Third Coast Percussion had an impressive Lincoln debut at Kimball Hall on Wednesday, presenting a program of contemporary classical pieces played on a vast array of instruments, from marimbas and water-filled bowls to chimes, drums and shakers. The first event in the Lied Center for Performing Arts’ Danny Elfman Week, the 75-minute concert was highlighted by a performance of Eflman’s Percussion Quartet. Written for Third Coast, the piece took full advantage of the range of instruments, bringing in hand drums and cymbals on the warm, gentle second movement before delivering the rhythm of the third “dance” movement on the way to the exuberant conclusion. The program was drawn from the Chicago-based quartet’s new album “Perspective” and concluded with five of the seven movements of it’s title cut, a piece written for the ensemble by electronic dance music composer JLin, who sent them computer created tracks to transform in their distinctive…

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Third Coast Percussion opened its 15th season Tuesday night, not at a concert hall, but at the Field Museum. With the main work on the agenda being Philip Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia (Waters of the Amazon), the museum provided a wholly apt venue. In addition to the fine acoustic of the James Simpson Theatre proving a receptive space for the group’s kaleidoscopic brilliance, the Field Museum made an ideal philosophical partner for this environmentally minded work. Charles Katzenmeyer, the museum’s vice president of institutional advancement, explained in an introductory speech that the Field has devoted a great deal of time and resources to studying the Amazon and working to protect and preserve it for future generations. As the audience filed in, photos by museum personnel were projected on an overhead screen of Amazonian inhabitants, creatures and flora and fauna. The origins of this music date to a Glass piano work…

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To say there isn’t an abundance of purely classical percussion recordings around might be an understatement. Perhaps it seems odd, given that every classical orchestra has a percussion section, that the percussion should not have as much day in the sun as the violin and the piano have enjoyed. Maybe it’s because percussive instruments don’t make as persuasively plush, mellifluous sounds as violins and pianos. I mean, you can’t really wax too very lyrical on a drum. Anyway, such paucity of percussive recordings makes this new album from Third Coast Percussion all the more appealing. The players are quite good, and the four selections they chose for the program are all world-premiere recordings. ... So, the first selection on the program is the Percussion Quartet by American composer Danny Elfman (b. 1953). Although Elfman is primarily known these days as a film composer (Batman, Darkman, Spider-Man, Men in Black, and the like), he has also…

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It was only six years ago that Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion became the first percussion group to win a Grammy in the chamber music category, with an all-Steve Reich CD celebrating the composer’s 80th birthday. Since then percussion groups have become increasingly popular, and this new recital of four premiere recordings demonstrates the kind of high-quality repertoire that is emerging through new compositions and collaborations. In Danny Elfman’s entertaining, finely structured Percussion Quartet there are moments of poetry and, in the last movement, a spectral haunting with chimes. The electronic musician known as Jlin has created in her Perspective a series of stunning études that originated as electronic tracks, from which Third Coast created this performing version, with the painful beauty of ‘Obscure’ and the exquisite chrysalis of ‘Duality’ among the highlights. Third Coast’s arrangement of Glass’s Metamorphosis No 1, inspired by the recording made by Uakti, is dazzling. After all of this…

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Always on the prowl for new music, the four members of Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion came up with a quartet of world-premiere recordings on their latest album, Perspectives (Cedille). Well, three of the four if you want to get technical about it, since one of the premieres is a transcription for percussion of an existing piece. Onetime rockstar, now full-time film composer Danny Elfman has been making inroads into the concert hall with variable success, and his rather pleasing new Percussion Quartet marks the first time that he has written for this configuration. He goes about it in the timeworn format that Haydn and Beethoven would have recognized — a four-movement (fast, slow, scherzo, finale) structure lasting 20 minutes. The movements launch with what sound like homages to Philip Glass or Steve Reich — repeated minimalist patterns in their styles — yet they all find their way out of the initial repetition machine with a firm grip…

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