Randy Gloss

"Randy Gloss's maneuvering of his frame drum had to be seen to be
believed."

-Mina Silverstone, salamworldwide.com

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 quartet devoted to the art of hand drumming. 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 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. Percussionists and critics worldwide have praised their recorded work, as being some of the most important and interesting of it's kind."Masterful" (Modern Drummer Magazine)"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)"...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. Anyone who loves hand percussion should check out Shradhanjali."(PercussiveNotes) In addition, Hands On'Semble has collaborated with an wide array of the world's finest percussionists including: John Bergamo (the group's co-founder), Swapan Chaudhuri, Adam Rudolph, Poovalur Sriji, Houman Pourmehdi, Glen Velez, Brad Dutz, Jamey Haddad, Steve Shehan, Mark Nauseef, Pete Lockett, Ed Mann, Carlos Stasi, Guello, Jerry Leake, and Abbos Kosimov.Outside of his work with Hands On'Semble, Randy Gloss has been involved in numerous other projects fusing world music with new music and jazz including: percussionist Adam Rudolph's "Go: Organic Orchestra" and world percussion group Vashti; the Persian group Lian Ensemble; a Balkan and Indian collaboration with maestros Ashish Khan, Swapan Chaudhuri, Miroslav Tadic, and Vladko Stefanovski; a concert tour of India with Chitravina Ravikiran also featuring Brazilian pianist Jovino Santos Neto and master African drummer Alfred Ladzekpo; South Indian percussionist Poovalur Sriji's Thanjavur and the SNEW Ensemble; Turkish musician Latif Bolat; and Romanian pan flute virtuoso Damian Draghichi to name a few. Randy has also contributed percussion for film soundtracks by composers Danny Elfman and Gary Chang, for television series' such as Fear Factor, and has recorded music for the American Conservatory Theater and Southwest Chamber Music.Since 1999, Randy has been on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and also teaches part time at Los Angeles Music Academy (LAMA). Randy Gloss endorses Remo world percussion and drumheads, Paiste cymbals and gongs, Cooperman frame drums, and Mountain Rhythm djembes and congas.