October 20, 2017 by Scott Cantrell The Nasher Sculpture Center's "Soundings" would be hard to dethrone as the area's most inventive, even provocative, classical concert series. Curated by pianist Seth Knopp, it mainly focuses on new music, but often with illuminating associations with older fare. The 1966 Bill Mason film Paddle to the Sea, itself based on the eponymous 1941 children's book by Holling C. Holling, was the engine of Wednesday's performance by Third Coast Percussion, a Grammy Award-winning ensemble in residence at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. The program drew a literally SRO audience to the Nasher's basement auditorium; even after additional chairs were brought in, some people were left standing. Facing a side wall, the audience was arranged in semicircles around an array of tuned and untuned percussion instruments. Episodes from the film, about the waterborne adventures of a child's small, hand-carved American Indian in a canoe, were projected…

Learn More

August 29, 2017 by Louis Harris Last year’s Ear Taxi Festival put Chicago’s vibrant contemporary art music scene on display, demonstrating a deep and talented community of local composers and performers. One of the brightest lights of our scene is Third Coast Percussion, a quartet of classically trained musicians who specialize in hitting objects with mallets, drum sticks, hammers, hands, fingers—anything that elicits a rhythmic sound from another object.  ...  Their music is not centered on bongos or a drum kit; rather, it features marimbas, vibraphones, bells, triangles, cymbals, chimes, gongs, and all manner of resounding objects. The ensemble has now won their first Grammy, toured internationally, and completed their first collective musical compositions. In reflecting on TCP’s aspirations, Skidmore said, “To continue to reach new audiences is a big thing for us, and that means not just here in the States but also overseas. We’d like to do more international touring, including…

Learn More

April 15, 2016 by Patrick Rucker REICH: Third Coast Percussion: Cedille Records In artistic matters, labeling anyone “the greatest” almost always boils down to oversimplification or hyperbole. But it is difficult to argue with Kyle Gann, who wrote that Steve Reich “may be considered, by general acclamation, America’s greatest living composer.” Reich turns 80 in October, and the Chicago-based group Third Coast Percussion has devoted its latest recording to works spanning his long career. TCP — Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore — describe themselves as “second generation” Reich interpreters, meaning that none of them worked with the composer and all of them came of age when his music was already established in the repertory. (more…)

Learn More

December 23, 2016 by Zoë Madonna REICH: MALLET QUARTET, SEXTET, NAGOYA MARIMBAS AND MUSIC FOR PIECES OF WOOD Third Coast Percussion These Chicago-based percussion adventurers ride Reich’s phasing waves with a subtle hint of slink. This is a record so translucent and playful that the phrases seem to leap out of your headphones, and individual blocks of wood melt into a blissful flow. Click here for original article. 

Learn More

May 19, 2017 by Jocelyn Murphy What do you get when you bring together just shy of 100 musicians, spread them around an outdoor venue and give them a piece of music that celebrates and blends with the nature around it? “Inuksuit” swells to a very chaotic, very climactic middle section, and then recedes back into the soundscape of the garden, shares Sean Connors with Third Coast Percussion. The Grammy-winning percussion ensemble will host the striking musical piece at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks tonight. “And one of the cool things that happens, at least in every performance I’ve been a part of, is the piece ends with some flutes and glockenspiels emulating bird calls, and we’ve always experienced birds singing back to us, so the last sound you hear are living, real wild birds.” Click here to read the original article.

Learn More