Our West African drumming and dance ensemble, ABUSUA, is one of the university's best ambassadors, performing at events throughout the Upper Cumberland to spread the joy of music — and an unmistakable joy for life.

Joseph Rasmussen, head of our percussion program and past president of the Tennessee Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society.

On Sunday, Sept. 4, we lost the group's most visible member, founder and Professor Joseph Rasmussen, who died while running a marathon in Virginia Beach, Va. He was 59.

Less than a mile from the finish line, Rasmussen stopped at a water station and collapsed, suffering from a massive coronary attack, says Jonathan Good, chairperson of Music and Art.

"We're all saddened by the loss," Good says. "I called his students over the weekend and met with them Tuesday, and while they're all mourning him, they also know that he would want them to carry on with their studies. Joe was a great teacher and wonderful musician, and he was also a superb colleague, and I believe that's what we'll miss the most. We can replace the teaching and the talent, but to replace someone of Joe's character is going to be very, very difficult."

A master drummer, Rasmussen directed the TTU Percussion Ensemble and ABUSUA.

Rasmussen joined the faculty in 1975, after touring the U.S. and Europe with the contemporary music ensemble Steve Reich and Musicians; he was also a Vietnam War veteran and a member of the Continental Army Command Band at Ft. Monroe, Va. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree at Julliard School, studying with Ray Dvorak of UW and Elden C. "Buster" Bailey at Julliard. A native of Freeport, Long Island, Rasmussen also studied with Glenn Brown, marimbist with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra of New York. He was A.B.D. for the Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University.

Principal percussionist with the Bryan Symphony Orchestra, Rasmussen joined the Nashville Symphony in 1979 and had served as assistant principal for the past five seasons. His students knew him as a supreme role model because of his dual role as a performer and teacher. When he won our Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching in 2003, graduate student Erin Eldridge said that he "shared his knowledge without judgment or intimidation and that he taught with compassion and understanding."

That compassion spread beyond the confines of the music community. Rasmussen, who volunteered with both the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, organized running teams to raise money for various causes; in 1984, he bicycled 1,000 miles with one of his sons to benefit the American Cancer Society. He also coordinated a benefit concert for the Sarajevo Orchestra in Bosnia which desperately needed instruments and funding.

Rasmussen practicing dance steps on a recent trip to Ghana.

But locally and in the percussion community at large, Rasmussen was best known for his work with ABUSUA, the ensemble he founded in 1991 following a research trip to Ghana, West Africa. The spirited group of drummers and dancers has graced stages from the smallest local fund-raisers to conferences of the African Studies Association, Percussive Arts Society and Music Educators' Association.

Rasmussen, also director of the TTU Percussion Ensemble, welcomed both music majors and non-majors to ABUSUA, teaching hundreds of students over the years songs he learned from Godwin Agbeli of Ghana. Every other summer since 1991, Rasmussen took students to Ghana to study in the villages that maintain the traditions of dance and drumming.

The name of the West African ensemble was no accident, say group members. In Twi, a variety of the Akan language of Ghana, "abusua" means family. Former student and ABUSUA member Matthew Davis says that "a great oneness is felt among all students who have studied under him. He brings out the greatest in whomever his life touches."

Rasmussen's final performances were in Graz, Austria, where he and his family summered this year. Wednesday night's opening gala concert of the Nashville Symphony's 2005-2006 season was dedicated to Rasmussen. The Bryan Symphony Orchestra will honor Rasmussen, too, at its first formal concert of the season on Sunday, Oct. 2.

Visitation is today, Friday, Sept. 9, from 9 a.m. to noon and 4 to 8 p.m. at Marshall Donnelly-Combs Funeral Home, located at 201 25th Ave. North in Nashville. A funeral mass begins at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 10, at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, 2015 West End Ave. in Nashville.

His family includes his wife, Ljerka Rasmussen of Nashville; two sons, David and Anton Rasmussen; one daughter, Josalyn Burgess; brothers Arthur, Robert and Carl Rasmussen; sister Nelann Kempton; and two grandchildren, Elizabeth and Callum Burgess.