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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.
KDFC: The Democratic Playing of Third Coast Percussion…
April 4, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
April 2, 2019 by Jeffrey Freymann TCP ensemble member and Executive Director David Skidmore was interviewed by KDFC's Jeffrey Freymann, leading up to the ensemble's performance at San Francisco's Herbst Theater on April 3. Read below for some text from the interview, and click here to listen! Being a member of this sort of chamber group has different challenges than some of the other, more conventional groupings. “Percussion ensembles are rare because there’s a great deal of infrastructure that needs to exist for a percussion ensemble to perform and rehearse, and tour,” Skidmore says. “We play different instruments on almost every piece, so there’s plenty of variety for everyone… Unlike a string quartet, where at least traditionally, like the first violin maybe has a lead part… In percussion ensemble music, that’s not the case. Each player might be completely equal, but just playing on different instruments.” None of them specializes…
Review: New Philip Glass commission presents a rhythmic perspective
, by Third Coast Percussion
April 4, 2019 by Joshua Kosman The members of the dynamic young quartet Third Coast Percussion have, by their own account, a small problem as classically trained performers. None of the old masters — not Mozart, not Brahms, hell not even Stravinsky — left any music for percussion ensemble. So the group members have taken it upon themselves to replenish the repertoire, both through their own compositions and by commissioning music from living composers they admire. The latest fruit of these efforts — a buoyant, enjoyable and somewhat distracted new opus by Philip Glass — was the centerpiece of the group’s ingratiating recital on Wednesday, April 3, in Herbst Theatre. Glass’ “Perpetulum” was co-commissioned by San Francisco Performances, the concert’s presenter, and it’s a spirited compilation of various Glassian tropes channeled through this new and unexplored medium. (The piece is also the title track on Third Coast’s expansive new recording.)…
“Torched and Wrecked” on All Songs Considered from NPR Music
, by Third Coast Percussion
April 2, 2019 We are thrilled to be included on the "All Songs Considered" podcast from NPR Music!" This episode features "Torched and Wrecked", the first track from our new album, Perpetulum (available now!). The piece, "Torched and Wrecked" by ensemble member David Skidmore closes out the episode which also includes tracks by Julia Shapiro, Cautious Clay, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Henryk Gorecki, Beth Gibbons, and The Gloaming. Check out the full episode: https://n.pr/2HRCL9G And check out the album! https://bit.ly/2WlqmOu
Philip Glass celebration at Notre Dame includes the composer performing and a new work for percussion ensemble
, by Third Coast Percussion
March 28, 2019 by Jack Walton Until now, the prolific Philip Glass has never composed a work scored strictly for percussion. It’s probably good that he waited. His immediate predecessors did not have anything like the resources that exist today from a performance standpoint. When John Cage introduced his pioneering works for percussion ensemble in the 1930s, there were no expert musicians available to play the pieces. Cage had to settle for an ensemble of “percussionists” who were actually just kindly helpers from his circle of friends. In some cases, the performers were not even musicians. The works had to be primitively simple or there was no way for them to be played at all. Fortunately, groups of the high caliber of Third Coast Percussion exist today. On Saturday at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Third Coast Percussion performs “Perpetulum,” a commissioned piece that Glass…
Album review: Third Coast Percussion unveils a first from Philip Glass
March 27, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
March 27, 2019 by Joshua Kosman It took until he was past 80, with many decades’ worth of rhythmic, intricately patterned music under his belt, for Philip Glass to write a piece for percussion ensemble. Now he’s done it, and the result – a spangly, delightful concoction called “Perpetulum” – is the centerpiece of an alluring two-disc release by Third Coast Percussion, for which it was written. (The group will perform this and other works in Herbst Theatre on Wednesday, April 3.) Naturally, “Perpetulum” bears many of the familiar Glassian harmonic and formal thumbprints, but there’s also a spirit of pop playfulness in the writing that sounds strikingly new. Along with “Perpetulum” (and an undercooked opus by Gavin Bryars) come sharp-edged and inventive compositions by three of the group’s four members, including Peter Martin’s buoyant “Bend” and Robert Dillon’s wittily authoritarian “Ordering-Instincts.” Perhaps most riveting of all is “Aliens With…
TUTTI Brings A Week Of Performances To Denison
March 14, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
