Dan Piccolo publishes new collection of snare drum music discovered in the BGSU Music Library

The following news item is written by percussion professor Dan Piccolo:

When I first started teaching at Bowling Green State University in 2016, I received an email from then Music Librarian Susannah Cleveland telling me about a collection of materials the library had received in 2008 as a donation from Robert and Jeanette Romaniello. After working out the details with Cleveland and Dr. Roger Schupp, BGSU Professor of Percussion from 1992 to 2015, the Romaniello family ultimately donated three boxes of un-cataloged materials from Charley Wilcoxon’s personal archives.

When I began reviewing the materials in 2018, I was initially preoccupied with my excitement in seeing original manuscripts for some of my favorite snare drum music of all time, pieces I’d been playing since I was thirteen years old! I still enjoy flipping through those pages, but during the quiet months of 2020 and 2021, with concerts being few and far between, I was able to dig deeper. This was when I discovered a collection of manuscripts labeled “Swinging The Downfall of Paris,” written between 1972 and 1974. While there are many other unpublished materials in the collection, including a wealth of material for keyboard percussion instruments, this was the most cohesive, completed manuscript.

What makes these new variations special is that their existence has been essentially unknown until now, they come from thirty years later in Wilcoxon’s career than his other most popular works, and they perfectly demonstrate Wilcoxon’s ability to employ rudimental vocabulary to make distinct but compelling music with the same source material.

The collection has now been edited and published by Ludwig Masters.

To find this collection, click here.