April 11: Third Coast Percussion Releases 20th Anniversary Album, Standard Stoppages, on Cedille Records

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: Katy Salomon | Primo Artists | VP, Public Relations 
katy@primoartists.com | 646.801.9406  

 Third Coast Percussion Releases
20th Anniversary Album,
Standard Stoppages

Featuring Works by Composers Jlin,
Tigran Hamasyan, Zakir Hussain,
 Jessie Montgomery, and 
Musekiwa Chingodza

Album Celebrates Ensemble’s Legacy of
Musical Collaboration and Artistic Growth
Since its Founding in 2005

First Single, Hussain’s Murmurs In Time Out Now! 

Out Friday, April 11, 2024 on Cedille Records
Physical Copies Available Upon Request

Click Here to Explore TCP’s 20th Anniversary Microsite

Watch the 20th Anniversary Video

“The ensemble’s interpretive powers expanded the emotional architecture of [the] commissions” 
– San Francisco Classical Voice

www.thirdcoastpercussion.com

Chicago, IL (March 13, 2025) – Praised for its “rare power” (Washington Post) and “dazzling rhythmic workouts” (Pitchfork), GRAMMY® Award-winning Third Coast Percussion (TCP) announces the release of its 20th anniversary full-length album, Standard Stoppages. The recording explores the passage of time, both through the eyes of percussionists charged with “keeping time” for an ensemble, and on the grander scale of time elapsed over decades. In the creation of this album, TCP reconnected with some of its favorite past collaborators along with musicians they have dreamed of collaborating with for years, including Jlin, Musekiwa Chingodza, Jessie Montgomery, Tigran Hamasyan, and the late Zakir Hussain. 

“We’re fortunate that the past 20 years have been full of inspiration and joy for our ensemble,” the TCP artists said of their upcoming release. “We’ve seen extraordinary moments and met extraordinary challenges. We are so thankful for the time we have had together, and we are reminded never to take it for granted. We feel very fortunate to be able to spend our time making music with each other. Percussionists are in the time-keeping business. Other musicians often look to us to create a rhythmic framework, a steady beat within which the music unfolds. One of the joys of being a band of four percussionists is that we often explore how time can be stretched, manipulated, played with, and reimagined. Our collaborators on this album helped us to do just that.”

The musical selections on Standard Stoppages depict a range of unique reflections on the passage of time. The album opens with Jlin’s Please Be Still, a piece inspired by a 275-year-old work by J.S. Bach. A lover of Bach’s music since childhood, Jlin reimagines materials from the “Kyrie Eleison” movement of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor with a focus on Bach’s rhythmic vocabulary. The piece was composed in collaboration with TCP in a similar process to that which yielded Jlin’s 2023 Pulitzer-finalist work, Perspective.

Tigran Hamasyan’s Sonata for Percussion is a three-movement work that bends and stretches time through the composer’s fantastically complicated rhythmic language. Drawing from his own past, with such movement titles as “Memories from Childhood,” Hamasyan places his rhythmic vocabulary within a traditional classical music form as he weaves asymmetrical rhythms into compelling counterpoint. The composer weaves together memorable melodic lines that transcend the mathematics of their complex rhythmic skeletons.

Zakir Hussain’s Murmurs in Time represents the late tabla master’s only composition for a classical percussion group, though his career was filled with collaborations with percussionists of all kinds, and explorations of the special bond between “fellow rhythmists.” This two-movement work echoes with memories of Hussain’s personal history beginning with the childhood experience of singing rhythms alongside his father and Guru, the famous tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha. These vocalizations of drum sounds (“bols”), an important element of the Hindustani classical music tradition, feature prominently in the first movement of Murmurs in Time. The composition’s second movement also uses a rhythmic cycle inspired by his father, characterized by a balance of strictly composed material and opportunities for improvisation. Hussain highlighted this compositional openness in his program notes, writing, “It is important that respect is given to the artists that I’m working with, by allowing them to be able to find their own way in the piece that I’m presenting. I love to see how it comes back to me in a different costume.”

Hussain himself recorded the work in studio with Third Coast Percussion in October 2024, just weeks before his passing in December of that year. He had originally been set to perform with the quartet on a live national tour, which was subsequently recast as a tribute to the late artist. Together with Hussain’s family, TCP engaged tabla artist Salar Nader, a disciple of Hussain’s, to perform for the tour, which brought performances in five cities during February and March 2025.

In Jessie Montgomery’s Study No. 1, TCP features a key composition in their years-long artistic relationship. The piece was originally composed for the Percussive Arts Society’s International Convention, where TCP’s real-time creative contributions made them a “musical laboratory” for the composer, yielding the first in their ongoing series of collaborative works. 

A second Montgomery work on the recording, her three-movement In Color Suite, emerged during workshops with Third Coast Percussion for her Study No. 1, where she used excerpts from various pre-existing works to experiment with percussion instruments, exploring timbral possibilities, and the blending of sonic colors. TCP member Sean Connors was particularly captivated by In Color and sought the composer’s permission to arrange three movements for percussion quartet, the version heard on the album. His arrangement introduces unique timbral combinations, such as bowed marimba with melodica, whistling and humming in unison with vibraphone, and a wooden rasp drawn across low marimba bars, all of which add a touch of the unexpected to the expressive harmonic language of Montgomery’s writing.

