The story so far
Twenty-five years behind the drums, told in photographs: from a home studio in Hermiston, Oregon, to the concert stage at Angelo State.
2001 · Hermiston, Oregon
It starts in a studio
Trent Shuey grew up in Hermiston, a farm town on the Columbia River in eastern Oregon. By the time he was out of high school the local paper had already taken notice. “A different drummer… the man for all styles,” the Hermiston Herald wrote in 2000.
The photo is from the room where that started: a blue drum set under a ceiling of cymbals, microphones set up, friends plugging in guitars. Most of what came later, from jazz clubs to orchestra pits to marching fields, can be traced back to afternoons in this room.
2006–2009 · First students, first degrees
Teaching before finishing school
He taught percussion at Hermiston High School from 2006 to 2008 while studying with Margaret Mayer at Blue Mountain Community College, where he earned an Associate of Arts in 2007. A year later BMCC hired him back as Director of Percussion Studies.
At Eastern Oregon University he studied with Teun Fetz and finished a Bachelor of Music magna cum laude in 2009. That same year he stepped in front of the Grande Ronde Symphony as timpani soloist for the world premiere of a concerto by Kvistad, the first of many turns in the orchestra, including principal chairs with the Grande Ronde Symphony and the Inland Northwest Symphony.
2009–2012 · Reno, Nevada
Jazz in the high desert
A graduate teaching assistantship took him to the University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied with Andrew Heglund and Cody Remaklus and finished a Master of Music with a minor in jazz in 2012. In 2011 the Reno Jazz Festival named him Outstanding Drum Set Soloist.
Reno was also where the range widened: steel drums with the UNR I-Pan ensemble, summers on the faculty of the Lake Tahoe Music Camp, principal percussion and timpani with the Tahoe Symphony, and concerts with the Reno Philharmonic and the Reno Chamber Orchestra.
2012–2015 · Urbana-Champaign
Illinois and the marimba
Doctoral study at the University of Illinois meant years with William Moersch, one of the marimba's great commissioners, and with Ricardo Flores. Trent won the university's Edgard Varèse Award in 2013, taught as a graduate assistant, worked summers at Illinois Summer Youth Music, and played with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony and Sinfonia da Camera.
His dissertation became a performance guide to five marimba works commissioned by Moersch, and the recital that went with it carried three world premieres. The recordings are on SoundCloud.
2015 · San Angelo, Texas
Angelo State
In 2015 Trent joined the faculty of Angelo State University as Assistant Director of Bands and percussion instructor. He directed the Symphonic Band for his first three years, then moved to the jazz program, and he has written every battery arrangement the Ram Band Drumline has played since, more than 40 halftime shows so far.
The studio he inherited had four percussion students. It has grown to sixteen, and the drumline has gone from 8 players to more than 20. Along the way he created the Ram Horns pep band identity in 2016, founded the ASU Day of Percussion in 2017, and secured a $25,000 Rea Charitable Trust grant for new instruments.
2017 · Fall
The line grows
The Ram Band Drumline in the fall of 2017, his third season at Angelo State.
2018–2021 · Yucatán, Mexico
ÓperaMaya
Starting in 2018, summers meant the ÓperaMaya International Music Festival in the Yucatán: six seasons in all, eventually on the percussion faculty, with timpani set up inside a cave for a concert in 2021. The festival's percussion scholarship came his way in 2019 and again in 2021, and the trips are part of a performing résumé that spans the United States, Mexico, and Brazil.
2020 · Doctor of Musical Arts
The degree, and a premiere with his name on it
The doctorate from Illinois was completed in 2020. The same year he gave the world premiere of William Kang's Shuey Brew, Coffee Stains, an Office, and the Spine, performing alongside the composer.
2021 · Hermiston
Paul
In July 2021 Trent lost his father, Paul Thomas Shuey, a radiographer, an expert-rated chess player, and a camper and fisherman. Paul's fish painting is the reason this website looks the way it does: its colors and brushstrokes are painted under every page title. Read the memorial page.
2021–2022 · Back on stage
Big band, percussion ensemble, and a night at the Cactus
Concerts came back. He directed the jazz ensemble from the front, conducted the Percussion Ensemble through Percussion Magic, played drums for Jazz at the Cactus in October 2022, and spent August on the field with the 2022 drumline.
Fort Concho
The Official Drummer
San Angelo grew up around a frontier army post, and the post is still there. As the Official Drummer of Fort Concho, Trent plays an original 1867 drum at living history events, giving visitors the sound of military music on the Texas frontier. More about Fort Concho.
2023 · Recital, parade, and FiFi's
A full year
A faculty recital at the marimba, the Ram Band on parade, and the jazz combos playing under the neon at The House of FiFi DuBois downtown, where the jam sessions still happen.
2024 · Latin Jazz
The big band finds its groove
A spring program of big band history gave way to a fall of Latin jazz, with the ASU Jazz Ensemble on stage in October 2024. The jazz program now includes the big band and four combos.
2025 · Thunderstruck
Two timpanists, one concerto
In September 2025 he was a soloist in Philip Glass's Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists with the ASU Symphony Orchestra, a program billed as Thunderstruck. The fall also brought PASIC in Indianapolis and the Percussion Ensemble's Glimmer concert in November.
2026 · The biggest year yet
From Big Spring to the Cactus Hotel
The Glass concerto again in February with the Big Spring Symphony. Bongos and mambo bell for Tito Puente Jr. at the Cactus Hotel on Mother's Day, which he calls the biggest gig of his life. The 49th ASU Summer Music Camp in June, band camp in August, the jazz combos at FiFi's in September, section percussion with the West Texas Symphony in October, and Terry Riley's In C with ASU music faculty and students on November 3.
At a glance
- 1983
- Born; grows up in Hermiston, Oregon
- 2000
- “A different drummer… the man for all styles,” the Hermiston Herald
- 2006–2008
- Percussion instructor, Hermiston High School
- 2007
- A.A., Blue Mountain Community College
- 2008–2009
- Director of Percussion Studies, Blue Mountain Community College
- 2009
- B.M., Eastern Oregon University; timpani soloist in the world premiere of the Kvistad concerto with the Grande Ronde Symphony
- 2011
- Outstanding Drum Set Soloist, Reno Jazz Festival
- 2012
- M.M. with a minor in jazz, University of Nevada, Reno
- 2013
- Edgard Varèse Award, University of Illinois
- 2015
- Joins the faculty of Angelo State University
- 2016
- Creates the Ram Horns identity
- 2017
- Founds the ASU Day of Percussion
- 2018
- First season at the ÓperaMaya International Music Festival
- 2020
- D.M.A., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; premiere of William Kang's Shuey Brew
- 2025
- Glass Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists with the ASU Symphony Orchestra
- 2026
- Glass concerto with the Big Spring Symphony; percussionist for Tito Puente Jr.; In C with the ASU music faculty
The next chapter
New concerts go on the calendar every semester, and the channel keeps growing.