“I’m feeling on top of the world!” said Dr. Nicholas Terry, director of percussion studies and assistant professor of music at Chapman University.   He’s a member of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, the acclaimed chamber percussion group whose latest recording, “Rupa-Khandha,” was nominated yesterday for three Grammy Awards, including the prestigious Best Small Ensemble Performance, Classical.   Two Chapman faculty composers, Sean Heim and Jeff Holmes, contributed pieces to the album:  Professor Heim wrote the title composition and Professor Holmes is represented with a work titled “Occasus.”

“To be nominated for the Grammy is such a honor, and everyone in the quartet, as well as the composers, Sean and Jeff, are feeling so blessed,” Professor Terry said.  The other categories in which the album received nominations are Best Surround Sound Album and Producer of the Year, Classical (Marina and Victor Ledin).

Formed in 2008, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet consists of musicians Matthew Cook, Justin DeHart, Eric Guinivan and Terry.  Since 2008, the LAPQ has championed the percussion-focused music of California’s great maverick composers, in addition to actively collaborating with tomorrow’s promising new artists from around the globe. Throughout California, the LAPQ have delighted audiences with fresh interpretations from the standard percussion ensemble repertoire, and many of their newly commissioned works have received awards from the FROMM Foundation, Theodore Presser Foundation, Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).    The LAPQ have presented concerts and educational events at such distinguished series as the Monday Evening Concerts, April in Santa Cruz, Pasadena Arts Council, L.A. Composer’s Project, and Music & Conversations; as well as numerous universities, including the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, University of Southern California, California Institute of the Arts, Occidental College, Chapman University, University of California Santa Cruz, and California State University Sacramento, East Bay and Bakersfield.

“Rupa-Khandha,” released on the Sono Luminus label, is available for purchase on the record label’s website, on Amazon and elsewhere online.  The package is a 2-disk set, containing a Blu-ray™ Surround Sound disc as well as a standard CD.  “As one of the new percussion recordings produced in surround sound, the listener is placed among a sonic landscape of sublime, visceral and exotic percussion instruments, with the full force of the quartet’s technique and artistry applied in interpreting four evocative, award-winning, and never-before-recorded works,” says the record company’s description of the album.

The Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  Winners in the classical categories are usually announced at a pre-show event.