Ian Rosenbaum, a GRAMMY®-nominated percussionist who has been praised for his “spectacular performances” (Wall Street Journal) and for his “unfailing virtuosity” (Chicago Tribune), will join the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University as associate professor of percussion in fall 2024.
A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Rosenbaum has premiered more than 100 chamber and solo works. He has collaborated with and championed the music of established and emerging composers alike, from Andy Akiho, Christopher Cerrone, and Amy Beth Kirsten to John Luther Adams, George Crumb, and Paola Prestini. In 2021, Rosenbaum’s recordings were nominated for three GRAMMY® awards; his recording of Akiho’s LIgNEouS Suite with the Dover Quartet was nominated for a GRAMMY® award in 2022. He joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) in 2012 as only the second percussionist selected in the history of the organization and has performed with CMS regularly since.
“I am honored and excited to take up this position at Peabody, and to build upon the incredible legacy that Bob van Sice established here,” said Rosenbaum. “We have assembled an all-star team of teaching artists, including a new partnership with Sandbox Percussion, to support Peabody’s students as they pursue their passions and explore their own unique professional paths.”
Rosenbaum is a founding member of Sandbox Percussion, a new-music percussion quartet dedicated to artistry in contemporary chamber music. The Brooklyn-based group, which has been described as “exhilarating” by The New York Times and “utterly mesmerizing” by The Guardian, was the first-ever percussion ensemble to receive, in 2024, the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Its other members – Jonny Allen and Peabody alumni Victor Caccese and Terry Sweeney – will serve as guest faculty at Peabody alongside Rosenbaum.
In the 2024-25 academic year, Sandbox Percussion will visit Peabody twice per semester as a full quartet. During each visit, they will teach percussion lessons, coach the Peabody Percussion Group, hold side-by-side chamber music rehearsals, and lead entrepreneurship seminars, both as individuals and as a group. Sandbox Percussion will make these initiatives available to the entire student body at Peabody, and will share everything that goes into building and sustaining a non-profit performing arts organization, artistically and administratively.
The percussion faculty at Peabody will also include Ji Su Jung, a leading advocate for modern solo percussion and winner of a 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant; and Jeff Stern, founding percussionist of the icarus Quartet and a member of The Percussion Collective.
In returning to Peabody, Rosenbaum, a 2008 alumnus, joins a distinguished faculty of world-class performers and teachers providing rigorous, personalized, supportive instruction and guidance to help students excel artistically and professionally. The Peabody Conservatory’s teaching model and its unique Breakthrough Curriculum balance a deeply held dedication to excellence in classical arts training with an innovative focus on the contemporary needs of artists seeking to launch careers in today’s shifting performing arts landscape.