Outreach
Third Coast Percussion’s earliest performances grew out of its members’ mutual commitment to community outreach and arts education. Beginning in 2004 as a satellite ensemble of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Third Coast worked with the MusiCorps music education and advocacy program to teach, mentor, and perform at various local schools and community centers. Through this advocacy program and other similar initiatives in the years since, the group has sought to promote music awareness and appreciation for audiences of all ages and experience levels, thereby developing broader audiences for concert music throughout Chicago.
During the Spring of 2008, Third Coast Percussion partnered with the University of Chicago and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s CONNECT program to bring outreach performances to public and charter schools in Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods.
Third Coast has also partnered with the Chicago based Urban Gateways organization, which shares Third Coast’s belief that active engagement and education in the arts are essential components of every individual’s academic, aesthetic and personal development. Since the Fall of 2008, Urban Gateways has presented Third Coast Percussion in educational performances throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
Third Coast Percussion’s interactive performances feature a variety of musical styles including concert music, military drumming, ragtime, and West-African music, among others. These performances introduce audiences both young and old to an array of percussion instruments and demonstrate how these instruments have been used throughout different time periods across cultures all over the world. Audiences gain insight into the incredible diversity of percussion music through a program that relies heavily on hands-on experience and active audience participation.