World Music: Percussion

“Randy Gloss's maneuvering of his frame drum had to be seen to be believed...”
-Mina Silverstone, salamworldwide.com

“Bergamo was successful at creating his own pool of students that went on to professional careers, most notably Randy Gloss who remains a highly innovative frame drummer.”
...Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume II Performance and Production

Randy Gloss, a percussionist whose background performing several modalities of hand drums, contemporary percussion, and drum set has led to his involvement in many innovative ensembles that fuse world music with new music and jazz. Most notable is Hands On’Semble, a percussion group devoted to the art of hand drumming that has come to define the state of world percussion for nearly a decade.

Winner of Drum! Magazine Reader’s Poll Award for Best Percussion Ensemble in 2003, 2002, and first runner up award in 2001.

"A Stellar percussion group with extraordinary soloing, and extensive palette of sounds"
-Modern Drummer Magazine

“Hands On’Semble plays music that is pure 21st century California, the fulcrum where the whole planet meets.” -World Rhythm Magazine

Hands On’Semble has performed and lectured throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia at many of the world’s premier percussion and world music festivals, music schools and conservatories, and have collaborated in performance and recording with a wide array of the world’s finest percussionists including: John Bergamo (the group’s founder), Swapan Chaudhuri, Adam Rudolph, Poovalur Sriji, Houman Pourmehdi, Glen Velez, Brad Dutz, Jamey Haddad, Steve Shehan, Mark Nauseef, Pete Lockett, Ed Mann, Jerry Leake, Abbos Kosimov, Carlos Stasi, and Guello. Percussionists and critics worldwide have praised their recorded work, as being some of the most important and interesting of it’s kind.

“John Bergamo, Austin Wrinkle, Randy Gloss, and Andrew Grueschow succeeded in presenting a CD clearly ranking among the most interesting percussion CD's of the last ten years.”
-Michael Weil, Percussion Creativ Germany

“...This just might be the best percussion recording ever made. The drumming is of such a high quality that this CD is on my short list of the CDs I can recommend to any drummer or percussionist. It is one of those rare CDs that is wonderful to listen to, and also can be played over and over in order to learn new rhythms and compositional forms… Every drummer should own this CD.” -Scott Davidson, Percussionmusic.com

"Masterful" -Modern Drummer Magazine

“...The Hands On'Semble always creates music with excellent energy and interesting colors and textures. The music is never so esoteric as to be elitist or incomprehensible, it always grooves. As great as the music is, it is an excellent resource for listeners to be exposed to and learn about percussion traditions from around the world.” -Terry O’Mahoney, Percussive Notes, The Journal of the Percussive Arts Society

In addition to Hands On’Semble, Randy Gloss has been involved in numerous other projects fusing world music with new music and jazz, including work as a principal musician in two ensemble’s led by vanguard percussionist Adam Rudolph: “Go: Organic Orchestra” (winner of L.A. Weekly Music Award for OutstandingWorld Music Artist 2005 and 2003), and world percussion group Vashti. Since 2002, Randy has also been a regular member of the highly regarded Persian group The Lian Ensemble (L.A. Weekly Best World Music/ Recombinant Artist 2005 and 2004. “Gifted World Music Group” -Don Heckman, L.A. Times). Randy has also been involved in numerous collaborative projects with a wide variety of artists including: Indian slide veena virtuoso Chitravina Ravikiran (including a concert tour of India that also featured Brazilian pianist Jovino Santos Neto and master African drummer Alfred Ladzekpo); a Balkan/Indian collaboration with maestros Ashish Khan, Swapan Chaudhuri, Miroslav Tadic, Vlatko Stefanovski; the Pangea Project, a collaborative work featuring master of the Armenian duduk Djivan Gasparyan with Swapan Cahudhuri and members of the Lian Ensemble; South Indian percussionist Poovalur Sriji’s Thanjavur and the SNEW Ensemble; Turkish musician Latif Bolat; Romanian pan flute virtuoso Damian Draghichi; famed overtone singer David Hykes; Persian pianist Ardeshir Rohani, and jazz/world music pianist Larry Karush to name only some of the artists Randy has worked with. Randy Gloss has also contributed percussion for film soundtracks by composers Danny Elfman and Gary Chang; for television series’ such as Fear Factor; recorded music for the American Conservatory Theater and Southwest Chamber Music; and has recorded several extensive percussion sample libraries for software companies such as: Apple (Garage Band), Ilio, and Native Instruments.

Randy Gloss has performed at festivals such as: International Oud festival of Jerusalem; PercPan, Ritmos de Terra, and the First International Music Festival of Belo Horizonte in Brazil; World Drum Festival in Hamburg Germany; The Taiwan International Drum Festival, the Tainan Chi-Hsi Int’l Arts Festival – Int’l Drummers Gala and the Hsin Chu International Folk Drum Festival in Taiwan; several Percussive Arts Society International Conventions (PASIC); Seattle World Rhythm Festival; Watts Tower Day of the Drum Festival; the Different Drummer Festival, and numerous PAS “Days of Percussion” including New York City, Southern California, Central California, Northern California, Southern Oregon, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Nevada. As well as performances at venues such as: Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco; Royce Hall, Skirball Cultural Center, Getty Center, and Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles; Siri Fort Auditorium and National Center for Performing Arts in India; SESC Sao Paulo and Sergio Magnani Music Hall Fundação de Educação Artística in Brazil; and in Canada at Outremont Theatre in Montreal and Convocation Hall in Toronto.

Randy teaches at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) where he has been on the percussion and world music faculty since 1999. Randy Gloss endorses Remo world percussion and drumheads, Paiste cymbals and gongs, Cooperman frame drums, and Mountain Rhythm djembes and congas.

MFA Multi-Focus Percussion, California Institute of The Arts.

B.M. Percussion Performance and Jazz Studies, University of Bridgeport

Teachers have included: John Bergamo, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Poovalur Sriji, Houman Pourmehdi, Guello, Carlos Stasi, Edson Gianesi, Alfred Ladzekpo, I Nyoman Wenten, Victor Rendon, Richard Hill, David Johnson, Daniel Kennedy, Michael Lipsey, Arthur Lipner, Warren Odze, Pete Abbott, Jim Mola, Buddy Ostapowitz, Wadada Leo Smith, Larry Koonse, Brian Torff, Rajeev Taranath.