Music Professor Invited as Clinician at International Instrumental Clinic

The Department of Music's Fernando Valencia will travel to Cartagena, Colombia, as an invited clinician for the 5th Clinicas Instumentales. The clinic is held at the Adolfo Mejía Conservatory at the Institución Universitaria de Bellas Artes y Ciencias de Bolívar from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. 

The clinic hosts 25 artists from 10 university representing Asia, South American, Europe, and North America. The clinicians will present on various topic related to orchestral percussion and general percussion topics for participants at the clinic. Professor Valencia will represent the University of Arkansas and present on his work with UA students on Latin American music and percussion techniques as an active orchestral musician. 

About Fernando Valencia: A native of Colombia, Fernando Valencia is currently an instructor at the University of Arkansas in the areas of applied percussion and Latin American music. Valencia received his B.M. from the Universidad Javeriana (Bogota, Colombia) and his M.M. from the University of Arkansas under the guidance of Chalon Ragsdale. He later went on to Temple University to obtain the Professional Certificate of Studies with Alan Abel of the Philadelphia Orchestra where he was awarded the Avedis Zildjian Percussion Scholarship. Formerly the principal percussionist of the National Wind Symphony of Colombia, he has also performed with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, the Bogota Philharmonic, and the  Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey among others. Alongside his academic training, Valencia has been involved in the research and performance of his Afro-Colombian and Afro-Caribbean musical roots, interests that allowed him to obtain a scholarship to study Afro-Cuban drumming at the prestigious Instituto Superior de Artes in Havana, Cuba in the summer of 2003.

While on the East Coast, Valencia was a percussion associate faculty member at the Settlement Music School of Philadelphia and performed with several well known Latin artists such as Edgar Maldonado (Celia Cruz's band), Anthony Colon and Orlando Fiol among others. He also played for the Off Broadway show A Night at the Alhambra Cafe and made the percussion sub list for The Lion King on Broadway. Some of his commercial compositions have been broadcast on television in Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom and on VH1 channel in the U.S. He was selected for the cast of the nationally syndicated show What's Up Que Pasa. Valencia currently performs as a percussionist with the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, Fayetteville Jazz Collective and co-leads the NAMA award-winning salsa/Latin jazz band Calle Soul.