Darby Music

Dr. Gabriel Sean Darby is an instrumentalist, educator, and composer of chamber, symphonic, jazz, and commercial music with specializations in percussion and guitar. An artist whose scope of performances span the virtuosity of the classics to the contemporary, Darby has performed as a featured concerto soloist and has commissioned and premiered award-winning solo and chamber works of internationally renowned composers. As an educator, he has maintained a private studio throughout his entire professional career - at one point having as many as 50 students per week - including individual lessons on percussion, drum set, guitar, and bass, and group instruction of concert music for chamber ensembles as well as jazz and commercial music for small group combos. He served as Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Percussion Division of the School of Music at University of Tennessee, where he taught lessons, methods classes, and ensembles to music majors and minors. He taught the marching band drum line at University of Illinois during his doctoral studies. He has taught masterclasses at several high schools in Missouri, Tennessee, and Illinois. Dr. Darby’s compositions cover a variety of styles, consisting of works for solo instruments, small and large ensembles, and electro-acoustics. He has adapted, arranged, and performed guitar literature for marimba and vibraphone. Darby currently resides in Champaign, Illinois, where he is a freelance musician and teaches out of his private studio.

Dr. Darby holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from University of Illinois, a Master of Music from University of Tennessee, and Bachelor Music and Bachelor of Music Education degrees from University of Central Missouri. His emphases throughout college have been in education, performance, literature, and composition. The topic of his doctoral dissertation is on quartets for two pianos and percussion, for which he commissioned five new works from composers Kyong Mee Choi, Brad Decker, Tsai-Yun Huang, Ed Martin, and Jake Rundall. The topic of his master’s thesis is on symphonic orchestral repertoire for timpani with essays and recordings. Dr. Darby’s past instructors include William Moersch, Ricardo Flores, F. Michael Combs, Keith Brown, Michael Sekelsky, Jeff Moore, Taras Nahirniak, Zack Browning, Heinrich Taube, Scott Wyatt, Erik Lund, Kenneth A. Jacobs, David Aaberg, Michael Bersin, and R.J. Walker.

Darby has been an active member and participated in conferences of multiple professional music organizations, including Percussive Arts Society, Music Teachers National Association, and International Association for Jazz Education. He has instructed percussion for the Illinois Summer Youth Music program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While in Tennessee, Dr. Darby served as Assistant Director of Music for the Joy of Music program at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Knoxville, where he assisted with running the program and taught strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, and piano to junior high and high school students of the Knoxville area. In addition to his graduate teaching responsibilities in Tennessee, he volunteered additional instruction for the University of Tennessee marching band drum line. He has served as adjudicator for state marching band competitions at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri.

Dr. Darby has performed percussion in the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra and Knoxville Symphony Orchestra; guitar, bass, vibes, and drum set in several small jazz, rock, and commercial groups in Missouri, Tennessee, and Illinois; lead guitar in a contemporary music group, “Cooked Spinach,” that recorded a CD of all original music and performed several venues throughout Missouri. He volunteered solo music performances for charity events and retirement facilities while in Tennessee. During the summers of his undergraduate studies, Darby toured the U.S. and Canada, performing percussion with the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps. His solo recitals throughout college included repertoire standards, premieres of new works that he commissioned, his own adaptations and arrangements, and pieces performed with modern dancers and stage lighting effects.

Originally from northwest Missouri, Dr. Darby developed a great interest in music in elementary school and by the time he was in junior high he decided that he would one day achieve the highest degree in music and teach, perform, and compose music for a living. He started exploring various musical instruments, styles, and composition and reached an advanced level on percussion and guitar by the end of high school. He composed and premiered his first complete works during high school, including a classical guitar solo and a duet for clarinet and four-mallet marimba. He started teaching music lessons during his last year in high school and quickly developed a large studio. Since then, he has been very fortunate for the path that his career has taken, always passionate for music and driven toward achieving the next step at just the right times in his life.