Third Coast Percussion is a GRAMMY® Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and GRAMMY®-nominated composer collective. For over fifteen years, the ensemble has created exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience. The ensemble has been praised for “commandingly elegant” (New York Times) performances, the “rare power” (Washington Post) of their recordings, and “an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). The four members of Third Coast Percussion are also accomplished teachers, and ensemble-in-residence at Denison University.

Mehrdad Gholami studied flute in Tehran Univ. and has won different competitions in flute and chamber music in Iran. Before coming to US, as an active chamber music player, he performed with UT students as well as freelancing in Tehran and playing with local orchestras. As an orchestral performer, he recently performed with Tehran Symphony as principal flute under Alexander Rahbari as well as TCU symphony. He has received presidential award for achieving highest rank of National Concours in Arts chapter. 
Inspired by Tehran Music Group under the direction of Alireza Mashayekhi, he started to work with different composers and devoted his time to commission, premier and record new sounds for flute. These collaborations with Iranian composers resulted more than 15 new pieces for flute with different ensembles and electronic sounds. He has played in a wide range of recordings in various genres ranging from contemporary classical music to world music and pop music. Some of these pieces have received acclamation around the world such as Italy, United States, Germany and France.
Mehrdad has done his BM studies in Tehran with Dr Azin Movahed and he has received a MM from Texas Christian Univ. and currently is pursuing a DMA at Texas Christian Univ. with Dr Shauna Thompson.


It’s not often one encounters an imagination with the depth and prolificacy of Jacob Collier’s. The London-based 28-year-old is dubbed by many as one of the most innovative musicians of his generation. In 2012, Jacob's self-made YouTube videos achieved legendary status in the music world, attracting the praise of such luminaries as Herbie Hancock, David Crosby, Steve Vai, and Quincy Jones, who manages Jacob to this day. Jacob’s debut album, In My Room, crafted entirely in his room at home, went on to win two GRAMMY's. His success has led to musical collaborators and fans including the likes of Coldplay, John Mayer, Ty Dolla $ign, Tori Kelly, Daniel Caesar, SZA, Charlie Puth, Jessie Reyez, T-Pain, and Lizzo (to name a few).   In January of 2018, Jacob began designing and creating a recording project on an unprecedented scale – a quadruple album called DJESSE: 50 songs, divided between four volumes, with each operating within a separate musical universe of sound, style and genre. Scattered across the four volumes are 30+ collaborators from across every facet of the music world. Djesse Volumes 1, 2, & 3 have earned him a GRAMMY each, affirming that Jacob is the first British artist to win a Grammy for each of his first four albums.

Eighth Blackbird is “one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet” (Chicago Tribune). Launched in 1996 as a twinkle in the eyes of six entrepreneurial Oberlin Conservatory undergraduates, this Chicago-based super-group has earned its status as “a brand-name…defined by adventure, vibrancy and quality….known for performing from memory, employing choreography and collaborations with theater artists, lighting designers and even puppetry artists” (Detroit Free Press).


Eighth Blackbird kicked off its 20th anniversary in 2016, quickly garnering a fourth GRAMMY Award as well as the prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, Chamber Music America’s inaugural Visionary Award, and Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year (2017). Anniversary celebrations continue throughout the 2016-17 season, culminating in the June 2017 launch of The Blackbird Creative Lab, an annual tuition-free two-week intensive for emerging artists at the Besant Hill School in Ojai, California.


Eighth Blackbird first gained wide recognition as the winner of the 1998 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and has since commissioned and premiered hundreds of works by dozens of composers including David T. Little, Steven Mackey, Missy Mazzoli, and Steve Reich, whose commissioned work, Double Sextet, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize (2009). A long-term relationship with Chicago’s Cedille Records has produced seven acclaimed recordings (most recently, Hand Eye) and four impressive GRAMMY Awards for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance: for strange imaginary animals (2008), Lonely Motel: Music from Slide (2011), Meanwhile (2012), and Filament (2015).


Eighth Blackbird’s members (Nathalie Joachim, flutes; Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets; Yvonne Lam, violin & viola; Nicholas Photinos, cello; Matthew Duvall, percussion; Lisa Kaplan, piano) hail from the Great Lakes, Keystone, Golden, Empire and Bay states. The name “Eighth Blackbird” derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens’s evocative, aphoristic poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1917). Eighth Blackbird is managed by David Lieberman Artists' Representatives.

www.eighthblackbird.org

Margaret Fischer is following