New Jersey native Jeff Calissi has a broad range of experience as a pedagogue, performing artist, and composer. The world of percussion has taken him to Europe, Canada, and throughout the United States performing in a variety of wind, percussion and chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras, opera companies and musical theater productions.

Jeff’s compositions, arrangements and recordings are available from C. Alan Publications and Garden State Publications, and his research and writings on percussion can be found in Percussive Notes Journal and Rhythm! Scene magazine. He is an educational artist with Vic Firth sticks and mallets and Marimba One instruments.

Jeff holds memberships in the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the College Music Society (CMS), and the Percussive Arts Society (PAS). As a member of PAS, he has served on the Composition Committee, as chair of the Scholarly Research Committee and as the associate keyboard editor for the Percussive Notes Journal. He has performed and presented at the conferences of CMS, PAS, the Eastern Trombone Workshop, the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference, the National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy, and at the Center for Mallet Percussion Research.

Jeff received a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Radford University and both a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda national music honor society. He is an associate professor of music at Eastern Connecticut State University where he directs the Eastern Percussion Studio, teaches courses in music theory, music history, and ear-training & sight-singing, and performs in the faculty percussion duo Confluence.

In his life outside the lecture hall and off-stage, Jeff and his wife, pianist Rebecca Calissi, have their hands full with a toddler daughter (instrument/voice tbd), lab mix Maggie, cat Phoebe, and an aquarium of unnamed tropical fish. He enjoys watching the New York Rangers start each season on a winning streak, being challenged by the swim/bike/run of triathlon (also as separate activities), and learning to cook for his family with the help of online folks such as Jack Ovens and Stephen Cusato.

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