Tim Palmer is one half of Maraca2 a young percussion duo from Birmingham, also featuring Jason Huxtable.



Tim Palmer and Jason Huxtable met whilst both studying on the Undergraduate percussion course at the Birmingham Conservatoire for which they both achieved 1st class honours degrees and won many of the college prizes, both individually and as a duo.



Biography:

At an early age Tim Palmer progressed through the ensembles of the Northamptonshire County Music Service performing in a wide variety of groups such as Percussion ensembles, Orchestras, Wind Bands and Brass bands.



Tim Palmer was granted a place to further his Percussion studies at Birmingham Conservatoire in September 2000. Since then he has performed in Master classes with Arthur Lipner, Jim Chapin, Colin Currie, Nebojsa Zivkovic, David Friedman and Ney Rosauro.



Tim Palmer has had much success in competitions in and around Birmingham. He was awarded first prize of the Birmingham Conservatoire percussion prize. He then went on to win the Doris Newton music club prize for the most outstanding instrumentalist of 2002. Also Tim Palmer is a prize winner of the John Ludlow Philharmonic Concerto competition for his performance of Joseph Schwantner’s percussion concerto. For this competition he was granted permission by Schott Publications and Joseph Schwantner to commission an arrangement of the concerto for two pianos and solo percussion which received its World Premiere on February 24th 2003.



Over the past few years Tim Palmer has played an active role in music around Birmingham. He has performed with both the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.



Tim Palmer is also involved in music education around Northamptonshire and is employed by the ‘Northamptonshire Performing Arts Service’.



In June 2004, Tim Palmer gained his Bachelor of Music degree with first class honours and was awarded the BMus prize for outstanding achievment. He has also just completed his AdvPgDip (Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Performance) with distinction at Birmingham Conservatoire where he now holds a visiting tutor position, teaching mallet / solo percussion.



In November of 2006, Tim Palmer launched his new percussion website www.percussionmusiconline.com which is dedicated to the research and classification of percussion music. The website now has over 1500 members and is supported by many organisations including the Missouri PAS chapter, USA.