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.

Classical Candor: “Perspectives” review

August 11, 2022, by John J. Puccio

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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WRTI 90.1: “Perspectives” review

, by John T. K. Scherch

Maybe music that is entirely comprised of percussion isn’t what one would consider “classical music” (feel free to write me about my own expansive definition of the term), but whatever you want to call it, Third Coast Percussion’s newest record is a great listen, featuring music from more familiar names like Danny Elfman and Philip Glass to electronic musician Jlin and Flutronix, who are flutists and composers Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim, both of whose work I would recommend as well. Also recommended: Augusta Read Thomas: Bell Illuminations (Various artists/Wyastone) Click here to read the original article.

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Gramophone: “Perspectives” review

July 29, 2022, by Laurence Vittes

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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BBC Music Magazine: “Perspectives” review

July 13, 2022, by Michael Beck

Third Coast Percussion and Danny Elfman are a match made in heaven. The American composer's scintillating approach to rhythm and orchestral colour is showcased in a dazzling percussion quartet, while Chicago's finest breathe thrilling new life into Glass' Metamorphosis No. 1.

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Classical Voice: Third Coast Percussion Bangs Out a Quartet of Premieres

June 30, 2022, by Richard S. Ginell

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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All Music: “Perspectives” review

June 17, 2022, by James Manheim

"[T]here are so many ways to create classical music," note the members of Third Coast Percussion, "and this album explores four very different approaches that all, in their way, eschew the paradigms of classical music." Third Coast Percussion is a cracklingly good ensemble, but with Perspectives, the group has also created a program that can serve as an introduction to new modes of creation that fall under the large "classical" umbrella. The opening Percussion Quartet of Danny Elfman, more famous for film music and for membership in the rock band Oingo Boingo, is the most conventional of the four works in that it is specified by the composer and realized by the ensemble, but it is a kaleidoscopic and attractive piece incorporating influences from West African balafon music, Indonesian gamelan, and more. The rest of the pieces are more deeply collaborative. Third Coast's reading of Philip Glass' Metamorphosis No. 1 is unique, fusing Glass'…

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NPR: Third Coast Percussion’s borderless music finds inspiration in fleet-footed beats

May 16, 2022, by Tom Huizenga

The style of electronic music and dance known as footwork might appear a strange bedfellow to classical music, but the Grammy-winning group Third Coast Percussion embraces the fleet-footed sound on Perspectives, a new album that pushes the notion of a percussion ensemble into fresh territory. Footwork is the hyper-beat music born in Chicago's underground dance competitions and house parties in the late 1990s. On Third Coast Percussion's album, the style undergoes a mesmerizing transformation in a seven-movement suite called Perspective. The music, which often clocks at 150 beats per minute or more, is by Jerrilynn Patton, a footwork fan who began slicing up her own electronic beats at her parent's home in Gary, Ind. She was working in a nearby steel mill when Dark Energy, her debut album, won her critical acclaim in 2015 — although she says she's tired of journalists trotting out the story. Going by Jlin, the electronic artist has absorbed footwork, but turned it…

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Third Coast Review: Third Coast Percussion Releases Their CD “Perspectives” With an Excellent Performance

, by Louis Harris

No musical techniques benefit more from visual performance than percussion. The number of ways that percussionists can produce sounds is limited only by the number of objects humans and nature have created. Many objects are deliberately made for making music. Some objects produce sounds that are not intended for making music. Most objects are not intended for making sounds at all. Even to the well-trained musician, the item being used to make a sound on a recording is not always obvious. A live performance allows one, for example, to watch a performer rub water-filled bowls or move a bow across a marimba or crotales. Most of the objects onstage at Third Coast Percussion‘s excellent in-person concert on Thursday night were created for making music. The event was billed as a record-release party for TCP’s new release Perspectives, which was reviewed here. In addition to pieces on the new release by Danny Elfman, Phillip…

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Chicago Reader: Third Coast Percussion rebuild Jlin’s experimental footwork by hand

May 13, 2022, by Philip Montoro

I love Third Coast Percussion—I ranked their 2018 release Paddle to the Sea number one on my list of the best Chicago albums of the 2010s—and I’m a big fan of Jlin. So when I heard that TCP had commissioned music from my favorite experimental footwork producer, I started counting down the days till they’d get a recording out. It took a couple years, but the wait is over: on Friday, May 13, TCP release their new album, Perspectives (Cedille), whose centerpiece is a seven-movement, half-hour suite by Jlin called Perspective. She wrote the suite using software, never creating a notated version, and then TCP worked with her to develop an arrangement, searching through their vast collection of instruments to take optimal advantage of their dazzling variety of sounds, densities, and energies. Jlin’s mutable tracks—sometimes brooding and severe, sometimes frenetic and exhilarating—translate beautifully to an acoustic setting. When their programmed layers are played by hand, they lose the superhuman bass…

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Third Coast Review: Cedille Records Continues to Release Excellence

May 12, 2022, by Louis Harris

In their latest CD Perspectives, set to be released on May 13, Grammy Award winner Third Coast Percussion continues to expand the concept of classical music composition. Perspectives includes music from composers using traditional, five-lined musical scores with time and key signatures, to artists creating sounds in an environment completely free of traditional notation. Perspectives opens with Danny Elfman’s “Percussion Quartet,” a four-movement work that was specifically written for TCP. Elfman is a very accomplished writer of film scores and onetime front man for the wonderful alternative rock band Oingo Boingo. He was approached for this project by American composer Philip Glass, transcriptions of whose work TCP has recorded several times. Perspectives includes their transcription of Glass’ “Metamorphosis No. 1.“ Electronic Dance Music producer Jlin from Gary, Indiana, uses a different approach. She wrote Perspective using the layering, recording process. TCP premiered this excellent work in a virtual performance in October 2020 and are presenting it here on CD. TCP will be…

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