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About Us
The principal designer and builder of Kallisti Percussion is Bruce Scherer, who began his woodworking career as a boatbuilder.
Kallisti Percussion was started in Seattle Washington in 1978, under the influence of the fantastic Shona marimba bands directed by Dumi Maraire, Sheree Sparks, and others in the area at that time. What began as a garage project to build fun percussion to play with friends soon grew by word of mouth into the Northwest crafts-fair circuit and a featured stall at the Pike Place Market.
Upon leaving Seattle to live a more rural life in western Massachusetts in 1981, he developed a set of designs for finely tuned, individually handcrafted marimbas that would be easily portable and affordable. These became very popular in educational settings.
During the 1990's, with the increasing interest in world music and the growth of tuned percussion in informal music making, Kallist marimba designs were added for these musicians - both at home and in performance settings.
Most recently, Bruce has developed some interesting models for student and performance percussionists who want a portable, affordable chromatic instrument of several octaves. If you were lucky enough to catch a show of the recent David Byrne "My Backwards Life" tour, you heard Mauro Refosco playing a custom built Kallisti marimba. (http://www.davidbyrne.com/tour_mbl_US_photos.php) We are very interested in doing custom ranges and tunings, and can offer a resonator box model with interchangeable bars so you can have several tunings on a single keyboard box. Please call or write for more information about custom designed marimbas!