Ray Dillard received his Bachelor's and Master's of Music degrees from West Texas State University where he studied percussion with James Beckham and Dr. Thomas Horst and composition with Dr. Joseph Nelson. Ray was percussionist for the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra for eight years. During that time he was Director of Percussion Studies at West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas, from 1983-1984. He then served as Guest Lecturer and Instructor of Percussion at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, from 1984-1985. Ray then moved to Houston, Texas, to become the head of Percussion and MIDI Technology at San Jacinto College which continued until 1998.
Ray’s performance credits include the World Drum Ensemble at the World Expo 88 in Brisbane, Australia. In March, 1996, he performed with BUKA, an eight member ensemble made up of members of the larger World Drum Ensemble, in Taipei, Taiwan. In the summer of 1998, BUKA was the featured performers at a concert in Lisbon, Portugal for EXPO ‘98. In the summer of 2000, The World Drum Ensemble took the stage again in Hannover, Germany for EXPO 2000. The summer of 2002 found Ray on tour with NEXUS in Japan. In the summer of 2003, Ray performed the European premiere of composer Steve Mackey’s "Deal", a concerto for percussion and electric guitar with orchestra at The Holland Festival. Ray currently resides in Toronto, Canada where he works full time as Business Manager for the ensemble NEXUS and teaches at the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Recording credits include Grammy and Juno nominated projects with artists and ensembles from the United States, South America, Europe, Japan and Canada. His recording work with the Toronto-based percussion ensemble NEXUS includes some 15 titles, the most recent being "Drumtalker". These and other percussion rich works are at the core of his recording work. Other percussionists Ray has produced includes Nancy Zeltsman, Christopher Norton, Mika Yoshida, Leigh Howard Stevens, Graham Hargrove, Nicholas Coulter, Mark Ford, Michael Burritt and the University of Toronto and Northwestern University Percussion Ensembles. His acoustic jazz recordings include Paul English, Bruce Dudley, Joe LoCascio, Ellis Marsalis and Marvin Stamm.
