Julie Licata has served as Assistant Professor of Music at State University of New York, College at Oneonta since the fall of 2008.  She holds a Master of Music from University of South Carolina and a Bachelor of Music from Capital University.  In December of 2009, Julie will receive her Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance, with a secondary emphasis in Ethnomusicology, from the University of North Texas.

At Oneonta, Julie teaches ensembles and private lessons that span a wide range of percussion instruments and styles, such as West African drumming, Indonesian Gamelan, Brazilian Samba, solo marimba, concert percussion and drum set.  Specific ensembles taught include the World Percussion Ensemble and the Classical Percussion Ensemble, as well as the SUNY Oneonta Drum Line (a.k.a The Drag’n Rolls).  Julie also teaches Music Cultures of the World and Music for Listeners, a survey of Western classical music. 

In 2008, Julie spent the summer performing, recording and transcribing traditional drumming of the Ewe people in the Volta Region of Ghana.  She plans to continue her firsthand studies of world music cultures by travelling to India in December of 2010.   

In addition to world percussion, Julie’s current musical focus lies in contemporary music performance, specifically solo and chamber percussion music with interactive computer processing.  As an advocate and active performer of new music, Julie has developed relationships with numerous composers, premiering and commissioning dozens of works, and has maintained an active performing and clinic schedule over the last ten years.

Prior to accepting a position at SUNY Oneonta, Julie was Adjunct Instructor of Percussion at Texas Woman’s University, where she taught graduate and undergraduate-level applied lessons and directed the Classical Percussion and Gamelan Ensembles.  While in Texas, Julie was also employed as Percussion Instructor at Saginaw High School and Newman Smith High School in the DFW area.