By Brooklynn Wong
A group out of Chicago called Third Coast Percussion graced the Samueli Theater stage on April 5.
The percussion quartet, composed of Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore, is doing its part to draw attention to the genre.
The four met as music students at Northwestern University, and while becoming composers and music professors in their own right, they have created music together for ten years, collaborated with other percussionists, had music commissioned for them, toured as a performing group and won a Grammy in the process.
Third Coast Percussion puts on a lively and quirky show, filling up nearly every square inch of the stage with all their instruments—everything from two different sized gongs to several xylophones and a table covered with a set of 25 various-sized Japanese Singing Bowls.
Their show featured everything from songs played on their own, to songs that incorporated electronic tracks and video playing behind them, to a GoPro-like camera hanging from the ceiling that gave a unique vantage point when they played the bowls that sat on the table, to what could perhaps be described as a choreographed pantomime to a track that they are fans of, and finishing with an encore that utilized hair combs as instruments.
The crowd at the Segerstrom Center-complex unfortunately was rather sparse, but it was an odd, niche kind of entertainment, that could perhaps be likened to abstract art.
Their music is not what anyone would expect—it’s asymmetrical, and at times not even pleasing to the ear. But that is where the listener must decide if that is what makes it beautiful, new and innovative, or not for them.
They mentioned in their introductions to each piece that there are not many artists out there today composing music for exclusively-percussion groups, but a few of those who are are Augusta Read Thomas, a former composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony; British artist Devonte Hynes; Mark Applebaum from Stanford; and Philip Glass, a composer in his 80s who commissioned a piece for the group. Their program that evening featured pieces by each of these, as well as a few written by band members, and one created by a young composer who came to them via their Emerging Composers Partnership Program, in which they invite aspiring composers to apply to be selected to collaborate with them “in the composition of a new work for percussion quartet,” according to their website (thirdcoastpercussion.com).
They also have collaborated with and composed music for celebrated Chicago modern dance company Hubbard Street Dance.
The group will perform in the state again this Saturday, in Pasadena at Beckman Auditorium on the campus of the California Institute of Technology.
They released an album recently, and have another forthcoming this fall.
In the meantime, they will continue entertaining composition and percussion aficionados, and also continue their quest to bring greater attention to percussion music and to educate aspiring young artists.
