Paul Vaillancourt, Associate Professor of Percussion at Columbus State University, has been a featured soloist with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, the National Arts Center Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and at the Banff and Aspen Music Festivals. Recent concerto performances have included Michael Daugherty s Raise The Roof with the CSU Wind Ensemble and Jennifer Higdon s Percussion Concerto with the CSU Philharmonic. He has had various performances broadcast by NPR, CBC and Radio-Canada and is in demand as an instructor and composer of Scottish pipe band drumming. He is a founding member of several innovative contemporary music ensembles including The Furious Band, STRIKE, with pianist Jeff Meyer and the Fountain City Ensemble, with whom he has premiered works by Alexandr Radvilovich, Brian Cherney, J. M. David, Chen Yi, Daniel Koontz, Perry Goldstein, Daniel Weymouth, Matthew Welch, Brooke Joyce, John Fitz Rogers, and many others, in the U.S., Canada, Japan, China and Russia.

Reviews of STRIKE s recent CD project Convergence describe Vaillancourt s beautiful marimba sounding miraculously even and effortless . STRIKE tours of China and Russia included performances at the Beijing Modern Music Festival at the Central Conservatory, Tianjin Conservatory and SoundWays New Music Festival in St. Petersburg.

As a conductor, Vaillancourt has given the U.S. and world premieres of chamber works by Brian Cherney, David Lang, Steven Gellman, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Eric Moe, John Parcell, Sidney Hodkinson, Jack Beeson, R. Murray Schaeffer, Jefferson Freidman, Nico Muhly as well as the opera Comala, by Eastman School of Music faculty Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Vaillancourt contributed to the recently released commercial recording of the opera (Bridge Records) as a performer, which earned the composer a nomination as a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

While completing his D.M.A. at the State University of New York in Stony Brook studying with legendary pedagogue Raymond DesRoches, he performed with Pulse, the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble and the Orchestra of the S.E.M Ensemble.

Vaillancourt has recently recorded for Luminescence Records, Albany, CRI, Tzadik, Naxos, New Chris Records (Live In The Studio-with the jazz trio BE3), Alien Jazz with the Robert Orr Trio. He is endorsed by Bosphorus Cymbals and is a Pearl/Adams Regional Education Artist.