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Jim Atwood (left) and Robert Chappell
New Orleans timpanist Jim Atwood (left) offers a tip to NIU Distinguished Teaching Professor Robert Chappell during a visit to the NIU School of Music.

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News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

October 24, 2005

New Orleans timpanist Jim Atwood
visits NIU School of Music

DeKalb — Jim Atwood knows how deep-sea divers feel when they're hunting sunken fortune along the ocean's floor.

Atwood, principal timpanist with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, keeps two sets of timpani drums in the basement of the New Orleans Orpheum Theater worth $40,000 combined. The orchestra has canceled the first half of its season, partly because even the main floor of the Orpheum is also flooded and partly because there is no one to perform and no one to listen.

When Atwood made his first and only trip back to the Big Easy the week of Oct. 3 to check on his house, he wanted a peek at his prized (and, fortunately, insured) instruments as well.

“They've been under 30 feet of water for three weeks,” said Atwood, who is optimistic he can refurbish the drums. “I went down there with a flashlight. It looked like an undersea treasure expedition, everything covered with mud and mire. I opened a storage room door and saw a jumble of cases. You learn that, in a flood, everything floats that's not nailed down.”

Atwood spent Thursday, Oct. 13, at the Northern Illinois University School of Music.

The percussion teacher at Loyola University taught a timpani performance master class in the morning and led another session on timpani maintenance and repair in the afternoon.

Robert Chappell, Presidential Teaching Professor in the School of Music, said it's important for orchestral students to hear and see professional players “from outside” the ranks of the familiar faculty.

“For our students to gain that kind of insight, from somebody who does it full-time, is invaluable,” Chappell said. “Jim also showed us some real good tricks about the care and repair of the instruments.”

Atwood is living in Chicago until it's safe for everyone to return to New Orleans, where he has lived and performed for more than 15 years. His home, a century-old classic Victorian in the Garden District, is dry and undamaged. It sits on high ground across the street from a cemetery, he said. “We're shooting for Thanksgiving,” he said.

In the meantime, Atwood is living rent-free for two months in a 44 th floor apartment in Chicago. A friend of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra donated the space, which overlooks Lake Michigan.

Five other LPO members, including Atwood's wife, flutist and piccoloist Patti Adams, are in Chicago. The rest are scattered across the country.

Atwood and Adams actually missed the Hurricane while spending time at their Colorado cabin. “We watched it all unfold on a battery-powered TV,” he said. “It was like looking at pictures in a magazine. It had a certain abstract quality about it. The word ‘surreal' kept coming up.”

The orchestra members recently came together in Nashville to play a benefit concert for their own organization. American Airlines donated airfare, and a local formalwear shop provided tuxedoes and gowns.

“It was a very emotional experience seeing everyone again. A symphony is very much a family,” he said. “People have been amazingly nice to me and my colleagues.”

A second benefit concert is planned in New York for the end of the month.

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