Welcome!
Oregano Percussion is a Toronto-based group that performs music from around the world, combining styles from Latin and Caribbean to songwriting, pop, and percussion chamber music. Alejandro Céspedes and Michelle Colton are artists and endorsers of Pearl Percussion & Adams Musical Instruments; Dream Cymbals & Gongs; and Humes & Berg. They both have an active freelance/teaching career. Oregano Percussion performs throughout North America and has presented clinics at schools in the US, Canada and Cuba. They have been Artists-in-Residence at MusicFest Canada and Birch Creek Music Performance Center.
Dr. Michelle Colton is a versatile percussionist, composer, and singer songwriter who recently released her debut album, Unpredictable Nature. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in percussion from the University of Toronto. Dr. Colton performed in Beijing and Shenyang, China in 2006, in Tokyo, Japan in 2008 at the Keiko Abe Masterclass, and in Havana, Cuba in 2014 as a guest artist/clinician. She was a percussion instructor for the Iowa Ambassadors of Music tours in the UK and Europe. She has studied musical instruments and styles from Japan, India, Bali, Ghana, Trinidad, Cuba, China, and Brazil. She earned first place in the University of Toronto DMA Recital Competition and Concerto Competition. She often plays with the Kingston and Toronto Symphony Orchestras and has performed with NEXUS and Dame Evelyn Glennie. Dr. Colton is the president of the Ontario Percussive Arts Society; and currently teaches percussion lessons in the percussion preparatory department at the University of Toronto. Dr. Colton is an artist and endorser of Pearl/Adams Musical Instruments and Dream Cymbals & Gongs. www.michellecolton.com