BRIAN VOGEL is beginning his second year as a doctoral candidate in percussion performance at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. In addition to performing with the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra and Percussion Ensemble, he is the principal percussionist with Houston's Orchestra X and an active freelancer in the Houston area. Brian is an adjunct percussion faculty member at Texas Southern University.

Brian earned two Master of Music degrees in Percussion Performance and in Wind Ensemble Conducting from the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, where he performed with the Honors Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Percussion Ensemble. He was principal percussionist for the Boston Civic Symphony and performed with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and Norman Bolter's Frequency Band. Brian received a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Indiana University, where he performed with the Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra and the Columbus, Indiana Philharmonic.

Brian's principal teachers have included Richard Brown, Will Hudgins, and Gerald Carlyss. He has taken additional studies and masterclasses with Nexus, Robert Van Sice, Mitchell Peters, John Soroka, Tim Genis, Don Liuzzi, Frank Epstein, Kenny Aronoff, Tom Stubbs and Neil Grover and he has worked with conductors Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit, Gunther Schuller, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Donald Runnicles, Larry Rachleff, Bramwell Tovey, Emmanuel Villaume, and Benjamin Zander.

Internationally, Brian has performed at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Salzau, Germany and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. He has also played in the Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, where he was awarded the percussion fellowship. Most recently, Brian collaborated with world-renowned pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Ursula Oppens in a performance of Bela Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion in the 2003 Hudson Valley Chamber Music Society Concert Series.