Hi everyone! I just found this message board tonight.
Briefly--I am 24 years old, and started playing marimba at age 10 (piano at age 3). I JUST finally bought a marimba, a Musser 300, 4.5 octave, thus ending my 2 year hiatus from playing--as I'm sure you can all imagine, it's been purely awful not having access to an instrument for so long. I attended Berklee College of Music for 3 years, and studied under Dean Anderson, Nancy Zeltsman, and Victor Mendoza. I left school when I gave birth to my daughter (now almost 3) and wanted to stay home to raise her for a little while. So...now I'm playing again, trying to get my chops back, and thinking about returning to Berklee (or one of the conservatories). I was just there today for a master class given by William Moersh...WOW. Fantastic!!
That's it in a nutshell. I have been looking for a place to discuss all things marimba, I'm glad I found this board.
Emmy

Welcome to the board, Emmy.

A little hard-learned advice... keep your mallets out of reach of your daughter. My son had broken a half-dozen of my mallets by the time he was 3, including two old priceless Bethacourt rubber mallets....

Even now, I have to remind him that drumsticks leave marks on rosewood.

-marc