Rhythm Explosion, Qatar's premiere percussion event, showcases and supports the talents of up and coming musicians while featuring international guest artists who perform alongside students inspiring them to strive for excellence in their music. Rhythm Explosion II & III saw Michael joined by Patrick Dilley to co-present the events and include an emphasis on African drumming.

The events have been generously supported by the American School of Doha, Sherborne Qatar, 51 East, Yamaha and Qatar Music Academy. Money raised from ticket sales has been donated to:

- The Lopres Scholarship fund (2016)
- Reach Out to Asia (2017) &
 - United World Schools (2018)

RHYTHM EXPLOSION I
​April 2016
​American School of Doha

The first edition of this event, held at the American School of Doha, Qatar, was the culmination of workshops with Middle and High School music students at one of the country's most established international schools.

Michael worked primarily with percussion students but also with some advanced brass students to present a 100 minute concert event in two halves called Rhythm Explosion. The event as well as the connected workshops were coordinated with ASD music specialist Mark Seay and specifically for the abilities of the students involved.

The concert program featured compositions written by Michael specifically for student only groups through to performances that saw students performing with the renowned The Awakenings Ensemble led by Michael. In addition, Rhythm Explosion included the 2nd performance of Aurora by up and coming ASD student composer Ben Lemoing.

As an added bonus leading Italy based, Mexican drummer and percussionist Israel Varela was special guest for the performance. Michael and Israel presented a number workshops and performances in the final days leading up to the performance and also premiered a new double drumset piece recorded during Israel's visit.

RHYTHM EXPLOSION II
​April 2017
Sherborne Qatar

Rhythm Explosion goes into it's third year after an incredible show in 2017 at Sherborne Qatar (Bani Hajer). This year's event will see a great variety of music performed by students selected from a number of schools across the city.
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Michael Pignéguy has again teamed up with South African drumming master, Patrick Dilley to present the show. Between them they are assembling an incredible array of talent as well as some incredible special guests who will perform along side and separately to the students.

All profits donated to UNITED WORLD SCHOOLS charity (http://www.unitedworldschools.org) facilitated by Sherborne College.

Learn MORE about Michael's education activities locally, regionally and internationally.

RHYTHM EXPLOSION III
​January 2018
Sherborne Qatar

Rhythm Explosion's third incarnation at Sherborne Qatar (Bani Hajer) saw the greatest variety of participants from Ugandan drummers, Drumming Qatar and students selected from a number of schools across the city including the American School of Doha, Qatar Music Academy, Sherborne Prep and Senior School as well as the International School of London (Qatar).
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Michael Pignéguy has again teamed up with South African drumming master, Patrick Dilley to present the show. Between them they are assembling an incredible array of talent as well as some incredible special guests who will perform along side and separately to the students.

Special guests for Rhythm Explosion III included vocalist Ana Cisneros (Spain), pianist Phil Wilkinson (England) and Sándor Ónodi (Hungary).

All profits donated to UNITED WORLD SCHOOLS charity (http://www.unitedworldschools.org)

COMMENTS

"Words can hardly express the sincere appreciation and thanks I am able to offer you for the wonderful, truly outstanding and absolutely professional experience you presented with the staging of Rhythm Explosion on Sat., April 9th here at The American School of Doha."
Mark Seay, ASD Music Specialist

“We expected that we would enjoy the Rhythm Explosion, but we were quite frankly blown away by the talent and the overall production!  Very impressive.” (parent email)
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“Full credit to you and your team for the wonderful performance yesterday. What a treat and for a great cause too.” (parent email)

“I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the concert yesterday. Thank you for arranging this. The kids are very lucky to have these opportunities.” (parent email)

“In April I performed with Mike Pignéguy in the Rhythm Explosion concert with the Awakenings Ensemble. We performed Aurora (a composition written by B. L.) along with many other jazz-type pieces. This concert greatly improved my knowledge of jazz music and playing keyboard.” B. L. (gr 10)

​“I spent multiple hours practicing pieces in preparation for the Rhythm Explosion concert. It is always great to work with Mr. Pignéguy as he is a gifted percussionist and he helps us grow and become better musicians. We always spend a lot of time playing Mr. Pignéguy pieces so that we can play them perfectly (also because they can sometimes be challenging at first!)” H. P. (gr 9)

 “….working on the Rhythm Explosion performance pieces was a good challenge in which it was necessary to learn several challenging pieces for a professional level concert with Michael Pignéguy’s Awakenings Ensemble. We worked on four new pieces, as well as one that was performed last year, and performed them with a group of professional musicians. This escalated my skill as a musician both through giving me more experience in performance, and better ability to learn and perform challenging pieces.” R. B. (gr 9)

“For Mike Pignéguy's Rhythm Explosion performance we were under a lot of stress due to the several hard pieces. In addition we were expected to play it perfectly due to the presence of our professional musician colleagues.
… although some mistakes were made, the performance was astonishing!. Especially for me, playing alongside one of the best drummers in Europe, Israel Varela, was an irreplaceable experience. I learned a lot about playing from this concert and I hope to work with musicians of this caliber sometime in the future.” F. G. (gr 11)