Giuliano Kornberg, originally from Minnesota, is a junior at Stanford University majoring in Music, with a concentration in Percussion Performance, and minoring in International Relations. As a percussionist, he has won numerous competitions and awards for his recitals and solo marimba performances, including a Stanford Department of Music award his sophomore year. He has toured London, Paris, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and Germany with the Minnesota Ambassadors of Music, as well as Berlin, Prague, and Vienna with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. He will tour the Stanford Wind Ensemble to Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia this upcoming summer. He performed a marimba concerto with the Wind Ensemble directed by Giancarlo Aquilanti at the Wind Ensemble’s inaugural concert at Bing Concert Hall. In addition to the Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra, he plays with the Stanford Philharmonia Orchestra and the Stanford New Ensemble, both under the direction of Jindong Cai. He currently takes lessons with Mark Veregge the Percussion Lecturer at Stanford, and helped organize the Stanford Percussion Ensemble. The ensemble is currently in its second year, and just recently performed its third concert.
In addition to performing, Giuliano has taken a host of music classes at Stanford. Besides “Music Ethnography of the Bay Area,” he has taken the music theory and history cores, analysis courses of both 19th and 20th century music, counterpoint, seminars on Latin American music and music in urban film, an introduction to musical acoustics, and a course on taiko drumming. Further, he has worked with the department of music as stage crew lead for the wind ensemble, stage hand for both orchestras, and percussion coordinator for the department.
“I chose to do my project on Fua Dia Congo because I wanted to research a purely African group. My mother lived in Africa when she was a child, and became enamored with the music and art that was played there. She taught me about African music as a whole when I was a child, and her teachings have stuck with me ever since. In my own studies, I learned about North, West, and East African music, but not too much about central African music. Further, since I am a drummer, I am continually trying to find new ways to expand my craft and learn more about various percussion. As such, to both increase my knowledge of African music, and to further my skills as a percussionist, I chose Fua Dia Congo as my group, and tried to immerse myself as much as possible into the group by participating in the dance and drum classes.”
Music Ethnography of the Bay Area 