Damien Bassman

About

Damien Bassman wrote and played the drum/percussion books for the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning Next To Normal, If/Then, The Color Purple, The Addams Family, High Fidelity and Mario Cantone’s Laugh Whore, and developed &/or arranged the drum books forAmerican Idiot, Hello Again, Big Fish, and Newsies. As principle percussionist of Kristjan Jarvi’s Absolute Ensemble he’s toured and recorded with fusion legend Joe Zawinul and world-renown artists such as Paquito Di Rivera, Mike Keneally, Marcel Khalife, Sarah Chang, and Gregor Bregovich. He has been featured on BBC’s Live from the Promms and PBS’s Great Performances, and has appeared on David Letterman, The View, Oprah, The Today Show, & Good Morning America as well as German, Korean, and Australian TV. He is the percussion professor and orchestra coach at Poland’s I-Culture Orchestra, The Baltic Youth Philharmonic, teaches at Marymount Manhattan College and accompanies dance throughout NYC, performing with companies such as Alvin Ailey, Cunningham, and Battleworks, for whom he served as Music Director. Damien has drummed for Sir Elton John, Barry Manilow, Ben Folds, John Cameron Mitchell, Rufus Wainwright, and is the drummer for many NYC-based singers and bands including Broadway and TV star Kristin Chenoweth, Brian D’Arcy James, Jarrod Spector, Judy Kuhn, The Tom Kitt Band, and for Ariana DeBose and Tamika Lawrence, for whom he also Music Directs.  Damien has performed in Europe, Asia, New Zealand, Australia, & America and has been a featured soloist with German orchestras throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with the Tonkustler Orchestra in Vienna, & the Adelaide Symphony in Australia. He proudly endorses Toca Percussion.