Sonorous Earth
“Thomas’ music explodes with an extroverted boldness of utterance audiences and musicians alike find challenging yet immediate.”
– John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
Sonorous Earth is a new piece for Third Coast Percussion with orchestra from internationally-acclaimed composer Augusta Read Thomas. The four percussionists play a battery of over 300 bells and bell-like instruments from a wide variety of cultures and historic periods.
The project is conceived as a cultural statement celebrating interdependence and commonality across all cultures, and as a musical statement celebrating the extraordinary beauty and diversity of expression inherent in all bell sounds.
Sonorous Earth was co-commissioned by the Chicago Philharmonic Society and the Eugene Symphony Association.