Percussia

New Music Ensemble

Percussia is a contemporary ensemble that performs an eclectic blend of audience-friendly music ranging from Bach to Piazzolla, to pieces influences by the music of Africa and Asia. Percussia's members are Ingrid Gordon and Andrea Pryor, percussion, and Jan Vinci, flute, with occasional guest artists to augment the core instrumentation. Percussia has performed Merkin Hall, Music at Saint Mark's, and Skidmore College, among others.

Percussia has received funding from Skidmore College, the Queens Council on the Arts, Music Performance Trust Fund and Chamber Music America.



Ingrid Gordon is artistic director and founder of Time's Arrow.




Jan Vinci, First Prize winner of England's International Performance Competition, has performed in England, The Netherlands, Denmark, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and for the Blossom Music Festival and the Chamber Music Conference of the East. Primarily a chamber musician, she has also played with the Albany, Cleveland Opera Theater and Heidelburg Orchestras. Ms. Vinci recorded Five Premieres: Chamber Works with Guitar on Albany Records with Tritonis, a flute, cello and guitar trio. Founded in 1982 and reformed in 1999, Jan is a member of Iridescence, a flute and harp duo with Karlinda Caldicott, former principal of the Albany Symphony. Jan holds a DMA from The Juilliard, an MM, from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a BM from Bowling Green State University, where she studied with Julius Baker, Sam Baron, Maurice Sharp, and Judith Bentley. Formerly on the faculty of Queens College and Hofstra University, currently she is Senior Artist-in-residence at Skidmore College and is founder and director of the Skidmore Summer Flute Institute. Jan has also served as president of the New York Flute Club.



Andrea Pryor de Manrique lives in New York where she teaches and performs with both classical and Latin ensembles. She is on faculty at Adelphi University and Nassau Community College as a dance accompanist. A grant by the Queens Council on the Arts has allowed Andrea to present a series of recitals of percussion works by Latin American composers throughout Queens. She holds a Masters degree in percussion performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 1994, she has been traveling regularly to Cuba where she studies both popular and folkloric drumming traditions. In 1999 the John Anson Kittredge Educational Fund supported her studies with the Conjunto Folclorico de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba.

Photos: Mark Stephen Kornbluth.