Currents

"'Gutterflys' is written to illustrate the feeling or expression of having butterflies in your stomach. Nerves are a natural emotion that we all experience, so I wanted to capture that in this piece as authentically as I could." -JaRon Brown 

Learn more about Brown's work: https://www.wildlightpublications.com/

Recorded February 2021 at Third Coast Percussion's rehearsal studio.
Audio capture and editing by Colin D Campbell.
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JaRon Brown is a composer with his bachelor’s degree in music composition from The University of South Carolina. He has studied composition under the direction of Dr. John Fitz Rogers and Dr. David K. Garner, as well as percussion with Dr. Scott Herring and Dr. Brett Landry. While at The University of South Carolina, he has had the luxury of premiering four of his most recent works Fragmented Shards of Crystallized Water (2015), Neurobaloo (2016), RIPEHEART (2017), and Giant Woman (2017). Most recently he provided original music for an all new original play script entitled "Growing up Alice" for the Blythewood High School drama team under the direction of Sandra Dietel, which won the South Carolina division in competition in 2017. He is a co-founder of Wildlight Publications: https://www.wildlightpublications.com/
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Third Coast Percussion is a GRAMMY® Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet. For fifteen years, the ensemble has created exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience. To learn more, visit: 
https://thirdcoastpercussion.com/​​
And join our email list:
http://bit.ly/TCP-email-list

Gutterflys by JaRon Brown

"Halo is written for percussion trio and is one of the first pieces I composed while beginning my compositional studies at LSU under Dinos Constantinides and Brett Dietz. The term “halo” refers to the optical phenomena that occur when the light from the sun or moon is reflected or refracted by ice particles in the atmosphere causing a ring of colored light to appear around the celestial body. This serves as inspiration for the piece and is portrayed throughout the piece from the instrumentation to the compositional processes." - Joe W. Moore III

For more info visit: joewmooreiii.net

Recorded December 3, 2020 at Third Coast Percussion's rehearsal studio.
Video and audio capture and editing by Colin D. Campbell.

Halo by Joe W. Moore III

Tyondai Braxton’s new work for Third Coast Percussion, Sunny X, further develops his experiments with electronic sounds and live percussionists, utilizing more idiosyncratic instruments such as wooden and metal slats, steel pipes, Thai gongs, and crotales, with electronic playback generated with modular synthesizer. 

“Predominantly set up as meditations on small phrases of non-pitched (or *partially* pitched) percussion and mercurial electronics, the piece explores different permutations of these meditations where the relationship between the acoustic and electronic realms seems to work together, slip around and contrast.”

—Tyondai Braxton

Sunny X evolved through multiple workshops together in TCP’s studio, experimenting with combinations of these unique sounds and discovering musical content that emerges naturally from the idiomatics of the instruments and their physical layout. In particular, a musical and physical gesture that plays prominently in the piece revealed itself when the wooden planks were stacked on top of each other, rather that set side-by-side on a table.

Sunny X was commissioned for Third Coast Percussion by the Sewanee Music Festival, George Mason University, and Carnegie Hall with additional support from Third Coast Percussion’s New Works Fund.

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Brooklyn-based composer and performer Tyondai Braxton has been writing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively under various group titles and collectives since the mid-1990s, including in the art rock group Battles from its formation until 2010. Braxton has been commissioned by Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Alarm Will Sound, and Brooklyn Rider, has had his orchestral work performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, and the Wordless Music Orchestra, and has worked with pioneering bands Mouse on Mars and Dirty Projectors. 

In collaboration with artist Uffe Surland Van Tams, Braxton premiered HIVE, a multimedia sculptural and electronic project for 2 electronic artists and 3 percussionists at The Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2013, later transforming this music into the solo album HIVE1.

Sunny X by Tyondai Braxton

*Recorded live at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the campus of University of Chicago on October 12, 2019.

Iguazú superior, antes de descender por la Garganta del Diablo
(“Upper Iguazú, before descending through the Devil’s Throat”)

Iguazú Falls, on the border of Brazil and Argentina, is (by some measures) the largest waterfall system in the world. The falls divide the Iguazú River into its upper (“superior”) and lower (“inferior”) segments, with about half of the river’s water flow dropping through a narrow chasm known as “The Devil’s Throat,” about 75 feet taller than Niagara Falls.

Haas’s percussion quartet stands out among his decades of tonally innovative music as a work focused on rhythm and texture, with no defined pitch. The 30-minute piece maintains a relentless momentum that persists even as textures thicken and thin, the music becomes louder and quieter, and new sounds are introduced. As the quartet emerges into sections that bubble gently, dart frenetically, or lock into angular, asymmetrical rhythms, it is always being pulled forward. Beneath it all is a rhythmic concept Haas first explored in his Three Pieces for Mollena — a constant tempo acceleration, which is sustained by occasionally introducing slower, related rhythms. Sometimes known as a “Risset Rhythm,” this is the rhythmic equivalent to the “Shepard Tone” used in many of Haas’s other works—an aural illusion of eternally rising pitch. 

The endless accelerando of Iguazu Superior provides a stretching foundation upon which a rich palette of percussive timbres interact. Haas provides an open-ended guideline for the four players to build matching set ups: 6 semi-resonant metals, 3 very resonant metals, 4 wood sounds, and 5 drums for each player. In addition, the players have a few specified unique instruments: a whip crack and bells for player 1, bass drums for player 2, particular cymbals and gongs for players 3 and 4. These specific instrumental sounds anchor the sound of the ensemble and provide dramatic punctuations at intense moments, while the freedom granted in choosing the other instruments create opportunities for each ensemble who performs this grandiose work to construct its own sound world.

Iguazú superior, antes de descender por la Garganta del Diablo was commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, with additional support from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University and the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. It was written for Third Coast Percussion.

Third Coast Percussion would like to an extend an additional thanks to the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, whose support of TCP’s Creative Workshop allowed for the development, workshopping, and preparation of this new work.

TCP 20191012

Iguazu superior, antes de descender por la Garganta del Diablo (2018) by Georg Friedrich Haas

New work for modular synthesizer and percussion quartet. Performed by Bana Haffar and Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, David Skidmore).

Commissioned by Black Mountain College Museum and premiered at BMCM on February 13, 2020. This is a live recording of the world premiere performance.

Shed by Bana Haffar

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.