Gary Cook's most recent CD on Albany Records features the Philip Glass Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Wind Ensemble.Cook was Timpanist and Principal Percussionist with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra for over two decades and held similar posts with the Arizona Opera and other orchestras. In the summer, Cook is Principal Percussionist with the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado and has performed with other summer music festivals in Colorado and Nevada. He is well known as the author of Teaching Percussion, currently in its third edition with DVDs and used world-wide. He is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Arizona where he founded the percussion department in 1975 and taught for thirty-three years until retiring in 2008. From 1994 to 1999 he served as Director of the UA School of Music and Dance. 

He enjoys commissioning new music for percussion and chamber music and voice combinations and has premiered and recorded many commissions. Cook was President of the international professional organization, the Percussive Arts Society (PAS), from 2007-2008 and received the PAS Lifetime Achievement in Education Award in 2011. He is most proud of his many former students who hold distinguished professorships in colleges and universities around the country and in Trinidad, perform professionally around the world, and are successful teachers and performers in all areas of music and the arts.