Daniel Akira Stadnicki is an award-winning drummer, scholar, and popular music educator based in Amiskwaciy Waskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta). Specializing in adapted drum kit for a wide range of global folk, roots, and traditional artists—including Farhad Kosravi, Jeremiah McDade and Shannon Johnson (The McDades), Jaron Freeman-Fox, Spencer Murray, Dana Wylie, T. Buckley, Daniel Gervais, Braden Gates, among others—he holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Alberta and currently teaches at MacEwan University. An accomplished writer, Daniel Akira has published in The Drummers Journal, the Journal of Popular Music Education (JPME), as well as served as co-editor for both The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit (2021) and a special issue on ‘Drum Kit Studies’ for the JPME (2021). In September 2022, Daniel Akira is co-organizing the International Drum Kit Studies Conference at Boston University, as well as participating in the inaugural GEI: Japanese Canadian Artists Symposium in Victoria, British Columbia. For more information, please visit www.danielstadnicki.com for a list of ongoing musical projects, drumming scholarship, and upcoming performances.

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“My Turkish Cymbals are exceptionally versatile: thin, dark, and complex, I can play them with my hands, sticks, or scrape them for cinematic sound effects. I get so much from just one cymbal! Zero gimmicks, just straight up artisanal craftsmanship — couldn’t be prouder to be a part of the Turkish family”