Chicago, IL (January 21, 2025) – While continuing to mourn the passing of tabla master Zakir Hussain, GRAMMY® Award-winning Third Coast Percussion (TCP) announces that the collaborative tour and recording projects they had planned together will go forward as tributes to Hussain with the blessing of the artist’s family. Tabla virtuoso Salar Nader, a disciple of Hussain’s, has been invited to perform for the five-city tour, which brings world and regional premieres of Hussain’s final work, Murmurs in Time. Composed for tabla and percussion quartet, the work was recorded in studio by TCP and Hussain in early October prior to the tabla artist’s death on December 15, 2024. Murmurs in Time will be released as a standalone EP on February 7, 2025, and will also feature on Third Coast Percussion’s forthcoming full length album titled Standard Stoppages, recorded in honor of the ensemble’s 20th anniversary and scheduled for release on April 11, 2025 from Chicago’s Cedille Records.
“The opportunity to work with Ustad Zakir Hussain was one of the highlights of our personal and professional lives thus far,” said TCP artist and Executive Director David Skidmore. “The outpouring since his passing has been extraordinary and highlights what an exceptional influence he was on our musical world – as well as what a warm and generous person he was. We are so sad that we won’t have the opportunity to continue making music with him, but we are grateful for this beautiful piece of music that he wrote and recorded with us. We look forward to sharing Murmurs in Time with the world.”
“It is a profound privilege and honor to perform my Guru’s composition, which resonates deeply within me,” said Salar Nader. “Each performance with Third Coast Percussion is a tribute to his memory.”
Hussain’s Murmurs in Time combines the beauty and complexity of Hindustani classical music with the singular sound world of Third Coast Percussion. It features on the upcoming tour program alongside three new works commissioned for TCP’s 20th anniversary: Jessie Montgomery’s piece Lady Justice, Jlin’s composition Please Be Still and Armenian jazz pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan’s three movement work Sonata for Percussion. These selections are unchanged from the original program that had been planned with Hussain. The program will also now include a tabla solo performed in Hussain’s honor by Salar Nader.
The tour begins with a performance on Friday, February 21, 2025 at the Modlin Center for the Arts, University of Richmond (Virginia), featuring the world premiere of Hussain’s work. It continues on Sunday, February 23, 2025 as Michigan’s University Musical Society presents TCP and Nader at the Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor. On Thursday, February 27, 2025, Carnegie Hall presents TCP and Nader in a program at Zankel Hall, marking the New York premieres of all four works on the program. The tour concludes with two dates in California: at Green Music Center in Rohnert Park, CA on Saturday, March 1, 2025, and with La Jolla Music Society at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla, CA on Saturday, March 8, 2025.
The winner of four GRAMMY® Awards, among seven total nominations, Zakir Hussain was widely esteemed as a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement and one of the most influential musicians of recent times. Just weeks after recording Murmurs in Time with TCP in October 2024, the artist passed away at age 73.
The tour and recordings of Hussain’s work are among several ambitious projects timed for TCP’s 20th anniversary season, which brings them into collaboration with leading musicians, choreographers and composers from around the world. Hussain’s Murmurs in Time, Jlin’s Please Be Still and Hamasyan’s Sonata for Percussion, along with a separate work by Montgomery, will be featured on TCP’s latest album on Cedille Records, Standard Stoppages, which celebrates the ensemble’s legacy of musical collaboration and artistic growth since its founding in 2005. Among its other season highlights, TCP takes on a national tour with Twyla Tharp Dance beginning in January 2025. In official observance of its 20th anniversary, the ensemble presents its own TCP Festival at Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago on June 28, 2025, with more details to be announced later in the season. A “TCP 20th” microsite is available at tcp20.thirdcoastpercussion.com with more information on the ensemble’s history and milestone engagements.
Third Coast Percussion / Salar Nader Tour Dates
Friday, February 21, 2025 at 7:30pm
Modlin Center for the Arts Presents Zakir Hussain’s Murmurs in Time, Performed by Third Coast Percussion & Salar Nader, Tabla
Modlin Center for the Arts | Richmond, VA
Link: modlin.richmond.edu/events/page.html?eventid=22756&informationid=casData
Sunday, February 23, 2025 at 4:00pm
University Musical Society Presents Presents Zakir Hussain’s Murmurs in Time, Performed by Third
Coast Percussion & Salar Nader, Tabla
Rackham Auditorium | Ann Arbor, MI
Link: ums.org/performance/third-coast-percussion-zakir-hussain/
Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 7:30pm
Carnegie Hall Presents Presents Zakir Hussain’s Murmurs in Time, Performed by Third Coast
Percussion & Salar Nader, Tabla
Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall | New York, NY
Link: www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2025/02/27/Third-Coast-Percussion-0730PM
Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 7:30pm
Green Music Center Presents Zakir Hussain’s Murmurs in Time, Performed by Third Coast Percussion
& Salar Nader, Tabla
Weill Hall at the Green Music Center | Rohnert Park, CA
Link: gmc.sonoma.edu/third-coast_hussain/
Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 7:30pm
La Jolla Music Society Presents Presents Zakir Hussain’s Murmurs in Time, Performed by Third Coast
Percussion & Salar Nader, Tabla
The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center | La Jolla, CA
Link: theconrad.org/events/zakir-hussain-third-coast/
More About Third Coast Percussion
With nearly two decades of exciting and unexpected performances to its name, Chicago-based percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion (TCP) is the first percussion ensemble to win a GRAMMY® Award. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, Third Coast recasts the classical musical experience with a brilliantly varied sonic palette, crafting music to “push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR). In its latest of seven total GRAMMY® nominations, TCP’s 2023 album Between Breaths was nominated under Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance in the 2024 GRAMMY® Awards.
