Ryan C. Lewis, a senior instrumental music education major and percussionist at Furman University, Greenville, SC, is a 1995 graduate of St. Andrew’s High School in Charleston, SC where he served as Drumline Captain, percussion music arranger/composer, Section Leader, and Band Captain. He attended the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts in 1993 and earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1995. At Furman University he performs in the Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, Furman’s marching band the "Paladin Regiment," Percussion Ensemble, Basketball Band, and Jazz Band. He is president of both the Gamma Eta Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia and the Furman chapter of the Collegiate Music Educator’s National Conference, co-section leader and percussion arranger/composer for the Furman University Marching Drumline, a winner of the Furman Concerto Competition, and has performed with the Hendersonville and Greenville Symphony Orchestras. He was a Furman Advantage Intern in 1997, a Furman Advantage Research Fellow in 1998, and a Furman Advantage Teaching Fellow in 1998. After completing his bachelor’s degree, he intends to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees in percussion as he pursues a career in college teaching. He is a percussion student of Dr. John S. Beckford.

E-Mail: ryan.lewis@furman.edu

John S. Beckford is Professor of Music at Furman University, Greenville, SC where he has been teaching since 1976. He teaches percussion, music history and literature, and conducts the Furman Percussion Ensemble. A native of Burlington, IA, his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees are from the University of Iowa where he studied percussion with Thomas L. Davis. While in Iowa he served as principal percussionist and timpanist with the Quad-City Symphony Orchestra for four years. In Greenville he is Principal Percussionist with the Greenville Symphony and Chamber Orchestra; he has played with the Charlotte, Asheville, and Hendersonville Symphony Orchestras, the Greenville Little Theater, area churches, chamber ensembles, and with a variety of commercial artists including Englebert Humperdinck, Marilyn McCoo, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Fifth Dimension, Natalie Cole, Mitzi Gaynor, Red Skelton, and Henry Mancini. He has written articles for the Percussive Notes magazine and has been a guest clinician throughout the southeast. Dr. Beckford is also a founding member of the Governor’s School for the Arts music faculty, Vice-President for Productions of the International Chamber Music Series of Greenville, a Regional Artist/Clinician for the Yamaha Music Corporation of American, and a past president of the South Carolina Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society.

E-Mail: john.beckford@furman.edu

Website: http://www.furman.edu/~jbeckfor/

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