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Active as a performer, scholar, and pedagogue, Dr. Andrew M. Bliss is currently a Lecturer of Music at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Prior to this appointment, Bliss served the Adjunct Percussion Professor at Centre College, where he taught since 2005.

As a performing artist, Dr. Bliss has extensive experience in a wide variety of musical ensembles and genres, while specializing in contemporary solo and chamber performance. For almost a decade, he was a founding member of the Base4 Percussion Quartet, performing at various venues across the country and featured on the group’s critically acclaimed album, [one]. Currently, Bliss is artistic director of the nief-norf project, a chamber percussion group that performs modern music and uses technology and scholarship to enhance its interpretations. He is also a member of Nothing in Common, a piano/percussion duo with Chicago-based pianist Mabel Kwan. Bliss has also been a featured artist at the SEAMUS National Conference, the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), the College Music Society’s International Conference (Croatia), and at four Percussive Arts Society International Conventions. Passionate about furthering the state of percussion repertoire, Bliss has collaborated with a variety of composers including personal commissions from Paul Lansky, John Supko, Kyle Gann, and Christopher Adler, as well as presenting world premieres of music by John Luther Adams, Christopher Deane, and Glenn Kotche.

Equally interested in scholarship and pedagogy, Dr. Bliss has presented at the National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy (NCPP), the Society for Music and Minimalism’s 2nd International Conference, and at the Association for Technology in Music Instruction’s (ATMI) National Conference. He regularly appears on the faculty for the Music for All National Percussion Symposium, as a clinician for Yamaha’s Sounds of Summer programs, and has given masterclasses at a variety of universities and high schools in the U.S. In August 2008, he adjudicated the Fourth Annual Thailand National Drumline Contest in Bangkok and made several masterclasses appearances in and around Stockholm, Sweden the following October. In 2007 & 2008, Bliss served as the Front Ensemble Caption Head for the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps. He has been published in Percussive Notes and has served as the Vice-President for the Kentucky Chapter of PAS, where he co-hosted four annual state-wide Days of Percussion. As a committed supporter of the Percussive Arts Society, he is currently a member of the PAS Scholarly Research and Music Technology Committees and was a founding member of the PAS Collegiate Committee. He received his Doctorate of Musical Arts and Master’s degrees in percussion performance from the University of Kentucky and a Bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University.

Dr. Bliss is proud to be a Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist endorser/clinician for Innovative Percussion, Evans Drumheads, and Black Swamp Percussion Instruments and Accessories. Bliss’s primary teachers include James Campbell, Rich Holly, Robert Chappell, Orlando Cotto, and Liam Teague.