2027 – Chamber Ensemble Conductor – Tambourine Clinician
2026 – Chamber Ensemble Conductor – Soloist Adjudicator
2025 – Chamber Ensemble Conductor
2024 – Marimba Basics
Dr. Conner Viets is a dynamic and versatile percussionist whose work spans music education, solo performance, chamber music, and adjudication. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Percussion at Murray State University, where he teaches applied lessons, courses inpercussion literature and pedagogy, directs the percussion ensemble, and leads the Racer Band marching percussion section.
An in-demand educator, Conner has appeared as a featured clinician at the Missouri and Nebraska Days of Percussion, East Tennessee State University Percussion Ensemble Festival, and West Kentucky Percussion Festival. He regularly visits high schools throughout the Quad State region and spends his summers teaching percussion at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, and serving on the percussion staff of The Battalion Drum & Bugle Corps. His students have gone on to successful careers as music educators, gained admission into competitive undergraduate and graduate programs, and consistently placed in all-state and all-district ensembles.
He regularly performs as a soloist, exploring an eclectic blend of contemporary and canonical repertoire across a myriad of instruments. Recent highlights include appearances at the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States National Conference (SEAMUS) and as a featured soloist with the Christian County High School Percussion Ensemble and MSU Wind Ensemble at the Kentucky Music Educators Association Conference. In 2020, he received first place in the Black Swamp Collegiate Snare Drum Solo Competition. His orchestral experience includes performances with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra, Hopkinsville Chamber Orchestra, and Columbus Indiana Philharmonic.
An ardent advocate of new music, Conner has commissioned or premiered more than 20 works, including collaborations with emerging composers such as Hippocrates Chang, Younje Cho, Kian Ravaei, Ariel Sol and Huan Sun. Additionally, he is the co-founder of CHannel2 Percussion Duo, an award-winning ensemble that has performed at the Nebraska Day of Percussion, TEDx UMKC Conference, North Star Music Festival, and on tours throughout the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas. He has also served as a core member of the Argos Percussion Collective and has performed a series of recitals alongside Thomas Frost as the Frost-Viets Duo.
Conner has earned degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (D.M.), University of Nebraska–Lincoln (M.M.), and Truman State University (B.A. and B.M.). His primary teachers include Michael Bump, Dave Hall, Joseph Gramley, Kevin Bobo, John Tafoya, and Andy Miller.
Conner is an endorsing artist for Innovative Percussion and Grover Pro Percussion.