MICHAEL GOULD
Biography
As an internationally recognized scholar and performer in the field of drumset and contemporary percussion performance and pedagogy, Michael Gould’s wide range of collaborations, performances, and artistic works explore themes of nature, memory, and storytelling.
Gould holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Masters of Music from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.[1] Gould received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance at the University of Kentucky, where he also established an award in memory of his mother, the Elaine Gould Memorial Percussion Award, which is given to an outstanding first-year undergraduate percussion student. The Elaine Gould Memorial Award has been awarded to over twenty exceptional students since 1998.[2]
Michael Gould joined the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, School of Music, Theater and Dance (SMTD) in 1998. He teaches percussion and drumset within the Percussion Department and Afro-Cuban drumming and a course on playing Found Instruments at the University of Michigan’s Residential College/College of Literature, Science and the Arts.[3]
Gould is the Director of the University of Michigan’s Center for World Performance Studies. The Centre for World Performance Studies was established in 2000 to support students and staff within the discipline of Performance Studies by opening up global opportunities and spaces for connection with international practitioners and scholars.[4] The Center for World Performance Studies advocates for performance as a mode of research through public engagement that centers non-Western, underrepresented, and diasporic voices. In addition, the Center supports students and faculty staff to conduct research across the world where they are encouraged to participate in collaborations and residencies that explore a variety of themes including performance praxis, cultural identity, and representation.[5] By opening up creative, community, and critical practice opportunities the Centre for World Performance Studies offers multidisciplinary spaces for artists, performers, and scholars for public performances and intellectual engagement.[6]
Gould has created and released over 100 educational percussion videos through the online platform playalongmusic.org. In 2013, he was named the winner of the University of Michigan Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize for his integrated use of technology with Drum Diaries. The Drum Diaries is an e-book for percussionists to guide and structure their daily practice, the e-book brings together Gould’s experience as a percussion teacher and technology to create an interactive audio-video resource. A decade later, in 2023, as Gould celebrated 25 years of teaching at the University of Michigan, he was named the recipient of the Harold Haugh Award which is given to a music educator for excellence in studio teaching. For his recital, titled “25 Years of Teaching, 100 Digestible Tidbits of Knowledge,” Gould invited his current and former students to perform on stage alongside him while he shared pieces of wisdom and knowledge that he gained over the last twenty-five years of music education. For Gould, seeing his students thrive is one of the most rewarding parts of academia.[7]
Michael Gould has been part of a number of groundbreaking collaborations. Gould collaborated with Professor Stephen Rush and emeritus Professor Henry Pollack, the Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient on a large, multisensorial installation piece on climate change. The collaborative piece, A World About Ice that brought together music, science, and art to allow viewers to contemplate climate change.[8]
In 2025, Michael Gould and Masima Hwati’s collective, Zebra Collective, were artists-in-residence at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg. Their work, an immersive mutli-media installation, brings together both of their sonic practices to summon the spirit of Nyami-Nyami as a symbol of resistance and ecological memory. Their work is now in the permanent collection at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
Michael Gould’s work as a composer, educator, and multidisciplinary performer has been produced on stages and venues across the world, taking various forms such as ballets, radio performances, and through collaborators with people from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines like poets, engineers, and athletes. His growing body of work continues to push the boundaries of music education and performance within a global, experimental, and improvisational framework.
ARTISTS STATEMENT
We are The Zebra Collective, co-founded in Berlin in 2022 by Dr. Michael Gould and Dr. Masimba Hwati. Together, we explore the intersections of sound, performance, and sculpture through a shared commitment to experimental collaboration. Michael Gould, Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, specializes in percussion within both the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and the Residential College. Masimba Hwati is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose practice traverses sculpture, sound, and performance.
Our partnership began with the project *Nyami Nyami*, created alongside TanzTangente Dance Company in Berlin. This project became the springboard for our ongoing exploration of how climate change and human intervention have shaped the lives of the Tonga people along the Zambezi River. We frame this narrative within the broader context of the Anthropocene, delving into the intersection of ecology, myth, and displacement.
