Dr. Shane Jones has studied and performed around the globe, including in Brazil, China, Mexico, Trinidad/Tobago, Puerto Rico, West Africa, and across the United States. He serves as Director of Percussion/Assistant Professor of Music at Utah Valley University and Associate Editor of World Percussion for the Percussive Arts Society. 

As a popular/contemporary musician, Shane has performed on Broadway as drummer/percussionist for the musical 1776 at 54 Below. He was the percussionist for Tina - The Tina Turner Musical National Tour in Utah, drummer for the off-Broadway premier of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning rock musical Next to Normal and the regional tour of Cabaret. He has performed with artists and groups such as Boyz II Men, Ben Folds, Guster, Patti Austin, Eurovision winner Tajči, and the Hot Sardines as well as several local jazz and rock bands. Shane is a regular drummer for the Diamond Empire Band and a founding member and co-director of steelworks, a steel drum band that he and his wife Chelsea Jones started in 2014 that plays popular and folkloric music from the Caribbean.

Dedicated to new music, Shane has commissioned twenty chamber works. He is percussionist and Director of Production for Khemia Ensemble, an internationally performing group dedicated to promoting contemporary classical music. Khemia has performed and held residences at National Sawdust, the Mizzou International Composers Festival (Columbia, MO), Strange Beautiful Music Festival (Detroit, MI), New Music Gathering, Latin IS America (East Lansing, MI), the, Biennial New Music Festival (Cordoba, Argentina), University of Michigan, Tufts University, Michigan State University, University of Missouri, the National University of Bogota, and the National University of Cordoba. As a classical musician, Shane regularly performs with the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera as well as Ballet West. He has performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Paducah, Ann Arbor, and Rochester Symphony Orchestras.

Shane's research interests are in the music of the African Diaspora, specifically West Africa, Brazil, and Trinidad/Tobago. In 2015 he was awarded a Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant and Center for World Performance Studies Summer Research Fellowship to study contemporary samba percussion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He performed at the 2016 Panorama Competition in Trinidad/Tobago with the PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars under the direction of Liam Teague. Shane has also traveled and led student groups to Ghana to study the percussion music and culture of Ewe, Dagara, and Ga people. 

Shane received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree and Certificate of Graduate Studies in World Performance Studies at the University of Michigan where he served as a Graduate Student Instructor and director of World Percussion Studies. Shane graduated Summa Cum Laude from The Hartt School, University of Hartford with his Bachelor of Music degree in Percussion Performance and Music Management and received his Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Shane is a proud Yamaha Performing Artist and endorser of Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets, REMO drumheads, and Zildjian cymbals.