Following a joint performance with TCP at Northwestern University in January 2025, Montgomery will join the ensemble for a national tour in April and May 2025. Spotlighting Montgomery as both composer and performer, the tour brings performances of her latest percussion work Lady Justice / Black Justice, The Song, and features her as violin soloist on Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra.

The album’s final track is Musekiwa Chingodza’s Dzoka Kumba, which translates to “Come Back Home” in the Shona language of the composer’s native Zimbabwe – capturing a universal sentiment that reminds us of the places and people in whom our personal stories are rooted. The piece was written for the composer’s daughter, inviting her to come back to the family’s home for care and comfort during a trying time. The recording features Chingodza singing and playing Mbira, a traditional instrument of the Shona people, with TCP supporting on marimba, vibraphone, drumset, sun drum, and hosho (Shona shakers made from dried gourds).

A “TCP 20th” microsite is available at tcp20.thirdcoastpercussion.com with more information on the ensemble’s history and milestone engagements.

More About Third Coast Percussion
With nearly two decades of exciting and unexpected performances to its name, Chicago-based percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion (TCP) is the first percussion ensemble to win a GRAMMY® Award. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, Third Coast recasts the classical musical experience with a brilliantly varied sonic palette, crafting music to “push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR). In its latest of seven total GRAMMY® nominations, TCP’s 2023 album Between Breaths was nominated under Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance in the 2024 GRAMMY® Awards.

Highly collaborative in its commissioning process, TCP has commissioned and premiered new works from Augusta Read Thomas, Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, Jlin, Clarice Assad, Gemma Peacocke, Flutronix, Danny Elfman, Tyondai Braxton, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Georg Friedrich Haas, Donnacha Dennehy, Glenn Kotche, Christopher Cerrone, and David T. Little, plus numerous up-and-coming composers through its Currents Creative Partnership program. Jlin’s Perspective, a TCP commission, was a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Besides putting its stamp on works by John Cage and Steve Reich, the quartet has created first recordings of commissioned works by Philip Glass, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Danny Elfman, Gavin Bryars, Donnacha Dennehy, David T. Little and Ted Hearne – in addition to original Third Coast compositions. The ensemble won its GRAMMY® (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for its recording of Steve Reich’s works for percussion. They have received five additional GRAMMY® nominations as performers, plus a 2021 nomination as composers.

Passionate about connecting with its audience, Third Coast has been praised for “an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). The ensemble has toured widely across the U.S. and four continents. Its four members are also accomplished teachers who have developed a wealth of K-12 workshops and family programming, plus educational partnerships benefiting thousands of Chicago students.

Third Coast has produced exciting new art through unlikely collaborations with engineers at the University of Notre Dame, architects at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, dancers at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and musicians of all genres. The quartet has served as ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (2013-2018) and Denison University (current).

With strong ties throughout Chicago, Third Coast has collaborated with such institutions as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Uniting Voices Chicago choir, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival, Adler Planetarium, the University of Chicago and numerous Chicago-based composers.

The four members of Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore) met while studying percussion at Northwestern University and formed the ensemble in 2005. TCP has since been certified as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in support of its vision. Members of Third Coast also hold degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Rutgers University, the New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music.

Follow Third Coast on Instagram (@ThirdCoastPercussion), YouTube (@thirdcoastpercussion), TikTok (@thirdcoastpercussion), Twitter (@ThirdCoastPerc), Facebook (@Third Coast Percussion), and LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/third-coast-percussion)

Standard Stoppages Tracklist

1. Jlin – Please Be Still* [5:34]
2. Tigran Hamasyan – Sonata for Percussion* [22:54]
     I. Memories from Childhood [9:07]
     II. Hymn [3:05]
     III. 23 for TCP [9:42]
3. Zakir Hussain – Murmurs in Time*  [22:26]
     I. Recitation [11:09]
     II. – [11:17]
4. Jessie Montgomery – Study No. 1*  [7:27]
5. Jessie Montgomery – In Color Suite* (arr. Sean Conoors and Third Coast Percussion)  [7:17]
     I. Red [1:21]
     II. The Poet  [2:32]
     III. Purple [3:24]
6. Musekwai Chingodza – Dzoka Kumba*  [5:46]

TT: 70:27

*World Premiere Recording

CDR 90000 236
Producers Judith Sherman and Colin Campbell
Engineer Bill Maylone
Assistant Engineer Aidan Connelly, Nick Iacono, and Daniel Quinlan
Studio Assistants Emma Brooks and Samantha Aviles
Mixing Third Coast Percussion, Judith Sherman, and Bill Maylone
Mastering Engineer Joe Lambert
Program Notes Robert Dillon and David Skidmore
Recorded:
Tracks 1- 4 and 7-10: November 4-8, 2024
Tracks 5-6: September 30 - October 2, 2024 at Narwhal Studios, Chicago, IL
Track 11: November 15, 2024 at Rax Trax Chicago, IL

Publishers:
Please Be Still © 2024 by Jlin. All rights administered worldwide by Decca
Publishing, a division of Universal Music Publishing Ltd.
Sonata for Percussion © 2024 Yergatun (BMI)
Murmurs in Time © 2024 Precious Time Publishing (ASCAP)
Study No. 1 © 2024 by Jessie Montgomery (ASCAP)
In Color Suite © 2024 by Jessie Montgomery (ASCAP)
Dzoka Kumba © 2024 by Musekiwa Chingodza. Used by permission.

Cover Art and Design Sonnenzimmer, Chicago

# # #