mike keller
matt blood
sam burns
Imperial Dyntasty is excited to welcome our NEW in-house design team and caption heads for the 2025 WGI season! We are excited to see how they use their combined experience as well as fresh ideas to the table in the creative and educational programs they will implement!
battery arr. & MANAGEr - mike keller
Mike is extremely excited to be returning to Imperial Dynasty in his new role for the 2025 season. After performing with Imperial Dynasty in 2017 & 2018 as a snare drummer, Mike returned to Imperial Dynasty in 2022 as a snare technician and looks forward to what the future holds for his Independent Percussion home team. He has also been a member of Fusion Core from 2015 – 2017, United Percussion 2019 and 2020, and Spirit of Atlanta 2018 and 2019.
front ensemble arr. & Manager - matt blood
Matt Blood is a marching arts designer, educator, and consultant based out of Southern New Jersey. He has worked with many marching bands, indoor percussion ensembles, and drum corps around the country as the sole proprietor of mattbloodmusic.com and as an arranger for Clifford Bialkin Designs LLC. Matt has designed shows for and taught programs who have performed at Drum Corps International semifinals, Winter Guard International PIW and PIO finals, and Bands of America Grand Nationals.
In the past, Matt has held the positions of Front Ensemble Arranger for the Jersey Surf from 2019 to 2023, Front Ensemble Arranger/Sound Designer for United Percussion 2 in 2022 and 2023, and taught the front ensemble at United Percussion World from 2019 to 2023, where he was the coordinator in 2021 and caption head in 2022 and 2023. Currently, Matt holds the positions of Front Ensemble Coordinator/Arranger/Sound Designer for the Hawthorne Caballeros and Front Ensemble Caption Head/Staff Arranger for the Rutgers University Marching Scarlet Knights.
Matt received his Bachelor’s degree in classical percussion performance from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, where he learned from Joe Tompkins, Kyle Zerna, Mike Truesdell, and Javier Diaz. In addition, Matt has performed as a member of the United Percussion Front Ensemble during their 2012-2014 seasons, where he was fortunate enough to work with many amazing educators, including Steve Ballard, Ian Hale, and Rich Klimowicz.
Matt is excited to join the stellar team at ID and looks forward to helping grow the program in 2025!
visual & CHoreography - SAMANTHA burns
Samantha is excited to be joining the Imperial Dynasty team!
Samantha began her marching career with four years in the Washington Township High School marching band and indoor color guard. After graduating high school, she marched two years with the Co-Motion Open Winterguard (2012-2013). She has been teaching color guard at Washington Township HS since 2012 and is currently in the Color Guard Caption Head position. She has been with the Bushwackers Drum & Bugle Corps since 2016, where she currently serves as the Color Guard Caption Head. She joined the AMP Winterguard staff for three seasons, working with their Independent A class group, and most recently, she worked with Kingsway Indoor Percussion for two years as part of their design team.
Samantha holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Rutgers University- Camden. She is currently working for a South Jersey based behavioral healthcare agency, where she works in Performance and Quality Improvement. She is excited to continue her journey in the percussion world this year with Imperial Dynasty!