Lisa Pegher | About

Lisa Pegher is an American solo percussionist and drummer. In her International career she has performed throughout the world as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She is known for pioneering percussion as a solo instrument within the orchestral realm and beyond, making it her life’s work to present percussion to larger audiences by commissioning, collaborating, and creating new works and performances that bring percussion to the front of the stage. Lisa has been hailed by the New York Times as "Tremendous" by the Boston Globe as “Forcefully balletic” and by New York City’s The Glass as “More than just a drummer—an alchemist of time, sound, and space, crafting visceral landscapes that penetrate the ears and mind.”  

Featured in Symphony Magazine as one of the Top Six performers of her generation, Lisa has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras, wind ensembles and chamber groups across the globe including the Orchestré Symphonique de Trios Rivieres in Canada, Mulhouse Orchestré France, the Thailand Philharmonic, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Symphoria, Reading Symphony, Peninsula Festival Orchestra, Annapolis Symphony, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Mission Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, South Carolina Philharmonic, NEPA Philharmonic, Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Asheville Symphony Orchestra, Lake George Music Festival Orchestra, Louisiana (New Orleans) Philharmonic, and many more. Lisa performs concerti and new works by many of today’s leading composers such as Jennifer Higdon, Joseph Schwantner, Tobias Bröström, James MacMillan, Kevin Puts and Derek Bermel, to name a few.

She has, to date, given the world premiere performances of several percussion concertos and solo works that have been composed especially for her by composers such as Richard Danielpour, David Stock, Mathew Rosenblum, Paul Dooley and Brett Dietz. She has been a featured soloist at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, at NYC's SubCulture as well as numerous concert halls around the world.

Recently she premiered a new concerto/show: Circuits and Skins by up and coming composer, Paul Dooley that explores mixing orchestra and Electronic Dance Music. The work is said to “reach new heights in percussion music” and called “a wild throw down pitting full-tilt rock-and-roll drums against muscle-flexing symphonic fury” by the press, and has begun bringing EDM audiences into symphonic music halls. Another recent commission was Richard Danielpour's new percussion concerto "The Wounded Healer" that she premiered with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra where she was hailed as " an ideal interpreter of the work; receiving a vigorous ovation" by the New Jersey Star Ledger. The work has since been toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Canada. In 2023 Lisa premiered a new work for string orchestra and solo vibraphone by Danielpour named "Tears of an Angel" written in memory of the tragedies that occurred around the world during the global pandemic at the Schoenberg Hall in Los Angeles, California.

Lisa also spends time composing her own original works for amplified acoustic instruments, electronics, and live animation. In a recent collaboration with the ICEBERG music collective, she invented a show called A.I.R.E ( Artificial Intelligence Rhythm Evolution) commissioning10 new works in a combined multimedia effort that takes the listener through the evolution of percussion music from its roots to the eventual integration of computers and electronics. In another multimedia project: ImPerFecTion, was created after she founded her own group, the SideFire Trio in Brooklyn in 2017. This show and album presents a mixture of free form jazz and rock, live visual animation, and dance. Previously she created the electronic/multimedia show called, Minimal Art: Imaginary Windows which was released in 2010. A drummer at heart, Lisa has been the drummer/percussionist for many indie-rock, avant-jazz, and cross-genre bands throughout her career and has recorded on labels including the BMOP label, Albany Records, AKM Productions and her own label, Lisa P. Music Productions.

Lisa currently resides New York City. When not performing she enjoys running long distances, biking, yoga, and learning computer programing languages.

Lisa endorses and is supported by Evans Drumheads, Marimba One, and BlackSwamp Percussion.