Hands On'Semble

Hands On'Semble is a contemporary percussion quartet devoted to the art of hand drumming founded by renowned percussionist John Bergamo in 1997 (with Randy Gloss, Andrew Grueschow, and Austin Wrinkle). Since the group's inception, they have developed a repertoire of original compositions that blend the rhythmic concepts and playing techniques of North and South India, the Middle East, West Africa, Indonesia, South America, and western chamber music.   Hands On'Semble has performed and lectured throughout the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia at many of the world's premier percussion and world music festivals, music schools and conservatories.

"A Stellar percussion group...extraordinary soloing, and extensive palette of sounds" (Modern Drummer)

Drum! Magazine Reader's Poll Award winner for best percussion ensemble

in 2003, 2002 and first runner up in 2001

Hands On'Semble has collaborated in performance and recordings with a wide array of highly esteemed percussion artists such as Swapan Chaudhuri, Poovalur Sriji, Adam Rudolph, Houman Pourmehdi, Brad Dutz, Abbos Kosimov, Glen Velez, Jamey Haddad, Steve Shehan, Mark Nauseef, Ed Mann, Carlos Stasi, Guello, and Pete Lockett. Percussionists and critics worldwide have praised their recorded work as being some of the most important and interesting of it's kind.

"Masterful" (Modern Drummer)

"John Bergamo, Austin Wrinkle, Randy Gloss, and Andrew Grueschow succeeded in presenting a CD clearly ranking among the most interesting percussion CD's of the last ten years." (Percussion Creativ, Germany)

"...The Hands On'Semble always creates music with excellent energy and interesting colors and textures. The music is never so esoteric as to be elitist or incomprehensible, it always grooves. As great as the music is, it is an excellent resource for listeners to be exposed to and learn about percussion traditions from around the world.   Anyone who loves hand percussion should check out Shradhanjali." (Percussive Notes)

"This just might be the best percussion recording ever made. The drumming is of such a high quality that this CD is on my short list of the CDs I can recommend to any drummer or percussionist. It is one of those rare CDs that is wonderful to listen to, and also can be played over and over in order to learn new rhythms and compositional forms... Every drummer should own this CD." (Percussionmusic.com)

For more information on Hands On'Semble please visit: www.handsonsemble.com.