Retired University of Utah percussion professor receives prestigious award

SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah Percussion Professor Emeritus Doug Wolf was recently honored with a prestigious award from the Percussive Arts Society. 

PAS is often considered the world’s authority on the percussive arts, which range from drum set playing to eastern hand drumming.

Wolf was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in Education Award. He taught and performed for 42 years, many of which were at the University of Utah. 

“When I left grad school, I came to Utah and started teaching and performing with the symphony, the opera and the ballet,” Wolf said. “But teaching was always the forefront of what I did.” 

He said his education tool of choice was percussion ensemble. Under his leadership, the group won the Percussive Arts Society’s Percussion Ensemble Contest in 1987 and 1991. They also became the first percussion ensemble to be invited to perform at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic — an internationally renowned music education conference. 

Additionally, Wolf said the group debuted several commissioned pieces, some of which became renowned in the percussion ensemble community. 

“When you get a new piece of music written for you, you’ve got to take it out and give it premiere performances and ultimately [get it] recorded, too,” Wolf said. 

He also lead the group through CD recording sessions and three national tours. 

“We were very busy with what we were doing, and having fun at the same time,” Wolf said. “[The students] set a standard of excellence there.” 

Putting Utah percussion “on the map”

“When I first got [to the U], there was not a lot of percussion activity,” Wolf said. 

He, and his students, worked painstakingly to build a program that now has a national reputation for excellence. Although it required a lot of patience, he said everyone had a lot of fun with the process, even as the underdogs.

 

“When we won our first national contest, a lot of people were very surprised. They hadn’t heard anything from the University of Utah,” Wolf said. “One gentleman even said ‘maybe there’s a mistake,’ and I said ‘oh, there’s no mistake.'”

After that, the group entered again, winning a second time. 

“We kind of put little old Utah on the map,” Wolf said. 

The group has also performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, a gathering of percussionists from around the world that currently happens each year in Indianapolis, Indiana.

When Wolf wasn’t leading the Utah percussion ensemble, he was also involved with PAS. Per the nonprofit’s website, he was the founding chair of the Percussion Ensemble Committee, President of the Utah Chapter of PAS, and was on the group’s International Board of Directors.

Wolf sees this as an opportunity to reflect on his work with Utah percussion 

Wolf retired from the University of Utah in 2018, later being awarded the title of Professor Emeritus.

“You tend to move on in your life but this has been a moment to … recall all the students I had the privilege to work with,” Wolf said of the award.

Now, he said, he gets to see the ripple effect of his work. Former students are teaching and performing.

“This award simply is a good chance for me to … put at the end of my career and say ‘maybe we had a good influence on the students and nationally, too,” said Wolf. “That’s the thing the Percussive Arts Society was recognizing, somewhere out there we made a difference and that makes me feel good.”

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