Aguas da Amazonia: Negro River

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Third Coast Percussion has a long association with the music of Philip Glass. He wrote his first original work for percussion quartet for our ensemble in 2018 — but the first music we ever played of Philip's was our own arrangements of selections from Aguas da Amazonia.

We've now re-imagined the piece yet again in collaboration with iconic choreographer Twyla Tharp. Twyla is creating choreography to our new arrangements of this piece, and we are releasing an album of this music in January 2025. This is the first single off of that album: Negro River.

We scored these arrangements for a collection of custom instruments, including instruments we sourced and instruments that our production manager, Colin Campbell, built for the project. These include a glass marimba, a red oak marimba, a PVC bass instrument, and more.

Negro River is now available to stream on all platforms. Click here to listen to Negro River.

Performed by Third Coast Percussion featuring Constance Volk, flute

This arrangement by Third Coast Percussion of Aguas da Amazonia by Philip Glass was commissioned with support from Modlin Center for the Arts, University of Richmond, the Zell Family Foundation, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, the Julian Family Foundation, and Steph and Daniel Heffner.

Artwork by Constance Volk.