Alison Shaw

Prior to her appointment to The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 2004, Dr. Alison Shaw served on the music faculties of Michigan State University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Eastern New Mexico University and The Interlochen Center for the Arts. She serves on the summer faculty of the International Music Camp in the International Peace Gardens on the border of North Dakota, USA and Manitoba, Canada, where she has directed the mallet percussion workshop since 2011. Dr. Shaw enjoys an established reputation as a virtuoso percussionist, master teacher and clinician. She has embraced chamber music, orchestral performance and solo artistry, and has distinguished herself as an award-winning soloist and an acclaimed interpreter of new music.

She has premiered a combination of over 30 solo and chamber works throughout the United States and Europe, and her solo CD Signs of Intelligent Life is released on the Eroica Classics label. Her 2nd solo CD Cadenza, Fugue and Boogie, is scheduled for release in October 2014 and will include 4 world-premiere recordings.

An advocate of contemporary music, she served as Executive Director and Co-Founder of Quorum Chamber Arts Collective, a mixed-instrumentation chamber ensemble. During its 15 years of touring and performing contemporary chamber music, Quorum commissioned 18 new works for its instrumentation, and recorded an award-winning compact disc, Cold Water, Dry Stone-The works of Evan Chambers on the Albany label.

Shaw also tours extensively with the percussion/tuba duo, Balance, a collaboration that has produced several commissions for this unique combination in addition to transcriptions of popular and folk music. She has also served as principal percussionist or timpanist with many American orchestras, and currently serves as principal timpanist with the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra in Oshkosh.

She also tours internationally and records as principal timpanist with the Brass Band of Battle Creek. Her recordings can be heard on the Eroica Classics, Dorian, Albany, Equilibrium, Mark, BBC and FIM labels. She has served on the International Percussive Arts Society (PAS) Board of Directors and has also served as the Chairperson of PAS College Pedagogy Committee. Prior to her appointment to the PAS board of directors, she served as an associate editor for Percussive Notes, the official journal of the Percussive Arts Society. Shaw is a performer/endorser for Encore Mallets, and is a clinician and endorser for Sabian Cymbals, Remo and Black Swamp Percussion.