Are Drummers Natural Entrepreneurs? w/Neil Grover :: Ep 171 The Rich Redmond Show

Neil is a renowned percussionist, accomplished music educator, imaginative product innovator, and successful entrepreneur. He is the founder and president of Grover Pro Percussion Inc., a market leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of world-class percussion instruments.

At the young age of 23, Neil was appointed Principal Percussionist of the Opera Company of Boston, a position he held for seven seasons. As his career progressed, he found himself in demand for all musical genres, including symphony, chamber music, ballet, opera, and commercial recordings. Highlights of his collaborations include the Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Music from Marlboro, Indianapolis Symphony, Boston Musica Viva, and the Empire Brass. He was chosen to record the percussion tracks for Phillip Glass’ film soundtrack for Mishima. In addition, Neil appears as a Boston Pops percussionist in the hit movie Blown Away, starring Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones. He has toured with Music From Marlboro, Boston Symphony, Henry Mancini, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the Broadway production of The Pirates of Penzance. Since 1977, he has performed, recorded, and toured with the world-famous Boston Pops, where he has made music under the batons of Maestros Arthur Fiedler, John Williams, and Keith Lockhart.

Having performed regularly in the percussion section of the Boston Symphony for over 35 years, he has worked with Maestros Seiji Ozawa, James Levine, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Colin Davis, Neemi Jaarvi, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Bernard Haitink. It is noteworthy that Neil has performed in over 1,500 concerts as a percussionist with the BSO & Boston Pops.

Neil’s percussive talents have been heard by thousands at renowned venues, such as Boston’s Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and festivals at Tanglewood, Hollywood Bowl, Wolf Trap, Blossom, and Ravinia. In addition, he has performed for millions of listeners through television and radio broadcasts on the NBC, CBS, NHK, PBS, A&E and NPR networks. At the request of composer John Williams, Neil joined the multi-media musical extravaganza, “Star Wars in Concert”, serving as Principal Percussionist on two legs of their North American Tour.

Neil Grover has written/co-authored five publications: Four Mallet Primer, Four Mallet Fundamentals, Art of Triangle & Tambourine Playing, Percussionist’s Cookbook, and The Art of Percussion Playing, all published by Meredith Music.

Neil’s innovative designs and cutting edge manufacturing techniques have set a new standard for the ergonometric functionality of modern day percussion instruments. Neil and his company have been featured in many publications, including: Percussive Notes, Modern Drummer, School Band & Orchestra, Musical Merchandise Review and on two episodes of the Discovery Channel’s series How It’s Made.

Formerly the Chair of the Percussion Programs at both The Boston Conservatory and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, today, Neil’s students occupy leading positions in many top performing, educational and music business organizations.

Things That Came Up:

-1:45 Owning ALL the percussion instruments

-3:50 The magic of Zelda

-6:00 Studied with the same teacher as Dom Famularo

-7:00 Studying with Vic Firth

-11:10 “Classical musicians play with their eyes and jazz musicians play with their ears”

-12:10 “Talent got you this far, perseverance will carry you through.”

-12:45 Took AFM pension at age 65

-13:50 Contracting, composing and arranging as a new life chapter

-15:10 Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro”

-16:35 Being a frustrated stand-up

-17:40 Fred Buda: “Playing drum set in an orchestra is like swinging an elephant”

-19:40 How union pensions work

-26:05 At Tanglewood at the same time as Kenny Aronoff, with Leonard Bernstein conducting!

-27:40 Playing bongos for Bernstein’s “West Side Story”

-30:50 Star Wars Tour: Drum Tech, 7 percussionists, 3 conductors and music from all 6 Star Wars films

-38:00 Follow your dreams, no matter what!

-40:00 “The Accidental Entrepreneur”

-41:00 The FIRST Grover Triangle

-48:20 Allowing Redmond to help develop the “Studio Pro Series” pop tambourines

-54:00 Selling Grover Percussion to RBI Music

-60:40 On screen percussionist in the “Blown Away” film, starring Tommy Lee Jones

-61:30 Authoring Books

-63:30 Aerosmith! Glocks!

-69:30 Neil’s favorite axe is the piatti (cymbals)

-74:00 “The Fave 5”

Follow:

www.groverpro.com

Email: [email protected]<...