstice Concert”

(Bill Cahn endorses Pearl Drums/Adams Musical Instruments, Sabian Cymbals, and Vic Firth Inc.)