Rare and beautiful — Antique xylophone steals the show

POWELL — At Northwest College, a roughly 100-year-old musical instrument sits in Assistant Professor of Music Zach Paris’ office.

He called the Deagan 200 Series Artist’s Special the Stradivarius of xylophones.

The Deagan is made out of old growth Honduran rosewood, which is effectively extinct due to the rate at which the wood is now harvested, Paris explained at a recent concert that featured the instrument.

“I think the cool thing with this instrument is that it is the sound that people are still trying to get today and still trying to achieve,” he said.

The xylophone has been seen in universities around the country and featured in concerts where music from the 1900s was played to celebrate its history.

“When I had seen that and seen other schools kind of going down that route, I just thought that would be really cool, and that genre of music, ragtime xylophone music, is some of the most played xylophone music, even still today for xylophone solos, it just fits the instrument so well,” Paris said.

Percussion majors throughout the country play ragtime music, he said, but not on an instrument that’s from the same era as the pieces they are playing.

“I was super excited … that instrument is one of a kind. It’s rare to find anything made like that, it’s not like other xylophones that are made for like concert bands or anything that are super clinky … the tone was a lot warmer,” said Zech Derby, who played the xylophone in concert.

The Deagan Artist’s Special is highly coveted among musicians and this particular piece was found just down the road in Meeteetse.

A former elementary music teacher in Cody, Sara Westberg, had been loaning it to a Meeteetse music teacher. Several years ago, following that teacher’s retirement Paris purchased the instrument.

“She had the instrument that was passed down from her band director when she was in high school, so it seems like it’s just been kind of passed down from generations,” Paris said.

When Westberg reached out and sent pictures of the instrument, he didn’t think it was a Deagan.

“The only place I had seen one previously, I had seen one in a museum, and then also knew that there were some universities around that had this instrument as well,” Paris said, adding, “But she was really trying to find a home for it, where it would get played.”

For years after purchasing it, the xylophone sat in an unrestored condition in his office, occasionally coming out to be played for students. It was also featured on Paris’ percussion album, “Snapshots” on a song called “Groove Moves,” released last year.

While the xylophone is technically owned by Paris, it was refurbished by the college and tuned for the late April percussion concert, where the instrument was introduced to the community by Paris and students Derby, Kinley Bollinger and Aiden Felker, who performed ragtime solos.

To get the instrument concert ready, the rare wood had to be sanded down and refinished in order to tune it.

The xylophone was made for solo use and was made with a slightly higher range than average, Paris said, which means it has four octaves compared to three and a half, and features wider bars.

The wider bars mean notes are farther apart than normal and, for solos, musicians have to adjust to the wider distance between notes.

Derby thought it was cool that the college refurbished the antique instrument and allowed them to play it. He graduated on May 10 with a degree in music and music tech and has a special appreciation for antique instruments; if he decides to continue his education he wants to explore unique and antique instruments.

On the other end of the collegiate journey was Felker, a freshman at NWC.

As a first-year music major, playing the Deagan with accompaniment from other students on marimbas (a similar instrument) was a great opportunity, Felker said.

“It was super challenging, especially my piece was so dramatic, it was just so many notes you had to keep track of and then you’re getting two notes at once,” he said, adding, “It’s like a whole page just filled with notes. It’s a lot.”

For Bollinger, who kicked off the concert, “it was nerve racking, but it was good.”

The student musicians were able to practice on the Deagan only in the last week before the concert, although they practiced on other xylophones and marimbas until then.

“The spacing on the notes was a little different, so that was a little difficult. But really, it was just a nice instrument to play,” Bollinger said. “It played really easily, if that makes any sense, it was just a nice rebound, a nice tone, and you just felt like there was action in the instrument instead of it being dead.”

This will not be the xylophone’s last moment in the spotlight. Paris has some ideas for it for his own personal projects and he’s keeping it available for future college performances.

“Anytime we really need that rosewood xylophone sound, that classic sound, we’ll roll that out of my office,” he said.

This story was published on May 20, 2025.