Britton-René Collins

Hailed as an “Astounding Virtuoso” and “Exhilarating” performer, percussionist Britton-René Collins is a winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, receiving the Ambassador Prize for her exceptional musicianship and demonstrated passion for creating social change in her endeavors as both an educator and performer.

A Grand Prize winner of the 2022 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition and the 2021 Chicago International Music Competition, Britton-René has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has performed with several orchestras including the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Meridian Symphony Orchestra, the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Her 2023–24 season includes performances alongside the Battle Creek Symphony, the Greenwich Village Orchestra, the Central Oregon Symphony, and the Saint Paul Civic Symphony. Her 2022–23 season included performances alongside the Rogue Valley Symphony Orchestra, the Western Piedmont Symphony, the Albany Symphony Orchestra (GA), the Marquette Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra Iowa. In addition to her active solo career, Britton-René enjoys life as a chamber musician and co-director with her New York City-based groups “Excelsis Percussion Quartet” and “Vision Duo”. Her upcoming chamber collaborations include touring with the Sphinx Virtuosi, where she will premiere a new work by Curtis Stewart.

As an advocate for new music, Britton-René’s current projects involve generating new solo and chamber works for multi-percussion and marimba. Most recently, she was the first percussionist to ever be awarded the prestigious Princeton University Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fellowship (2024–25). During her fellowship year, she will conduct research and commission new works by underrepresented composers as part of her 10-month appointment, “Sphygmology — Cultural Exchange for Solo Percussion”, at the Lewis Center for the Arts, which will culminate with her debut performance installation, “Sphygmology”, centered on desegregating Western Classical Music spaces through utilizing percussion as a medium for celebrating Black identity.

Britton-René’s recent highlights include attending the soundSCAPE new music composition and performance exchange in Italy, premiering a new work at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention for the second year since making her PASIC Artist debut in 2021, and participating in the Banff Centre’s Evolution: Classical program. As an Artist Endorser, Britton-René proudly performs using Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Zildjian cymbals, Marimba One instruments, and Remo drumheads.

Born in the United States, Britton-René began playing the piano at age five. She discovered percussion at eight years old when she became intrigued by the drum set. She quickly fell in love with playing rock, jazz, and pop music on the drum set, which ignited her enthusiasm to explore various percussion instruments and styles of music. She received her B.M. from the University of Toronto with Aiyun Huang, Beverley Johnston, and John Rudolph, where she won the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed the Canadian premiere of Sergei Golovko’s first marimba concerto alongside Maestro Uri Mayer and the UTSO. Britton-René received her M.M. from the University of Michigan, where her primary instructors were Doug Perkins and Ian Antonio.