March 13, 2019 by Anusha Shukla The eighth installment took place from Monday, March 4th to Saturday March 9th hosted by Denison’s Department of Music collaborating with Studio Art, Data Analytics, Creative Writing, Physics, Philosophy and the Denison Museum. The festival, occurring every other year, was a week long and provided a series of eight concerts plus six more events that included artist talks, workshops and a seminar. For each concert, various composers submitted works to be performed by Denison students, faculty and the visiting ensembles. Those ensembles consisted of the Grammy award winning Third Coast Percussion, Denison’s ensemble-in-residence Ethel, the Columbus Symphony Quartet, the Chamber Music Connection and the Columbus International Children’s Choir. The festival highlighted many of Denison’s ensembles starting with the Denison Wind Ensemble and the Symphony Orchestra. The two groups performed on Thursday, March 7th at the Burke Recital Hall. The concert, second in the series,…
Guest performers have Foellinger ecstatic with ‘Music for 18 Musicians’
March 4, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
March 3, 2019 by John Frayne On Feb. 16, as part of the Sonic Illinois series, Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" was performed by two guest groups, Eighth Blackbird and Third Coast Percussion, (both from Chicago) and nine local performers, making it 19 musicians. This 1976 composition has a cult reputation for being a landmark in the movement usually called minimalism. As usual, with cult pieces, it is frequently admired, even worshipped, by the cult members, somewhat to the bewilderment of the general run of classical music concertgoers. The claims made for the Reich piece are that it, and other minimalist pieces, upended the expectation of what a piece of music should sound like. Put bluntly, one expects a Beethoven work to start, and then to do something, go somewhere, and, one hopes, arrive somewhere. That is not what happens in the Reich piece. It begins with xylophone players…
2019 Taiwan International Percussion Convention to kick off May 24
January 31, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
We are thrilled to be included in the 2019 Taiwan International Percussion Convention! This festival brings together some of the biggest names in percussion from around the world to perform an amazing variety of music. Read more below! We can't wait! January 29, 2019 by Huang Tzu-ti TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The 10th edition of the Taiwan International Percussion Convention (TIPC) will take place from May 24 through Jun. 1 and include a total of 15 performances at major art venues across the island. The shows will be staged at National Concert Hall in Taipei, National Taichung Theater, Tainan Municipal Cultural Center, and Dadong Arts Center in Kaohsiung. Since it was established in 1993, the event has grown to become a world-class music fiesta, and was hailed by French percussion ensemble Les Percussions de Strasbourg as “the Utopia in the world of music,” according to event sponsor Ju Percussion Group (朱宗慶打擊樂團).…
Third Coast Percussion following beat of own drumming at Baylor
January 25, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
January 23, 2019 by Carl Hoover Percussionist Robert Dillon admits he and his colleagues have to think carefully about the relationship between programming and packing for a concert tour. The former involves what pieces bring the effect they want, the latter about the instruments needed to achieve that. Marimba? Snare drums? Wooden blocks? Tuned bells? “The question is how can we make a program artistically cohesive, but logistically possible?” said Dillon, a member of the quartet Third Coast Percussion, which plays at Baylor University’s Jones Concert Hall Thursday as part of the Distinguished Artists Series. Performing at a university with a well-resourced music school such as Baylor, he added, makes a lot of the packing easier as the four percussionists can draw on available instruments and bring only the ones needed to supplement them. Instruments are crucial for any musicians, but particularly so for a percussionist. When it comes to…
Hubbard Street Dance Can Do Anything and They Like to Prove It
January 22, 2019, by Third Coast Percussion
January 22, 2019 by Janice Berman Hubbard Street Dance Chicago last Saturday night at Zellerbach Hall offered a stunning show, capped with live music by Chicago band Third Coast Percussion. In the second of two weekend programs, the troupe — presented by Cal Performances — served up a banquet. When your reviewer last clapped eyes on Hubbard Street, at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 1990 or so, it was to see a meticulously rendered Eight Jelly Rolls, by Twyla Tharp to the music of Jelly Roll Morton. Different era, different everything. Hubbard Street, once described as a jazz-dance company, is solidly modern, which means it can do anything it wants — that’s how the lines of demarcation have vanished. Vive la no difference. We grow and change, as Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton told me that night at intermission. Boy, don’t we ever. Edgerton, a star of the Joffrey Ballet when…
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