From concert and album reviews to feature articles, Third Coast Percussion is in the news.
We are fortunate to have garnered critical acclaim and recognition for so many of our performances and projects. See for yourself what the buzz is all about by reading what the press has to say! Browse reviews, articles, and much more below.
Album review: Philippe Manoury’s Book of Keyboards, Third Coast Percussion’s Masterful Rendition
September 17, 2019, by Allan J. Cronin
Philippe Manoury (1952- ) is a French composer who worked at IRCAM and is professor emeritus at UCSD. Knowing just these facts I must admit that I let this one languish a bit before giving it a good listen. I was just not ready for some obtuse Boulez-oriented complexity. But Manoury is nothing if not original and even if his music has complexities it does not fail to communicate very well to the listener. My apologies to Third Coast Percussion and the ever interesting New Focus recordings for the delay now that I’ve put my fears to rest and given the music a chance. There are two works on this disc, Le livre des claviers, Six pieces for 6 percussionists (1987) and Métal for sixxens sextett (1995). The first piece, which translates as, “Book of Keyboards” invites connotations of monolithic masterpieces such as Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, Boulez’ Livre pour Quatuor, or any of a number of pieces with such…
TCP included on Donnacha Dennehy’s “Surface Tension/Disposable Dissonance”
September 13, 2019, by Liam Cagney
Donnacha Dennehy’s arrival as a composer in the late 1990s heralded what was dubbed the new Irish classical. Often performed by the amplified Crash Ensemble (which he co-founded), Dennehy’s music injected welcome verve, grit and streetwiseness into the Irish classical scene. As a teacher at Trinity College Dublin, Dennehy had a lasting influence in the early years of the new millennium on the youngest generation of Irish composers. Now based in the US, Dennehy in some of his recent music has shifted more towards the centre ground, but these two works hearken back more to that early edginess. In Surface Tension (2015), inspired by the Irish bodhrán drum, Dennehy explores glissandos on the drumskin’s surface. A pulsating texture of continuous semiquavers on tom-tom gradually rises and falls in pitch, with strikes on other drums cutting through the texture. After a while, a marimba joins in; later, a bowed vibraphone carves out a…
Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion to release new album ‘Fields’ in collaboration with Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes
August 26, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
August 23, 2019 by Jessi Roti "Seeing what Third Coast Percussion had done with these pieces was magical.” - Devonté Hynes Singer-songwriter Dev Hynes has become one of the millennial generation’s most influential, artistic Renaissance men. From his own efforts as Lightspeed Champion and later Blood Orange, his hipster-approved, synth-pop/R&B outfit known for songs such as “Champagne Coast” and “Augustine," to writing and producing for artists like Solange, Sky Ferreira, Carly Rae Jepsen and numerous others, forays into ballet, film and modernist art — Hynes has shown time and again that his creative interests and musical acumen cannot be contained. But would you think the performer was going to follow-up 2018′s massively compelling “Negro Swan” and this year’s “Angel’s Pulse” mixtape with an album of classical music? Hynes is doing it in collaboration with Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion. The ensemble, best known as the ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre…
The Fader: “Fields” Album Announcement
August 20, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
August 20, 2019 by Alex Robert Ross Blood Orange announces classical LP Fields The album is due out on October 11 via the Chicago-based classical label, Cedille. Dev Hynes, the London-born musician better known as Blood Orange, has announced his first classical music album. Fields— written by Hynes, arranged and performed by the Chicago ensemble Third Coast Percussion — is due out October 11 on Cedille. “This was the first time I've written music that I've never played, and I love that,” Hynes said in a press release. “It's something I've always been striving to get to. Seeing what Third Coast Percussion had done with these pieces was magical.” In the album's liner notes, excerpted in the press release, Third Coast Percussion lauded the unique process behind the record: “We’ve always felt that the future of classical music depends on deepening the collaborative process and removing the strict barriers between composers and performers. Dev…
Pitchfork: Devonté Hynes Album Announcement
, by Third Coast Percussion
August 20, 2019 by Matthew Strauss Blood Orange Announces New Classical Music Album Fields Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion perform Devonté Hynes’ classical compositions Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange) is releasing his first album of classical music compositions. The collection is called Fields and it’s performed by the Chicago-based ensemble Third Coast Percussion. It’s out October 11 via Cedille. Check out the tracklist and album cover below. Fields consists of a suite called “For All Its Fury” (the first 11 tracks of the album), followed by compositions titled “Perfectly Voiceless” and “There Was Nothing.” Hynes composed all the music in a Digital Audio Workstation and then sent the recordings and sheet music to the members of Third Coast Percussion who arranged and orchestrated them for their own instruments. “This was the first time I’ve written music that I’ve never played, and I love that,” Dev Hynes said in a press release.…
