Bradley Simmons, director of the Duke University Djembe and Afro-Cuban Ensembles, passed away on May 22. He was 73 years old.
Beginning in 1998, Simmons taught West African and Afro-Cuban music with Duke University’s department of music. He also collaborated frequently with the Duke Dance Program, serving as a mentor for both colleagues and students. Outside of Duke, he taught various percussion classes and drum clinics at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Texas Southern University, Wichita State University in Kansas, and North Carolina State University. He also spent many years as music director of Chuck Davis’s African American Dance Ensemble.
Throughout his career performing Afro-Cuban and African percussion music, Simmons participated in on- and off-Broadway productions, as well as international performances. In 1990, he directed his own production, “Cultural Journey: The Elements of Percussion” in Atlanta, Georgia. He later revived the production in Durham, North Carolina, six years later. In 1997, he founded “The Elements of Percussion,” an Afro-Cuban and Djembe/Djunjun ensemble based in Durham, which toured locally and nationally.
