Omar Carmenates

It’s time for my annual WGI ‘26 stats by the numbers! Performances judged: 289 Weekends judging: 4 Flights: 18 States: 3 Years with WGI: 12 (And a new one for 2026): Most performances judged in a single day: 56 I thought this was going to be a “light” year because I couldn’t make it out to many shows but boy were they jam packed with incredible performances from top to bottom. I’m always so thankful to have the best seat in the house for these shows and to get to be the best fan that I can for each group that comes on the floor. (And this year, I even got to bring a new “fan” to his first WGI championships!). Thank you to all of the performers, teachers, parents, designers, and volunteers for another inspiring year!

Sunday April 12, 6pm is going to be an epic evening of music, and we’re so thrilled to welcome to campus Ian Chang, who wears many hats as an Oscar/BAFTA-nominated musician, composer, producer, and drummer for the band Son Lux. Ian will not only be performing a solo set, but will also play alongside the FUPE on the world premiere of his new work “Blood Moon” for electronic percussion quartet! (Swipe for sneak peeks 👀) Also, be sure to show up right on-time to catch the fabulous musicians of the Greenville Fine Arts Center! See you there! Program: Ku-Ka-Ilimoku - Christopher Rouse* Lucky Nashville - Ivan Trevino* Pillar V - Andy Akiho Ian Chang Solo Set (TBD) MegaCicada - Ian Chang Blood Moon (world premiere) - Ian Chang Cloud Folk - John Psathas *FAC Percussion Ensemble

Success!! HUGE congratulations to these students for making history as the first ever SC All-State Percussion Ensemble! It was such a blast to be a part of this, and so meaningful to see our home All-State audience experience this for the first time. It’s taken a village to get to this point for sure and we couldn’t have gotten here without the support of SCBDA and planning and logistical efforts of our state’s percussion community. Let’s keep it going!

🌙 Late Night Soundcheck vibes🌙 as we prepare to give the opening concert at the SCBDA All-State Band Clinic tomorrow (Friday) at 9am. Can’t wait to see you all there!

🔥Elite-level Independence🔥 The legend, @ocarmenates , shows us the limitless potential of musicality and creativity when exploring rhythmic independence techniques. This excerpt is from his award-winning composition, “Unnamed Tenor Solo.” Our recent release—-“2002: A Quad Odyssey”—-feature’s three advanced quad solos from the minds of Omar Carmenates, Scott Simon, and Nick Werth. ✨Find it at OneConstellation.com✨ #quads #drumsolo #drumline #sheetmusic #percussion

We are so excited to have Dr. Omar Carmenates with us this week working with our percussion ensemble students as they prepare for their performance at Music for All! Dr. Carmenates is the director of percussion studies at Furman University and is an active composer and arranger. He is also an avid participant in the marching arts, serving as an adjudicator for WGI, staff member at various drum corps, and arranger for high school programs across the United States. Welcome @ocarmenates ! #frhsbands #coloradoband #frhspercussion #guestclinician

We’re so excited to drop our latest video, a performance of “Scroll” by Tom Rarick, featuring the man himself! YouTube link in bio! 🔗 It’s always a blast to collaborate with your friends, but even better when you play their pieces and they come in to play with you! It was so fun to just step back and watch Tom lead my students in preparing his piece. Beyond all of the recognition he has in the marching percussion world with the @bluecoats , his ears and attention to detail in a concert setting are second to none as well and it really shows in this video. Kudos to Tom and all of the @furmanpercussion students for their playing, and especially to @joshroperdrums and @hcg.percussion for prepping the other two solo parts!

Tonight, the fantastic @3d_percussion will be giving at recital ay 7:30pm local time at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Their program will feature the premiere of my latest piece “Sidechained” for percussion trio and live audio processing. This isn’t your normal performer+backing track piece, as all of the electronic material - with only a few momentary exceptions - is performed in real-time. To whet your appetite before 3D slays tonight, swipe to the end for a cheeky montage of 2 second teaser clips of the piece! About the piece: I started forming the idea for this piece around 2023, in search a percussion chamber piece that moved the role of electronic audio from a static, stiff accompaniment to a collaborative and responsive one; one that would even allow for moments of improvisation should the performers choose to do so. After working through a few versions of a UI for a proof-of-concept (swipe to see a failed draft and the final version), we landed on something that I hope is user-friendly and that requires minimal tech know-how: Just 4 mics and a computer+interface; no triggers or specialized sensors needed! For the nerds, the piece utilizes a series of gated audio backing tracks whose sounds are only made audible when the performers play certain acoustic instruments which are “sidechained” to those electronic tracks. Through the course of the piece, those instruments momentarily activate specific electronic layers, giving them rhythmic shape and impetus. In one section, each hit of a kick drum may trigger a note of melodic synth bass line, in another, perhaps a string pad. The end result is that the performers don’t have to feel like they’re “chasing” the audio track, which is something I often feel when playing performer+backing track pieces. Rather, they can actively, or even spontaneously, initiate when and how the electronic material is heard. Have a great show tonight 3D! I’ll have more to share about the piece very soon!

Coming this Friday, February 27th, we’re excited to drop our next music video, “Scroll” by Tom Rarick. Head over to the @furmanpercussion YouTube channel and subscribe so you don’t miss the premiere!

We’ve might’ve started 2026 digging out of the snow, but @furmanpercussion spring semester is really starting to heat up🔥. 1: On Tuesday, senior Joe Bricker and his band @normalpeople played a great show at the Radio Room! 2: On Thursday, sophomore Thomas Witt had the official premiere of his arrangement of Gershwin’s Three Preludes performed wonderfully by the Furman Symphony! 3/4: Today was “install day” for an incredible collaboration we’ve got in the works. More on that soon, but here’s a sneak peek of us testing some stuff out. 5: AAAAAND….we’ve got another video drop 🎥 coming for everyone soon, and we even brought in a special guest for this one!! We can’t wait to release this one!

It was one of those weekends that looked more practical on the calendar. 😂 Friday afternoon I headed down to Columbia to speak on a panel at SCMEA on “Arranging for Percussion” with Matt Kilby and John Willmarth (thanks to everyone who came!). Then literally turned right back around to set up this beast once again….iykyk. After a quick sleep, “the gang” arrived for a 12-hour recording session that abruptly turned into a 16-hour one after a tech failure just as we were wrapping. 🤦🏾‍♂️ At least the good news is that the end result actually turned out much better after! Kudos to Emma, Justin, Diana, and my student Landon for their cool heads and uber-professionalism. More on this recording soon!

Florida percussionists: “2002: A Quad Odyssey” has been added to the FBA Solo & Ensemble music list🔥 “Bottleneck Don” (grade 7) by Scott Simon “Unnamed Tenor Solo” (grade 7) by Omar Carmenates “The Unexamined Life” (grade 7) by Nick Werth Available now at OneConstellation.com #percussionmusic #soloandensemble #fbasoloandensemble #quadsolo #tenorsolo