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Percussion is everywhere, keeping the beat in just about any type of music. But only relatively recently have composers written specifically for it — and that’s still rarer than music for other instruments.
For 20 years, Third Coast Percussion has made strides in raising the profile of composed percussion music, particularly in commissioning and performing new works.
In 2017, the quartet became the first percussion group to win a Grammy Award in the classical genre, and the group has gone on to receive further nominations, as well as for individual members. Additionally, Third Coast Percussion has commissioned over 100 new works from composers such as Zakir Hussain, Philip Glass, Danny Elfman, Jessie Montgomery and Clarice Assad, as well as pieces by new and emerging composers.Â
Local audiences will get a chance to hear some of those pieces when the Chicago-based all-percussion chamber ensemble performs Sept. 26 at a concert hosted by Portola Valley nonprofit presenter Coast Live Music.
While audiences know what to expect at rock or classical performances, the same usually can’t be said for percussion concerts, and that’s part of the fun, said Sean Connors, Third Coast Percussion co-artistic director, technical director, and education director.
“I would say pretty much every single concert, someone comes up and says, ‘Wow, I had no idea what a percussion concert would be like, but that was great.’ I think because we’re not defined by an instrument — it’s like a collection of different instruments — every piece can be completely different. So I feel like that’s somewhat unique about performing with just percussionists.”
Connors got his start in music with piano lessons at a very young age, then switched to percussion in elementary school and kept up with it throughout high school. The ubiquity of the instruments and their versatility impressed him very early on.
“I loved and still love the fact that there’s percussion in basically every single genre of music — it’s one of the most basic instruments, right? Besides the human voice, anything that you hit or you shake can be considered a percussion instrument,” Connors said.Â
He quickly saw that in some form, it could be found everywhere, from orchestras to rock bands.
“I just loved all sorts of music and there was percussion in all of (it.)”
Third Coast Percussion was formed in 2005 by musicians who were then students at Northwestern University. Connors joined the group in 2013. Over the years, he said that ensemble members have developed a shorthand in working together, but also a sound that keeps evolving, thanks to new instruments and a variety of collaborations.
“The collection of instruments that we have, it’s ever growing. It feels like every year (we say), ‘Okay, this is the year that we don’t need to add any more instruments, and then immediately we’re like, ‘Oh, but did you hear this cool new thing? I saw this person play this.’ We’re ordering more instruments, so we’re constantly adding to our sound palette,” Connors said.
“But in some ways, even more importantly, we keep expanding our collaborators and the composers that we work with, so we get to kind of step into someone else’s artistic shoes and play in their voice, which is really, really fun.”
Commissioning new works is a core part of the group’s mission, but also practically speaking, the ensemble aims to help to build out a genre where repertoire has been comparatively scarce.
“The type of percussion music that we mostly perform — notated percussion music, composed in the classical tradition — hasn’t been a thing as long as other classical chamber groups, like a string quartet, for example,” Connors said, noting that there are centuries’ worth of compositions for string instruments.
“We’re getting close to a century of percussion music, which is awesome. The education around classical percussion has really blossomed and bloomed within the last few decades … so a lot of the repertoire is very recent. That’s the practical answer, but then the mission statement answer is that we love commissioning and we love creating new work. Bringing new work into life is just part of what we do, and that’s why a lot of music at our concerts is new,” he said.Â
Education has also been a strong theme throughout the group’s work, and Third Coast’s Currents Creative Partnership program combines education and their emphasis on new music. For over a decade, the program has brought emerging music creators together with the ensemble to compose a work, developed over a series of workshops.
“People apply and they share some of their music with us, and they propose an idea for a piece to build with us over the course of a full season. Then we premiere the piece and hopefully get it out into the worlds that a bunch of other groups play in. We’ve been selecting three music creators to work with over the course of the year and we just had our concert from last year’s partners in June, ” Connors said.
The program is currently open and accepting applications through Oct. 31, he noted.
For Third Coast’s performance at Coast Live Music, the ensemble will perform works from their “Time Pieces: The New Classical” program, including the piece for which they won a Grammy: Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood,” as well as a number of Third Coast commissions.
“We’ll be playing pieces almost exclusively that were commissioned for our 20th anniversary that highlight collaborators that we were really especially excited to work with. So there’s a piece by one of our most frequent collaborators, Jlin,” Connors said.Â
The ensemble will be touring Europe with her later this year and on Oct. 23, will be releasing “Vernacular,” a new album they recorded with her, in what the group calls “chamber music for the dance floor.”
“There’s a piece by Jessie Montgomery, a very dear friend of ours who is a fellow Chicagoan, amazing, very popular classical composer. She’s a wonderful orchestrator. She uses really fun colors in her piece ‘Lady Justice.’ We’ll demonstrate that to the crowd. It includes sticking tubes in drums and rolling them, changing their pitch inside.
“There’s a piece by an incredible Armenian pianist and composer, Tigran Hamasyan. He wrote us a three-movement sonata that is just completely wild. It uses time and rhythm in a way that even for us, a bunch of drummers, was new and exciting and challenged us,” Connors said.Â
Aside from their upcoming European tour with Jlin, already looking to the 2027-28 season, the ensemble will also be working on a collaboration with Ephrat Asherie Dance and a project with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and MacArthur Fellow Julia Wolfe and pianist and composer Conrad Tao set to premiere in 2028.
For audiences at Coast Live Music, Connors said that curiosity might be the best possible response to their music.
“So if someone comes for a concert, maybe never having listened to just purely percussion music before, and then has a positive reaction, I’d say hopefully go back to the next Coast Live concert and see something else, and that builds a wonderful community of curious listeners,” he said.Â
Third Coast Percussion performs Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m., at Portola Valley Town Hall, 765 Portola Road, Portola Valley. Tickets are $55-$75 adults/$35 teachers/$25 for under 18; coastlivemusic.com/event/third-coast-percussion.
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