Drums &
Percussion

Biography

Panagiotis Peter Valsamis came to drums self-taught, leaving an anthropology program at McGill University to go on tour. He later studied at Concordia University with Lou Williamson, and eventually trained at Mills College on a Hellman Scholarship, studying percussion under William Winant.

His performance credits span over four decades: improvised music, world music, electroacoustic performance, pop and funk. He has performed with Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, Anthony Davis, Pauline Oliveros, Wadada Leo Smith, Alvin Curran, Butch Morris, Don Preston, Marco Eneidi, Bern Nix, Glenn Spearman, Glen Moore, Mark Dresser, J.D. Parran, Dana Reason, Luc Ferrari, David Behrman, and Bob Ostertag, among many others, recording on over forty albums. In the same period, he toured with Canadian pop artists including Mitsou, Martine St-Clair, and Collage, and served as touring drummer for Haitian singer Emeline Michel.

He studied Balinese gamelan with I Wayan Suweca at the Université de Montréal, served as musical director and percussionist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and performed at festivals across North America, Europe, and Asia, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, Jazzahead! in Bremen, the Vancouver Jazz Festival, and the San Francisco World Music Festival. Television appearances in Canada, Indonesia, and the USA.

He approaches the drum kit as a compositional instrument, using rhythm, texture, density, and space as musical language rather than timekeeping function. Polyrhythm and world rhythm traditions (Gamelan, Senegalese sabar, Gnawa, Arabic) inform his metric language. Currently active in the Los Angeles jazz and experimental scene.