Educator, composer, performer, author, producer and conductor, Dr. John Pennington is currently a Professor of Music at Augustana College and is the Artistic Director of the Animas Music Festival in Durango, Colorado. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Arizona, and Arizona State. Dr. Pennington is an orchestral percussionist, who currently performs with the South Dakota Symphony and the Music in the Mountains Music Festival. With over thirty recordings to date he has recorded for the Ensemble 21, Summit, Cristo, OCP, and Equilibrium labels. Recent recording releases include: Steps (music for trumpet and percussion-produced, composed and arranged 2008), Lou Harrison, American Gamelan (produced, conducted and performed 2007), Compassionate and Wise (co-produced, composed and performed-2006-Equilibrium Press). With performances on four continents and over twenty-five states he has performed on Prairie Home Companion and been a featured performer at three Percussive Arts Society International Conventions. Active as a composer and arranger he has over twenty-five compositions for soloist, duo, chamber and films and dozens of arrangements for numerous instrumental and vocal combinations. Extensive studies in world music have included experience in African, Middle Eastern, Indonesian, Cuban and the South Indian Karnatak tradition. Recently, Dr. Pennington studied the Northern Hindustani tradition of music in Haridwar and Delhi, India and the Balinese and Javanese Gamelan traditions in Indonesia. This fall, 2010, Dr. Pennington has been invited to be a Cultural Envoy for the Department of State and U.S. Embassy in Beirut where he will present concerts and clinics throughout Lebanon.