Biography

SSG Oni Lara completed both the DMA and MM degrees in Percussion Performance at the University of Texas at Austin. While a graduate student in Austin, Lara was an active private lesson instructor, adjudicator, clinician, substitute percussionist for the Austin Symphony Orchestra, and a graduate teaching assistant at UT.

After completing his degrees, Lara was on the music faculty at The University of Texas at Tyler from 2019-2020. He was the Percussion Caption Head for the Guardians Drum and Bugle Corps from 2014-2016 and performed as a member of the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps in 2012, earning a bronze medal at the DCI Championships in Indianapolis.

Lara has competed in various solo competitions, winning 1st place at the 2017 International Percussion Institute Marimba Competition in Aberdeen, Scotland. His quartet, Epoch Percussion has been featured as concerti soloists, performing Dinuk Wijeratne’s Invisible Cities - Concerto for Percussion Quartet & Wind Orchestra with the The University of Texas, the World Youth Symphony, and the Dallas Winds. Epoch premiered the band arrangement of Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al: Concerto for Percussion Quartet with the Dallas Winds, The University of Texas, and The University of Alabama.