John Mapes is a full-time percussion designer and educator involved in teaching over 20 high school
and independent percussion programs in Southern California since 1997. His marching experience includes Velvet Knights and
Pacific Crest Drum Corps organizations. He received his Bachelor of Arts in percussion from California State University, Long
Beach, in the spring of 2000.
He
has built and taught WGI PSO 2005 silver medalist and 2006-2009 champion Pacifica H.S. since 2000, designing battery, front
ensemble and visual. In the fall of 2005 he started teaching Chino Hills H.S., WGI World Class 6th place 2008 and WGI World
class Bronze medalist in 2009. He started working at Los Alamitos H.S. in the fall of 2005 becoming the WGI A Class Bronze
medalist in 2007 and WGI A class gold medalist in 2009. He worked at Fountain Valley H.S. from the fall of 2006 until the
winter of 2009, where they won the 4A WBA championships & Percussion sweepstakes for 2007 and the WGI PSO bronze medal
for 2008. He built and taught Cerritos H.S. from 2000-2006, taking multiple high percussion titles in 4A WBA Championships
and being Open class finalists both trips out to WGI finals (2004 & 2006).
He
was the battery arranger for the Pulse Percussion independent world ensemble in the winter of 2008 and is currently the battery
arranger, visual designer, show coordinator. In 2009 Pulse took 4th overall in Independent World Class at WGI, the groups
highest placement to date. His most recent corps relationship, starting in the summer of 2007, is the Blue Devil B Corps front
ensemble and battery percussion arranger. He was the Battery Arranger/ Percussion Caption Head for the Esperanza Drum and
Bugle Corps from San Diego, CA from 2002-2006, taking the corps to nationals for the first time, winning the Div II title
and moving up to Div I in 2004. He was also the battery arranger and program coordinator for the Esperanza WGI Independent
World class 2004 finalist percussion ensemble, its first and only year.
Along
with fellow designer and instructor Ian Grom, John co-founded box-six.com in August of 2008, which is the exclusive seller
of their original indoor and marching band shows.
John is a member
of the Vic Firth Educational team, a WGI Percussion Advisory Board member and is a volunteer for the Southern California Percussion
Alliance circuit. He is also a principle percussion arranger for JKS music and a proud endorser of Vic Firth, Yamaha, Remo
and Zildjian products.
