SCHOOL YEAR BEGINS WITH A FLOOD

The school year here at Northern Illinois University began with tornado sirens, rotating clouds, heavy rains, and finally a flood. The flooding was so bad that of the 10 bridges in town that cross the Kishwaukee River, only 2 were passable. The University shut down on Friday, August 24 around 10:15 in the morning to send everyone home, as more rains were expected.

In this photo, what you cannot see are the Music and Art buildings, which are to the right of where this photo ends. But this is the southeast corner of the NIU campus: the bottom of the photo is the east side, where the Kishwaukee River is

The Music Building is right next to the Kishwaukee River, and even though both the north side and south side parking lots were complete lakes, somehow the water did not enter the building. The Art Building, which is next door to the Music Building, was not as lucky. The first floor of the Art Building is below grade, so quite a bit of water went into the hallways. Luckily the door seals worked beautifully and kept the water out of the rooms.

HOWEVER, overnight Friday into Saturday, the storm sewers became overloaded and water began to gush into the lower level of 3 of the lecture halls on the Art Building's first floor. When you enter these rooms on the first floor, you're at the back of the room, and they go down several levels from there, making a nice basement-level location for the water to collect. We ended up with about 18" of water in these 3 rooms for the entire weekend - even with multiple pumps running 24 hours a day, the water was coming in just as quickly as it was being pumped out. Dozens of employees from the Building Services department worked all weekend long and continued to work all this past week. The rooms needed a huge amount of cleaning after the water was completely removed, electrical service needed attention, and the media/computer equipment was water logged. This Labor Day weekend even more people will be in there getting the rooms completely cleaned, dry, and working with new computers so we can begin to hold classes in there. It's been astonishing to see so many people be so passionate and dedicated about their work in getting these rooms ready at the first available moment.

This is the football field at one of the middle schools a couple of blocks away from the NIU campus

BACK FROM KOSA!

I got back from KOSA a few days ago. I had a terrific time there, and it was awesome to see so many of my drum and percussion buddies and to hear them play and watch them teach. It was held on the campus of Johnson State College in Vermont, and the facilities work out very well for the event. Congratulations to Aldo Mazza, his wife Jolán, and his staff for hosting a wonderful week of drumming and sharing.

Among my friends on the KOSA faculty who I got to see there and hang with were Arnie Lang, Allan Molnar, Memo Acevedo, She-e Wu, Michael Spiro, John Riley, and Jim Royle. I got to know Mike Manieri better, and met for the first time Marco Lienhard, Jeff Salisbury, Gregg Bissonette, Michael Wimberly and Dafnis Prieto, all really terrific people and musicians. I also saw the ever delightful Ron Baker from England, who was attending KOSA for the 7th time as a student! I just love how after nearly 6 decades as a professional drummer he still has the desire to learn and the energy to make the trip "across the pond."

I taught 4 classes there, and performed twice. I played my own "Sonata for Timpani" on the Tuesday night concert, and in the Wednesday morning masterclass I played congas with Allan Molnar on vibes and Terry Silverlight on drums, who was "beaming in" from his home in NY via Apple iChat and iSight technology to play with us. My four class topics were Timpani, Body Percussion Ensemble, How to Practice, and Interpreting Big Band Charts.

If you're looking for a summer camp and festival that allows you to learn first-hand from world-class players, and in an intimate setting, I highly recommend you consider attending a future KOSA.

Here are just a few photos from the week (click on them to get full-sized images):

That's Allan Molnar on vibes, Terry Silverlight on drums "beaming in," and me on congas.

L to R: Aldo Mazza, Memo Acevedo, Michael Spiro

She-e Wu with Arnie Lang backstage

The view from just outside of the hall where we performed

OFF TO KOSA!

I leave tomorrow for a combination vacation and appearances at KoSA, the percussion camp run by Aldo Mazza every summer for the past 12 years (this year it's August 6 - 12). There is an amazing assortment of artists appearing this year (as in every year), I have no idea how he gets the money to bring in so many awesome players and teachers. There are concerts every night, and I'll be performing on the concert on Tuesday night August 7. I'll also be teaching 2 classes a day on Tuesday and Wednesday. Check out the link to learn what's going on there.