Departments
Percussion
Courses Taught
Lessons
Studio Classes
Education
MM The Juilliard School
BM Double Major Music Performance and Theory/Composition Boston University
Ensembles
Los Angeles Philharmonic, 2008-present
LA Film studios, 2008-present
New York Philharmonic, 1998-2008
Q&A
What is your hometown?
Los Angeles (but grew up in Stony Brook NY)
What is your favorite recording? Why?
Bernstein, NY Phil , Bela Bartok Concerto for Orchestra - Because it was the first piece that I was obsessed with, and it sparked my interest in composing. I was also playing it at Carnegie Hall in the New York Youth Orchestra so the whole process of learning the piece and performing it was very important for me.
What are you passionate about outside of music?
Food and cooking! Also love tennis and strength training.
Who were your major teachers?
Roland Kohloff at Juilliard and Tom Gauger at Boston University
What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?
Your job as a timpanist is to make it easier for everyone else to play. Meaning your sense of time and placement is the most important thing. It's a big responsibility of knowing when to lead, and when to blend in. Dynamics and tuning is a big part of all this. You're the first person in line to interpret the conductors gestures for your colleagues. You are the 2nd conductor!
What question do you wish students would ask sooner rather than later?
How can I develop my own personal sound that's unique to me?
What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?
Actually my parents nudged me! I never thought of playing music as work or something you could consider as a major in college until my parents told me.
What was a turning point in your career?
When I received tenure in the NY Phil. I was finally able to relax and try many new things which lead me to where I am today.
What is your daily practice routine?
It depends. Some weeks I have a new piece to learn which is typical at the LA Phil since we do so many commissions. So I'll go to my room at the hall and practice on the drums working out all the details. But if it's something more standard I may not need to practice at my instrument. This kind of practice is more studying the score/part with a recording or spending time at a piano making sure I know where I'm getting my pitches from. Since I play on calf skin heads most of the year, I have to spend time doing this because the heads can go out of tune depending on the humidity that day and that can really play with your ears. So I always have to know what key were in and where it's heading.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
WOW this is hard.... Beethoven, Bartok, Mahler
From a music history perspective, what year and city are most important to you, and why?
Vienna - so much of the great music we play was created there.
What is your unrealized project?
To write concertos for all the principals in my orchestra. Also to premiere many timpani concertos written for me to expand our repertoire.
What recordings can we hear you on?
Ades: Dante, Dudamel LA Phil - Nonesuch
John Adams Dharma at Big Sur, Kraft Timpani Concerto #1, Joseph Pereira LAPhil - Deutsche Grammophon
Dvorak Symphonies 7-9, Dudamel LA Phil - Deutsche Grammophon
Don Juan / Death & Transfiguration / Dance Veils / Rosenkavalier, Lorin Maazel NY Phil - Deutsche Grammophon
The Year Before Yesterday, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet - Dorian Sono Luminus
Videos:
Biography
Joseph Pereira enjoys a multi-faceted career as a timpanist/percussionist, composer, conductor, and educator. Since 2008, he has been the principal timpanist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and was previously the assistant principal timpanist/section percussionist of the New York Philharmonic from 1997 to 2008. Mr. Pereira also runs the percussion studio at USC Thornton School of Music and is a teaching artist at the Music Academy of the West, and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo Japan. As a composer, Pereira’s music has been described as “restless yet lucidly textured” (The New York Times), “striking atmospherics of colour” (The Guardian), and “one sonic surprise after another” (LA Times). Recent commissions have come from the LA Phil, (2025) and the Seattle and New Jersey Symphonies for the 2026/27 seasons.