Performance

     Equally at home with orchestral, solo, and chamber music, Dr. Matthew McClung has performed with a wide variety of prestigious ensembles throughout the United States. 

He has performed with the Houston Grand Opera, the Hawaii Opera Theater, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Hanover Chamber Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, OrchestraX, Symphony of Southeast Texas, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, plus the symphony orchestras of Houston, Lexington, Northern Kentucky, Austin, Arkansas, Maui, and Honolulu.  As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Percussion Group Cincinnati, the Tierkreis Percussion Ensemble, the So Percussion Group, Musiqa, the Houston Composers Alliance, the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, the Contemporary Dance Theater of Cincinnati, the Music in Time series in Charleston, South Carolina, the Cinco de Brasso Quintet, and Terra Nova, among others.  As soloist, he has been featured on the ChamberX concert series in Houston and with the Shepherd School Percussion Ensemble.  An active performer of contemporary music, Dr. McClung recorded Arthur Gottshalk's "Stations" for solo percussion and tape in 2001, as part of an ASCAP-funded project to commemorate the composer's works.  He has also premiered and/or recorded the works of John Luther Adams, Larry Austin, Charles Ives, Gerhard Samuel, Shih-Hui Chen, Anthony Brandt, Andrew Hasenpflug, Troy Wayne, Simon Fink, Michael Barnhart and Thomas Osborne.

      A 2002 recipient of a Presser Award, Dr. McClung spent two months in Ghana, where he studied traditional drumming techniques with master drummers of the Ewe tribe.  He also studied gyil (African xylophone) techniques with Kakraba Lobi, who is considered one of the ultimate virtuosi of the instrument.  Some other musical endeavors have included

the premiere of a steel drum concerto with the Northern Kentucky Symphony, the national tour of a Broadway show, jazz vibraphone with the Rusty Burge Quartet, and timbales with the Cincinnati-based rock band "Ray's Music Exchange."

     Dr. McClung’s arrangements, transcriptions, and original compositions have been performed by the Shepherd School Percussion Ensemble, the Baylor University Percussion Ensemble, the Eastman Percussion Ensemble, the CCM Percussion Ensemble, Tierkreis Percussion, Strike 3 Percussion, the Honolulu Percussion Quartet, the Honolulu Symphony Percussion Education Ensemble, and Rounder recording artist Rachel Buchman.