As The Zebra Collective, we fuse sculpture, sound, and technology to interrogate the ecological and cultural impacts of the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi. At the heart of our work is Nyami Nyami, the river deity of the Tonga—an enduring symbol of nature’s resistance and resilience. Through this myth, we investigate cycles of rupture and renewal, linking ancestral cosmologies to contemporary infrastructures and their effects on the environment.
Since our inception, we have developed several versions of the Nyami Nyami project, each reimagining the mythology through new media and performance. Our first iteration, *Nyami Nyami – Water Does Not Lie*, premiered at the TanzTangente Gallery in Berlin in 2022. This installation and performance meditated on water’s memory and truth—its power to reveal, cleanse, and defy human control.
Later in 2022, we created *Nyami Nyami und der Schlangenkönig der Lausitz*, performed on a farm in Ogrosen, Lausitz, for the Global Water Dances Festival. This version drew connections between the serpent guardians of the Zambezi in northern Zimbabwe and the Schlangenkönig (Snake King) from the Lausitz region of northeastern Germany. By bringing these myths into conversation, we explored how different cultures invoke serpent cosmologies to express awe for nature’s power and mystery.
The third iteration, *Nyami Nyami in Deep Time*, was realized at the University of Michigan in collaboration with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Here, we reimagined the Nyami Nyami myth as a portal to understanding time on a geological scale, inviting reflection on ancient worlds, deep rhythms, and futures beyond the human perspective. In this work, we incorporated models of ancient Shona stargazing pools and augmented guitars that were activated with clock spring machanisms. These hybrid instruments allowed us to experiment with sound as a medium of transformation, bridging ancestral histories with speculative futures—sound as an echo that connects deep time to the present.
Through The Zebra Collective, we continue to pursue the intersection of myth, ecology, and technology, questioning how sound and sculpture can hold environmental memory and spiritual continuity. Our aim is to provoke new ways of listening—not only with the ears, but with the entire body—to the resonances of rivers, stones, and ancestral currents that shape our shared existence. Through our practice, we reflect on the entanglement of myth and matter, and on the enduring power of art to reimagine relationships between humanity, nature, and time.
The Johannesburg performance pushed our exploration of digital technologies and indigenous immaterialities into new territory. Sound and materiality met in a vivid, shape-shifting field: the guitar’s low drone, the e-bow’s magnetic pull, pedal-driven algorithms, ritual water-song, and drums tuned to echo sky and star. None of these elements stood alone—they collided, intertwined, and braided themselves into a single living texture.
Together we moved through simultaneous multi-meter and polyrhythmic passages, layering constantly shifting timbres that touched global styles before dissolving into something unbound, something otherworldly. The performance opened with a focused drone, the e-bow held over the guitar’s bass pickup and smeared into warmth. For a brief moment, the ensemble synchronized, breathed together, and then released—ricocheting back into a charged, intentional chaos.
The audio piece woven into the performance also formed part of Re-fuse-Ability, FADA Gallery, 2025.
Sources
[1] Michael Gould. [no date]. Biography. Available at: https://www.gouldmusic.com/ [Accessed: 16 July 2025].
[2] University of Kentucky. [no date]. Percussion. Available at: https://finearts.uky.edu/music/percussion [Accessed: 16 July 2025].
[3] University of Michigan. 2021. Faculty Spotlight – Michael Gould. Available at: https://smtd.umich.edu/faculty-spotlight-michael-gould/ [Accessed: 16 July 2025].
[4] Center for World Performance Studies. 2024. Available at: https://smtd.umich.edu/world-performance-studies/ [Accessed: 16 July 2025].
[5] Centre for World Performance Studies. 2025. CWPS 2024-2025 Year in Review. Available at: https://new.express.adobe.com/webpage/7eDarJdqZLA8B [Accessed: 16 July 2025].
[6] Center for World Performance Studies. 2024. Available at: https://smtd.umich.edu/world-performance-studies/ [Accessed: 16 July 2025].
[7] Payovich, T. 2024. Michael Gould to Deliver Harold Haugh Award Lecture and Recital. Available at: https://smtd.umich.edu/michael-gould-to-deliver-harold-haugh-award-lecture-and-recital/ [Accessed: 17 July 2025].
[8] A World Without Ice — Gould Music. [no date]. Available at: https://www.gouldmusic.com/a-world-without-ice [Accessed: 17 July 2025].
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