Between Breaths

Third Coast Percussion (TCP), a GRAMMY® Award-winning quartet of classically trained percussionists, opens its 2023-24 season with an album release concert Between Breaths, on Saturday, September 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street). A follow-up to the ensemble’s GRAMMY® Award-nominated 2022 album Perspectives, TCP’s upcoming album Between Breaths features world premiere recordings of works written for the ensemble by Missy Mazzoli, Tyondai Braxton, Gemma Peacocke, and Ayanna Woods, plus a work by the quartet itself. Tickets for the concert are $35 premium (including a signed copy of the album), $20 general, and $10 students, now on sale at thirdcoastpercussion.com.

Robert Dillon, TCP Ensemble Member and Development Director, shares the inspiration for the upcoming album: “The daily rituals that ground us, and the moments of meditative pause that modern life rarely affords, have been top of mind for us and many of our collaborators of late. The general sense of chaos and information overload that has dominated the last few years has pushed us to explore these aspects of our artform even more than usual. Each of the pieces on this album has given us a chance to disappear into another world and emerge slightly changed. We have savored those moments of escape and are grateful for the opportunity to share these journeys with you.”

The concert program is as follows:

Ayanna Woods: Triple Point

Tyondai Braxton: Sunny X

Gemma Peacocke: Death Wish

Missy Mazzoli: Millennium Canticles

Third Coast Percussion: In Practice

The album Between Breaths will be released on September 8, 2023, on Chicago’s classical music recording company Cedille Records, with works exploring aspects of meditation in sound, incorporating unconventional timbres and tones, and inviting listeners to lose themselves within a captivating sonic landscape. Exploring the daily rituals and fleeting moments of meditative pause that ground humans as a whole, the album invites listeners to disappear into a sonic experience that is both familiar and otherworldly before emerging somehow changed. Learn more about TCP’s upcoming and past albums at thirdcoastpercussion.com.

About Third Coast Percussion

With nearly two decades of spellbinding performances to its name, Chicago-based quartet Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore) is the first percussion ensemble to win a GRAMMY® Award. Also nominated for a GRAMMY® as a composer collective, TCP 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). The ensemble celebrates its 20th anniversary in the 2024-2025 season, having blossomed from percussion students who met in 2005 at Northwestern University into a thriving nonprofit organization.

With their eclectic taste and approachable sensibility, TCP has been praised for the “rare power” (The Washington Post) and “inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune) of tours across the U.S. and four continents. The ensemble’s recordings include 17 feature albums and appearances on 14 additional releases, including its GRAMMY®-winning recording of Steve Reich’s works for percussion. It has commissioned and premiered new works from such artists as Augusta Read Thomas, Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, David T. Little, Danny Elfman, and Jlin – whose TCP commission Perspective was a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist. The quartet also serves as ensemble-in-residence at Denison University in Ohio.

Third Coast Percussion is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.