Highly collaborative in its commissioning process, TCP has commissioned and premiered new works from Augusta Read Thomas, Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, Jlin, Clarice Assad, Gemma Peacocke, Flutronix, Danny Elfman, Tyondai Braxton, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Georg Friedrich Haas, Donnacha Dennehy, Glenn Kotche, Christopher Cerrone, and David T. Little, plus numerous up-and-coming composers through their Currents Creative Partnership program. Jlin’s Perspective, a TCP commission, was a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Besides putting its stamp on works by John Cage and Steve Reich, the quartet has created first recordings of commissioned works by Philip Glass, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Danny Elfman, Gavin Bryars, Donnacha Dennehy, David T. Little and Ted Hearne – in addition to original Third Coast compositions. The ensemble won their GRAMMY® (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for their recording of Steve Reich’s works for percussion. They have received five additional GRAMMY® nominations as performers, plus a 2021 nomination as composers.
Passionate about connecting with its audience, Third Coast has been praised for “an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). The ensemble has toured widely across the U.S. and four continents. Its four members are also accomplished teachers who have developed a wealth of K-12 workshops and family programming, plus educational partnerships benefiting thousands of Chicago students.
Third Coast has produced exciting new art through unlikely collaborations with engineers at the University of Notre Dame, architects at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, dancers at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and musicians of all genres. The quartet has served as ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (2013-2018) and Denison University (current).
With strong ties throughout Chicago, Third Coast has collaborated with such institutions as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Uniting Voices Chicago choir, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival, Adler Planetarium, the University of Chicago and numerous Chicago-based composers.
The four members of Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore) met while studying percussion at Northwestern University and formed the ensemble in 2005. TCP has since been certified as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in support of their vision. Members of Third Coast also hold degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Rutgers University, the New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music.
Follow Third Coast on Instagram (@ThirdCoastPercussion), YouTube (@thirdcoastpercussion), TikTok
(@thirdcoastpercussion), Twitter (@ThirdCoastPerc), Facebook (@Third Coast Percussion), and LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/third-coast-percussion).
More About Salar Nader
A standout artist of his generation, tabla virtuoso Salar Nader is recognized as a global ambassador weaving South Asian arts into the musical traditions of his Afghanistan heritage. A percussionist,
composer, and producer, Salar has studied under Ustad Zakir Hussain since the age of seven. He has toured widely with Stanley Clarke, Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, Miles From India and Central Asian master musicians Homayoun Sakhi and Abbos Kosimov. He has also appeared with legendary Indian classical musicians including his guru Ustad Zakir Hussain and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan as well as with eminent artists such as Selva Ganesh, Rahul Sharma, Alam Khan and Kathak dancer Antonia Minnecola. He has performed and recorded with contemporary & electronic artists including Cheb i Sabbah, Niyaz, and Grand Tapestry.
Based in Los Angeles, Salar is committed to bringing the tabla to a wide audience. He collaborated on Farah Yasmeen Shaikh and Noorani Dance production “The Forgotten Empress,” has appeared on soundtracks including the 2012 film “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” and scored the original stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel “The Kite Runner,” which had a groundbreaking run on Broadway in 2022 – culminating in the distinction of being the first Afghan artist to donate his instruments to the Museum of Broadway in New York City.
In 2019, he founded the Salar Nader Tabla Foundation, globally preserving Afghan cultural traditions through instruments and mentor scholarships, supported by Rhea Designs Inc. In March 2022, Salar curated “Nezam-e-Shams” at the Getty Museum, a collaboration between the Sounds of L.A. series and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Since 2023, Salar collaborates with the Leela Dance Collective dedicated to Kathak, North India’s classical dance style.
His discography includes “Live in San Francisco Volume I” and “The Forgotten Empress,” “In the Footsteps of Babur: Musical Encounters from the Lands of the Mughals,” and his collaborations with Grand Tapestry.
Salar continues his dedication to community engagement, workshops, and cross-cultural
understanding. Learn more at www.SalarNader.com, and follow the artist on Instagram at salar_system.
*Photo Credits: Murmurs in Time album cover courtesy of Third Coast Percussion, Salar Nader by Nilesh Patel.
