Joby Burgess is a British percussionist whose work crosses solo performance, chamber music, electronic media, commissioning, studio recording, and music for film and television. His concerts place tuned percussion and found or electronic sound sources alongside one another, making the marimba part of a broader contemporary percussion practice.
Burgess directs Powerplant, a project combining percussion with live electronics and visual media, and Pioneers of Percussion, which explores influential twentieth- and twenty-first-century repertoire. His official biography records performances at major venues and festivals and collaborations with composers and performers working across classical, experimental, and popular music. He has also contributed to film, television, and game soundtracks as a session percussionist.
Recording and commissioning are central to his work. His albums document solo projects and collaborations, while new pieces have been created for the particular instruments and technologies used in his performances. In 2020 he organized the Virtual Marimba Choir: 227 percussionists from 40 countries recorded individual parts that were assembled into an online performance.
The Marimba.org archive preserved a biography written when Burgess was twenty-five. This revised profile replaces its future-tense plans and obsolete affiliations with a current account based on his official site while retaining the historical update date of the original directory entry.