The LUUMS Percussion Ensemble was founded in 2022 by Ashruta Mani & Marcia McCants . With their shared goal of making percussion music more accessible to student musicians, Ashruta and Marcia created a space for percussionists of all skill levels to explore a range of instruments and genres of music.
Following a trial period in 2022, the percussion ensemble was formally launched as LUUMS’ newest ensemble for the 2023/24 academic year!
Marcia McCants, an Alexandria, VA native, has a Bachelor of Music in Music Industry from James Madison University, a Master’s of Music Performance in Percussion from George Mason University, and a Master’s of Arts in Applied Psychology of Music from the University of Leeds.
McCants has performed with the Colour of Music Orchestra in 2021 and 2024, and the Colour of Music Orchestra percussion section at PASIC in 2021. She also has performed with the Fairfax Wind Symphony Massanutten Brass Band, and the Brass Band of Northern Virginia. During her time at the University of Leeds, she co-founded the first percussion ensemble at the university through their student union, an ensemble that is still on going.
She is also active within PAS, being a member of the Scholarly Research Committee since 2023. McCants has also worked with the Diversity Alliance in PAS. Her main focus of research is music performance and emotions, completing a dissertation on the topic as well as presenting her research. Her work in this field is to help musicians have a better music making experience.
McCants is currently an adjunct professor of percussion at Virginia State University, with a music psychology and well-being blog.
Ashruta Mani is a percussionist and composer from Chennai, India, currently based in West Yorkshire. Having dual specialisms goes a long way, as she particularly enjoys writing music that she can perform herself. She has been an active performer in LUUMS since 2021 and has finally decided to join the committee four years later! She not-so-secretly loves making spreadsheets, so she’s very excited to help run the society this year. .
More recently, she has focused on researching gesture and movement within percussion performance, which has significantly shaped her own practice. During her time at Leeds, Ashruta has performed with the Sinfonia of Leeds, York Symphony Orchestra and Yorkshire Wind Orchestra, establishing her as an upcoming percussionist in West Yorkshire.
As a graduate, she continues to develop her compositional portfolio and hopes to perform her music in Leeds more frequently! Alongside her undergraduate degree she co-founded the LUUMS percussion ensemble in 2022 with the aim of making the instrument group more accessible to new percussionists.
What was your experience of leading the percussion ensemble like?
Marcia: It was nerve wracking at first! I was worried with being older and being American that the group would struggle with outreach but once it started I got really comfortable and everything flowed a lot better. I was able to use my experience with previous teaching to help me with the new endeavor. I’ve worked with marching bands, taught high school percussion classes and elementary and secondary music classes. In my undergraduate and first masters I participated in percussion ensemble there as well as steel pan! So I was able to use my playing and teaching experience to help start the group.
Ashruta: I had never formally ‘taught’ anyone percussion before, and in fact my experience when I first got to Leeds as an ensemble performer was quite limited -Growing up in South India, my musical education involved sporadic bursts of Western Classical piano, Carnatic flute, and finally solo marimba. I had never played in a full sized orchestra or wind bands before, and was very inexperienced with auxiliary and orchestral percussion.
So In my first year at uni, I remember showing up to my first rehearsal with LUUMS concert band and telling the conductor that I only played marimba and was very confused when I was asked to play the tubular bells that semester. Across the year, I picked up a huge amount of knowledge and practice just by being around a whole different world of music than I grew up with and I understood how to approach percussion on the whole! This gave me a lot less distance with brand new players than one might expect.
I was very lucky that Marcia was there as a more experienced percussionist and a conductor because I was not ready to lead a group myself, but I was able to offer feedback and technical guidance to our players in rehearsals. The barrier to entry with percussion is, in my view, a lot lower than other kinds of instruments because of its inherent simplicity of sound-making: you tap, strike, hit, bash, whack, the list goes on and on, but if the instrument is in front of you, the way forward is usually clear.
What led to you forming the percussion ensemble?
Marcia: I was super curious about percussion here at the school of music and noticed there wasn’t a lot for percussion. I then met Ash from emailing the percussion professor and put us in contact. We both wanted to do something more with percussion and at a high level. We knew it was going to be a challenge with only knowing a few percussionists. But in the end, we were able to make it work!
Ashruta: One of the most valuable learning experiences in my first year of uni being in percussion sections for SWO, Symph, Concert band and the contemporary classical ensemble for my degree – While I’d established a good workflow as a soloist, there was a lot more I had to learn about being in western music ensembles. I wanted to create a space for percussionists to get together where we could learning and perform music beyond the constraints of the “percussion section” of a larger ensemble. It also opened up opportunities for more theatrical music with a wider range of instruments.
How do you prepare to introduce percussion to brand new players?
Marcia: I feel like it depends on the type of person or group I’m working with. If it’s complete beginners like people who have never seen or heard of percussion I’d have to go to YouTube. Show them all types of percussion, not just the Western idea of percussion but percussion around the world and related to them. Like let’s look at percussion ensembles, marching band, gamelan, steel pan, taiko, all of it. Then if there’s enough interest I would go over the basics with snare drum and mallets. Even though I’m not the best with drumset it would be good to include that as well!
Ashruta: At the time, I really had no idea; fortunately percussion is a very approachable instrument group, in that sounds come directly from strikes. The benefit of that first group of players was that it was made of existing musicians, so as a group there was a decent sense of rhythm, groove and the ability to sight read, which made it so much easier!
What was your favourite part of leading the ensemble? Was there anything unexpected that came about?
Marcia: My favorite part was seeing it all come together for the showcase. In a sense it felt like it was my baby if that makes sense? It made me excited to come to rehearsal with people who were new to percussion ensemble get really lost in the music and having so much fun. I loved the questions I would get, how serious and then unserious rehearsal would be, and the work ethic of everyone! I was mostly surprised that it’s still going and it’s better than ever! I’m still truly honored to have a hand in starting the ensemble.
Early rehearsals with the LUUMS Percussion Ensemble.
Ashruta: Across my first year, a lot of student musicians commented on how hard the role of a percussionist seemed, or even how much it would scare them. While I agree, that there’s very little that is more exposing than an incorrectly timed crash cymbal or a dissonant glockenspiel, I think percussion is inherently very approachable and fun! The sheer number of sounds we can play around with almost makes one feel like a child in a playground.
In our first rehearsal, I brought out my arrangement of Ryan Ike’s ‘The Quick and the Undead’ from the West of Loathing soundtrack and was immediately blown away by how it sounded within the first 10 minutes.
I was really pleasantly surprised by the number of people that attended our rehearsal (as it was mainly advertised through word-of-mouth) and the number of people that developed a newfound enjoyment for percussion playing through it!
Percussion Ensemble in 2023/24
In summer 2023, LUUMS Percussion Ensemble was formally established as LUUMS’ 11th ensemble following a vote the Annual General Meeting with the executive committee and wider ensemble teams.
Programme preview of percussion ensemble’s debut concert in winter 2023 with their new conductors, Dane Yalung and Tristan Rodway.
Livestream of the LUUMS Percussion Ensemble’s debut concert.
LUUMS Percussion Ensemble after their debut concert.
Leeds University Union Music Society 