Since its founding in 2006, the Meehan/Perkins Duo (Todd Meehan and Doug Perkins) has redefined the American percussion duo through diverse commissions and engaging performances.

Dedicated to creating a new body of work for percussion duo, to date the Duo has collaborated with composers David Lang, Paul Lansky, Nathan Davis, John Supko, and Matt McBane to expand the repertoire and produce eclectic new acoustic and electro-acoustic works for percussion. The Duo has shared this music with audiences throughout the country, including performances at Weill Recital Hall, the Ojai Music Festival, the Yellow Barn Festival, the International Festival-Institute at Round Top, the Bang on a Can Marathon, The Stone, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and abroad in St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk, Russia.

In June 2012, the Duo premiered its newest commission, Jonathan Leshnoff’s Concerto for Two Percussionists and Orchestra, with the Texas Festival Orchestra under the baton of Michael Stern at the Round Top International Festival-Institute. The work will receive performances during the 2012-2013 season with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and the Baylor Symphony Orchestra. The 2012-2013 season will also feature appearances at the Visiones Sonoras Festival in Morelia, Mexico, the Works and Process Series at the Guggenheim Museum, the University of South Carolina’s Southern Exposure Series, and a residency at Da Camera of Houston featuring a John Cage Musicircus, among others. The Duo was also awarded a recent Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, and as a result, will premiere a new concert-length work by composer Tristan Perich in spring/summer 2013.

February 2011 marked the release of the Duo’s first recording on New World Records, entitled Restless, Endless, Tactless – Johanna Beyer and the Birth of American Percussion Music. The recording, a joint project with the Baylor Percussion Group, chronicles a largely unknown body of early percussion works from the 1930s written by Johanna Beyer, Henry Cowell, Harold Davidson, Ray Green, John J. Becker, and Doris Humphrey. The release was praised as “immaculately played by the duo” by the BBC Music Magazine and “an engaging experience” by Gramophone. Fanfare Magazine perhaps best sums up the recording by stating, “This is a must-hear for anyone remotely interested in the development of music in the past century and is strongly recommended.” In November 2011, the Duo released its second album, Travel Diary, on Bridge Records, featuring new acoustic and electro-acoustic works by Paul Lansky, David Lang, Tristan Perich, and Nathan Davis.

The Meehan/Perkins Duo uses Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Pearl/Adams drums and keyboards, Black Swamp Percussion accessories, Remo drumheads, and Zildjian cymbals.

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