Casa Grande Dispatch
By JODIE NEWELL Staff Writer Oct 25, 2025
CASA GRANDE — Students of Cottonwood Elementary School were entertained by members of the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra when they paid a visit to the school on Oct. 22.
Principal percussionist Shaun Tilburg and assistant principal Matt Pendergast performed a number of pieces that engaged first through fifth grade students.
The pair played a number of instruments including snare and bass drums, bongos, African drums and tambourines. They also performed an interesting improvisation piece using hands, pliers, a staple gun, a coffee cup, finger pops and a table top.
Students were asked by Pendergast and Tilburg to clap along as they explained what each instrument was used for and what materials they were made from.
Orchestra Manager of Education and Community Engagement Jordanna Matlock helped to facilitate the performance and told PinalCentral that school visits provide a great opportunity for community engagement.
“It’s always so nice, bringing our small ensembles out to schools and thanks to the generous support of the Gila River Indian Community, we’ve been able to bring these performances to rural schools and share our music with students across Arizona,” Matlock said.
“These visits are super important to us and actually, over 50% of our audiences are students and people that hear our music outside of Symphony Hall. We go out to schools, we go to homeless shelters, memory care facilities and those are all part of our audiences. We enjoy trying to meet our audiences where they’re at and again it’s just a wonderful opportunity to highlight how the arts inspire young learners and how partnerships like this bring world-class music experiences directly into local classrooms.”
Cottonwood Elementary Principal David Owen told PinalCentral he and his teachers were delighted to have the orchestra perform at the school and said any budding musicians among the students would get plenty of inspiration from the performance.
“We wanted kids to experience music at a high level,” Owen said. “It’s these types of experiences that we want to bring to our kids. As much as we want to take them to have field trips, we also want to invite our guests and one example being the Phoenix Symphony to come out and share their talents and skills. This event kind of elevates opportunities and for the kids to see for themselves this area of interest. Music is a language, it’s intelligence and so we want them to not only enjoy it but to maybe explore that if this is something that’s for them by just having this experience.”
After their performance, Tilburg and Pendergast answered a number of questions asked by students, which included what inspired them to become percussionists. The pair also spoke about their education background and about the many hours of practice it took to reach an orchestra level standard of playing.
Tilburg said he was inspired by the grunge rock era and in particular by drummer Dave Grohl.
“Dave Grohl was one of my favorite drummers of all time, and I convinced my mom to buy me a drum set. She hated it, but she put up with it when I played in the garage for a while. When I went to junior high, I remember there was like an open house table with all these instruments you got to kind of go around and I went straight to the snare drum. In sixth grade I picked up percussion and it kind of went on from sixth grade.”