Album review: Perpetulum
August 12, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
August 10, 2019 by Graham Rickson "a beautifully produced and stunningly engineered double album" Think minimalism and you think tuned percussion, though Philip Glass’s Perpetulum is actually his first work specifically written for percussion ensemble. Beginning with several minutes of unpitched shakes and rattles, it's hugely enjoyable, confirming my suspicion that Glass is at his best when writing on a small scale. Who'd have thought that percussion music could be so expressive and emotionally involving, Perpetulum upbeat and menacing by turns. There's a mind-bending cadenza; how can this much noise be generated by just four players? Glass’s chord progressions are naively simple at times, though they've an extra sharpness and oomph when delivered on marimba and xylophone. The work’s soft fade is enchanting, and phenomenally played. Gavin Bryars’ The Other Side of the River is a rhapsodic treat, the occasionally cheesy themes deliciously incongruous played on tuned percussion. This is…
The origins of Christopher Cerrone’s music
July 9, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
We can't wait to be back at the Britt Festival in Southern Oregon later this month! We will be performing Chris Cerrone's new concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra, "Meander, Spiral, Explode", written for us last season. Check out this fantastic interview with Chris, about the origins of the piece, his compositional influences, and even his "suburban angst" rock band phase. July 8, 2019 by Evalyn Hansen Composer Christopher Cerrone’s percussion quartet concerto, “Meander, Spiral, Explode,” will be performed with Third Coast Percussion at the opening concert of the Britt Festival Orchestra season, which runs July 26 to Aug. 11. I chatted recently with Cerrone about the origins of his music. CC: I think I’ve had music coursing through my veins as long as I can remember. My mother told me a story of her giving me a 45 rpm record player. And I used to listen to the same…
Track Premiere: Donnacha Dennehy’s Surface Tension Performed by TCP
June 21, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
June 20, 2019 We are stoked to be included on Donnacha Dennehy's newest album, Surface Tension/Disposable Dissonance! Read about—and listen to!—our track, Surface Tension, which Donnacha wrote for us back in 2016. The album is available on June 28, but you can listen to the track now! Congratulations, Donnacha! Today, we are premiering Donnacha Dennehy‘s Surface Tension performed by Third Coast Percussion! Surface Tension is one of two eponymous tracks from Dennehy’s upcoming New Amsterdam Records release: Surface Tension / Disposable Dissonance. Disposable Dissonance features the Dublin-based Crash Ensemble, founded in 1997 by Dennehy and now recognized as one of Ireland’s leading contemporary music ensembles. Surface Tension calls on the nuance and expertise of Third Coast Percussion, the Chicago-based percussion quartet whose portrait album of Steve Reich won the 2017 GRAMMY award for Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance. Here’s what Donnacha had to say about Surface Tension: Surface Tension is a pretty intense, sweeping one-movement piece that I wrote for the wonderful Third Coast Percussion…
Album review: Perpetulum
June 18, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
July 2019 edition by Geoff Brown Lovers of vibraphones and marimbas will relish this percussion fiesta from the famous Chicago group Third Coast Percussion. Drum aficionados won’t miss out, either. And Philip Glass fans will surely pounce on the title piece, a Third Coast commission, and the 82-year-old master’s long-delayed percussion debut, written last year. Perpetulum is a fidgety piece, content for a time to test sonorities rather than make obvious music. Then three minutes in, Glass gets up to speed: rhythms hiccup, perky melodies come and go while various drums tap out those rat-tat-tat patterns that seem to herald a brilliant display by high school majorettes. Spread in patches over 21 minutes, with a throbbing ‘cadenza’ devised by the performers, it’s all childlike fun. Gavin Bryars’s The Other Side of the River, another Third Coast commission, equally idiosyncratic, is surely a sturdier achievement: lyrical and mysterious, a victory for…
Album review: Perpetulum
June 4, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
May 31, 2019 by James Manheim "...breaks new ground in several respects..." "...delightful..." "The entire album is absorbing and often fun" This release from Third Coast Percussion, on Philip Glass' Orange Mountain Music label, breaks new ground in several respects, which is no mean feat for its seemingly indestructible, octogenarian principal. The big news is that Glass himself, after all these years, contributes Perpetulum, a piece for percussion ensemble that is apparently his first one ever. This may seem strange for a composer for whom the rhythmic element has always been prominent, but here the relationship between rhythm and tonality is different, and the ensemble seems to draw forth a new kind of humor from Glass. It's delightful; sample the first movement, and you may well be entranced. The other new development here, is that Glass has reached what might be termed a second generation of influence; the rest of the music on the album, some of…
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