Dr. Patti Cudd is active as a percussion soloist, chamber musician, and educator. She teaches percussion and new music studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and the College of St. Benedict & St. John's University. Dr. Cudd is also a member of the new music ensemble Zeitgeist. Other diverse performing opportunities have included Sirius, red fish blue fish, CRASH, the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble, SONOR, and dance companies such as the Minnesota Dance Theatre and the Borrowed Bones Dance Theater. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in contemporary musical studies at the University of California, studying with Steven Schick; Master of Music degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she worked with Jan Williams; undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls; and studied in the soloist class, with a Fulbright Scholarship, at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark.
As an active performer of the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, she has given concerts and master classes throughout the United States, Korea, Thailand, China, Mexico, and Europe; and has participated in such festivals as the Bang on a Can Festival at Lincoln Center; Frau Musica Nova in Cologne, Germany; Mexico City's Ciclo de Percusiones Series; The North American New Music Festival in Buffalo, New York; June in Buffalo; Albright-Knox Art Gallery New Music Series in Buffalo, New York; Society of Composers; Inc National Conference in Miami, Florida; Noise in the Library Festival in San Diego, California; SEAMUS National Conference; The Mirror of the New in Hawaii; Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series; Beyond the Pink Festival; Festival of Women in the Arts at the University of North Dakota; New Progressions Series in Baltimore, Maryland; Edge; A Festival of the Original and Strange at the University of Northern Colorado; Sonic Diasporas; New Music Festival in San Diego, California; Dancing in Your Head in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Spark Festival of Electronic Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Form and the Feminine Voice Festival in Los Angeles, California; Percussive Arts Society; Copenhagen Composers' Biennale; Nové Hudby Plus Festival in Brno, Czech Republic; Samcheok Music Festival in Samcheok, South Korea; Sokcho Arts Festival in Sokcho, South Korea; New Music for Technology at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea; and the Festival Cultural Zacatecas.
Dr. Cudd has worked closely with some of the most innovative composers of our time such as Brian Ferneyhough, Morton Feldman, Roger Reynolds, Martin Bresnick, Pauline Oliveros, Jay Aaron Kernis, John Luther Adams, John Zorn, Michael Colgrass, Cort Lippe, Harvey Sollberger, Julia Wolfe, Christian Wolff, Vinko Globokar, and Frederic Rzewski.
As a percussion soloist and chamber musician she has premiered over 200 new works, and has had the opportunity to be involved in a number of recordings found under such labels as HatHut, Bridge Records, New World Records, CRI, Innova Recordings, EMF Media, and Mode Records.
Dr. Cudd is an endorser of Sabian Cymbals and a member of the Vic Firth and Black Swamp Percussion education teams.
