Portland Summer Percussion Academy

PSPA 2025: June 22-28

The 2025 Portland Summer Percussion Academy returns to an in-person camp for high school students! This summer, our camp features clinics and sessions with a huge range of percussion playing, and we encourage students of all ability levels to join us.

Register

This Year's Academy

Our 2025 Academy features sessions on percussion styles and techniques from all over the world, including hands-on clinics and rehearsals on snare drum, marimba, timpani, Taiko, Javanese Gamelan, Samba, North Indian Tabla, percussion ensemble, and a lot more!

PSPA Students rehearsing stick technique in the park blocks

Tuition

2025 Tuition: $625

Meal Plan: $250

Overnight Housing: $240

Students performing samba percussion outside.

Scholarships

PSPA strives to make our program available to all. Need-based scholarships are available and will be prioritized for students who enrich and enhance the diversity of the camp and the future of the field of percussion performance. Contact Dr. Christopher Whyte for more information.

Contact Dr. Whyte

Our Mission

The Portland Summer Percussion Academy (PSPA) began in 2013 as a summer camp where high school percussionists could work closely and directly with professionals in an intensive, but fun, one-week experience. The PSPA is a program of the Portland State University School of Music & Theater co-directed by Brett Paschal and Chris Whyte, and features a collaboration with the Portland Percussion Group and world-class percussionists from around the United States.

The PSPA serves an important role as an adjunct to the music education of youth in the Northwest region, especially in an era where resources for effective teaching are limited in public school settings. We aim to foster and assist in the development of youth that they will become critically-thinking, contributing members of not just our own society, but as citizens of the world at large.