On Thursday, Feb. 27, Third Coast Percussion returned to New York’s Carnegie Hall for a special 20th-anniversary celebration. On the intimate and acoustically immaculate Zankel Hall stage, the celebrated percussion quartet delivered New York premieres for commissioned works by four innovative composers, highlighting the classical pathbreakers’ omni-voracious style. The program culminated in the live debut of Murmurs in Time, a new collaboration with the late legendary tabla master Zakir Hussain, who was originally booked to join Third Coast at the performance; in his absence, the quartet offered a deeply moving tribute to their hero.

With a set intention of “celebrating the life of one of the great rhythm makers of all time,” Third Coast Percussion commenced their anniversary performance with the premiere of Please Be Still, a new work with footwork and contemporary classical disruptor Jlin. After their previous team-up on Perspective earned a finalist nod for 2023’s Pulitzer Prize for Music, the trailblazers’ sophomore effort exceeded high expectations with a hard-swinging polyrhthmic cascade anchored in commanding bass kicks.

The program continued with Jessie Montgomery’s “Lady Justice / Black Justice, The Song,” another Carnegie co-commission that reframed fragments of Bach’s Mass in B minor, offhandedly termed “a collaboration 270 years in the making.” Montgomery’s work explored surprising sonic domains, shifting from a pastoral scene of brushed snares and breezing xylophone to a warlike march of crashes, both pitch-bent with air blown to toms and tuned metal discs dipped in water.

Tigran Hamasyan’s unassumingly named “Sonata for Percussion” followed, a tripartite movement from an alluringly churchical first passage, through distantly sentimental rhythmic phasing and recombination in the second act to the asymmetrical, angular throes of a finale written in 23/8, which disassembled the band to converse from four completely distinct perspectives. Through this elaborate closing, the quartet remained at once precise and powerfully evocative, exemplifying the interplay between catharsis and architecture at the heart of their music.

Third Coast Percussion returned after a brief intermission with their tribute to the legendary grand maestro of the tabla, accompanied by Hussain’s dedicated disciple Salar Nader. Nader expressed that his teacher was “there, shining down when we play this” as he commenced a solo introduction to the rhythms of the tabla. Fluttering on the traditional hand drums, he described the patter of the “train rela” taught to him by Ustad Hussain, in which the steam, the sound and the whistle of locomotion are projected through the instrument’s distinctive rhythmic/melodic noise.

From this foundation, the audience was treated to a surprise documentary-style studio video of Hussain, who described Murmurs in Time, his first time being asked to write for a classical percussion group, as “collaboration in the purest sense of the word.” “I’ve always wanted to bring to this part of the world the teachings I received from my master, my guru, my father,” Hussain reflected. “It’s my life as a musician, as a rhythm player, projected into this piece.”

Murmurs in Time balances tightly composed passages with opportunities for spirited improvisation in a two-part exploration of Hussain’s memories of music. The second frame, “—,” centers a rela pattern that he learned from his father Ustad Alla Rakha at 11 years old, elaborated and imbued with great reverence by the quartet. The first, “Recitation,” focuses instead on bols, or vocalizations of tabla rhythms often displayed for instructive and internalization purposes without instrumentation.

Third Coast Percussion’s performance of this first act started with small, sparse intonations from each member, layered over a virtuosic tabla beat from Nader. With time, these chanted rhythms doubled and redoubled, accented by claps and brushed bowls to unfold canons and counterrhythms that shared a core pulse. As each performer poured themselves into their own cadence, a richly layered, uplifting atmosphere arose and a definite–if intangible–narrative took shape, radiating from the stage like a mounting flame.

At the extremely moving song’s conclusion, the artists and audience beamed together, awash in the joyous noise. Earlier gasps of mourning for the icon at the evening’s core were supplanted by bursts of scattered, irrepressible laughter.

Third Coast Percussion’s 20th-anniversary celebration is ongoing; for information on further planned engagements, visit https://thirdcoastpercussion.com/events/touring/.

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