The Heartland Marimba Quartet To Present Special Performance

OTTUMWA — The Heartland Marimba Quartet, an ensemble of four dynamic solo performers, will present a special performance on Thursday, Mar. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in St. John Auditorium on the Indian Hills Ottumwa Campus. The performance is free and open to the public.

The Heartland Marimba Quartet (HMQ) is an exciting initiative of the Heartland Marimba Festival organization and the group is currently touring Iowa and Minnesota. The performers of this unique troupe come from Iowa, Illinois, Texas and Arizona, and are accomplished and award-winning solo players in the percussion field. During this tour, the HMQ is concentrating on presenting music by American composers including Michael Burritt, Gordon Stout, Alex Orfaly, Neil Thornock, Sabrina Pena-Young, Scott Blasco, Steven Simpson, and Kevin Romanski.

Matthew Coley, HMF director, formed this group in order to provide an inspiration to the next generation of marimba performers at the same time as being passionate about advancing the art form of modern classical marimba within many communities around the nation. Coley has performed concerts and taught master classes in over 30 states and 10 countries. He established the Heartland Marimba Festival in 2014 to build an organization devoted to the art of contemporary classical marimba and to providing more opportunities for students, artists, composers and communities. He has four critically acclaimed solo albums to his credit and has appeared on several other released compact discs as a performer and composer with artists and ensembles such as cellist Barbara Haffner, marimbist Mark Ford, the Iowa/Hungary Percussion Project and the University of North Texas Percussion Ensemble. Other members of the quartet are Michael J. Jones, Joe Millea, and Andrew Veit.