Biography
Colton Townsend is a composer, performer, and educator based in Austin, Texas. Colton’s compositions and arrangements have been premiered by the UW-Milwaukee Wind Ensemble, UW-Milwaukee Percussion Ensemble, UW-Milwaukee New Music Ensemble, University of Arkansas Percussion Ensemble, Bentonville High School Jazz Ensemble, Fayetteville High School Percussion Ensemble, and members of the University of Arkansas Wind Ensemble, Slee Sinfonietta, MDI Ensemble, Formalist Quartet, and JACK Quartet.
As a performer, Colton has multiple years of Winter Guard International and Drum Corps International experience at both the Open and World Class levels and has premiered dozens of new compositions for percussion. He has also performed with numerous professional ensembles such as Present Music, the Wisconsin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Master Singers of Milwaukee, Jubilate Chorale, and the Milwaukee Choristers. His teaching experience includes Teaching Assistantships at both the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Texas at Austin, where he is currently studying. His teaching experience also includes Westlake High School, Bentonville High School, Fayetteville High School, and Cooper Elementary School. His festival and conference activity includes New Music on the Point, Vu Symposium, SPLICE Summer Institute, June in Buffalo, Du Vert À l'Infini PluComp, highSCORE, and Nief-Norf summer festivals. He loves exploring new ideas and strives to create fun, entertaining, and engaging experiences for the artists, audiences, and students he interacts with.
Colton is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Percussion Performance at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Master’s of Music with a dual concentration in Composition and Theory and Percussion Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he received the Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship Award for the final year of his degree. He earned his Bachelor’s of Music in Music Education from the University of Arkansas, where he also earned numerous awards and graduated as a Fulbright College Highest Distinction Scholar.