Third Coast Percussion Presents Fresh ‘Perspectives’ May 13 on Cedille Records

Third Coast Percussion, the Grammy Award-winning quartet that’s been nurturing new concert repertoire throughout its career, presents world-premiere recordings of works by film composer Danny Elfman and electronic music artist Jlin, a collaborative composition with flute duo Flutronix, and their own arrangement of a Philip Glass piece for solo piano on Perspectives, a new album to be released May 13, 2022, on Cedille Records.

Perspectives includes Elfman’s Percussion Quartet, written for Chicago-based Third Coast at the behest of Glass; the ensemble’s own arrangement of Glass’s Metamorphosis No. 1; Jlin’s Perspective, commissioned by Third Coast; and Flutronix and Third Coast’s Rubix (Cedille Records CDR 90000 210).

“This album really captures where our ensemble is at this moment and also captures the incredible range of potential that a percussion ensemble has as an expressive vehicle for lots of different kinds of music creators,” Third Coast ensemble member Robert Dillon says in a Cedille podcast interview about the album with label founder and president James Ginsburg.

“Each of the pieces really came through a different creative process,” Dillon says in the interview, streaming online at https://bit.ly/3OFmIey.

“Absolutely floored”        

Best known for his many Hollywood film scores — and for TV’s “The Simpsons” theme song — Elfman composed Percussion Quartet, his first work for a percussion ensemble, expressly for Third Coast Percussion at the request of his friend, composer Glass.

“We were absolutely floored when he agreed to write a piece for us,” Dillon recalls. “We established a nice line of communication with Danny throughout the process.”

Third Coast premiered the work at Glass’s 2019 Days and Nights Festival in Big Sur, California.

The album’s liner notes, by Dillon and fellow Third Coast ensemble member David Skidmore, characterize Elfman’s four-movement work, with its symphony-like layout and musical arc, traditional title, and single-composer provenance, as the most “classical” piece on the album, with Elfman’s signature musical voice “clearly recognizable.” Percussion Quartet shares characteristics heard in the composer’s film scores and other concert works, with traces of Dmitri Shostakovich, Indonesian gamelan, and balafon, a West African percussion instrument similar to a xylophone.

A natural fit for percussion

Third Coast’s arrangement of Glass’s Metamorphosis No. 1 is based on his original composition for solo piano and the version recorded by Brazilian ensemble   Uakti (pronounced WAH’-kah-chee) in the late 1980s. Third Coast performs the piece on marimba, vibraphone, synthesizer, crotales, desk bells, chimes, glockenspiel, and melodica.

Third Coast finds “Glass’s vocabulary fits naturally on percussion instruments.” They’ve arranged numerous Glass works for percussion, performed with the composer in concert, and commissioned Glass’s first percussion ensemble piece, Perpetulum, in 2018.

A new way to create classical music

Critically acclaimed Gary, Indiana, electronic music producer Jlin’s seven-movement, 30-minute Perspective, the largest work on the album, emerged through what the ensemble describes as “the least traditional concert music approach.”

Jlin (pronounced jay-lihn) composed each movement as electronic tracks in a digital audio workstation.

As the liner notes explain, “Jlin shared these sonic renderings (as well as the individual layers or ‘stems’) with TCP, who then set about creating a version of these movements that they could perform live as a quartet.”

All Music hailed Jlin’s 2015 Dark Energy as “one of the most compelling debut albums of 2015.” Consequence called her 2017 sophomore album Black Origami “a massive breakthrough.”

Improvisational roots

Third Coast and the adventurous duo Flutronix — flutist-composers Nathalie Joachim and Allison Loggins-Hull — jointly composed Rubix and performed it together on the recording.

According to the liner notes, the joint creative process for Rubix got underway with “directed improvisation” and other techniques associated with the “game piece” genre of contemporary classical music. “Each musician brought semi-composed textures, sketches, or performance instructions that the ensemble sculpted together through improvisation, conversation, and collaboration into their final, through-composed form.”

The three-movement work marks the first time that either Third Coast or Flutronix co-composed with musicians outside their ensembles.

Production team

Recording producers for Perspectives include Elaine Martone, Colin Campbell, and composer Elfman. Session engineers were Bill Maylone, Dan Nichols, and Jonathan Lackey. All music was recorded at Chicago Recording Company, Chicago, Illinois, between October 26, 2020, and January 15, 2022.

Third Coast Percussion on Cedille Records

Perspectives is Third Coast Percussion’s fourth album for Cedille Records.

The quartet, whose members are Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore, made their Cedille Records debut in 2016 with the album Third Coast Percussion | Steve Reich, which won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance — the first percussion album to win that category.

Most recently, Archetypes, Third Coast’s 2021 collaborative album with Sérgio and Clarice Assad on Cedille, on which each musician, individually, wrote one or more movements, received Grammy nominations in three categories: Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and Best Engineered Album, Classical.

The ensemble’s 2019 album Fields, the first recording of classical music composed by international R&B star Devonté Hynes, received a Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.

Third Coast’s Paddle to the Sea, released in 2018, features the ensemble’s reimagined score to the beloved classic children’s film of the same name. Gramophone said the artists’ “acutely sensitive approach to sound yields a work that glides effortlessly and subtly between animated rhythmic sections and moments of serene, tranquil reflection.” Audiophile Audition called it “a really compelling listening experience.”

Founded in 2005, Third Coast has been praised for “commandingly elegant” (New York Times) performances, the “rare power” (Washington Post) of its recordings, and “an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune).

Third Coast currently serves as ensemble-in-residence at Denison University. Their website is thirdcoastpercussion.com.

Cedille Records

Launched in November 1989 by James Ginsburg, Grammy Award-winning Cedille Records (pronounced say-DEE) is dedicated to showcasing and promoting the most noteworthy classical artists in and from the Chicago area. The label’s catalog of more than 200 front-line albums brims with attractive, off-the-beaten-path repertoire from the Baroque era to the present day. Works from the classical canon, when they do appear, are usually heard in particularly imaginative pairings.

Cedille has recorded more than 180 Chicago artists and ensembles, with over 80 making their professional recording debuts on the label. Its catalog includes the world premieres of more than 400 classical compositions.

The audiophile-oriented label releases every new album in multiple formats — physical CD, 96 kHz, 24-bit, studio-quality FLAC download, and 320 Kbps MP3 download — and on major streaming services.

An independent nonprofit enterprise, Cedille Records is the label of Cedille Chicago, NFP. Sales of physical CDs and digital downloads and streams cover only a small percentage of the label’s costs. Tax-deductible donations from individual music-lovers and grants from charitable organizations account for most of its revenue.

Cedille’s headquarters are at 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 202, Chicago, IL 60613; call 773-989-2515; email: info@cedillerecords.org. Website: cedillerecords.org.

Cedille Records is distributed in the Western Hemisphere by Naxos of America and its distribution partners, by Naxos Music UK, and by other independent distributors in the Naxos network in classical music markets around the world.