Grammy -Winning Third Coast Percussion Makes Its Center Debut Performing Southern California Premiere of Perpetulum Composed by Philip Glass

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1 CONTACT Davidson & Choy Publicity Tim Choy (323) , Laura Shane (808) , Segerstrom Center for the Arts Tim Dunn (714) x4209, Hanya Bruner (714) x4376, RELEASE DATE Images: SCFTA.org/media Grammy -Winning Third Coast Percussion Makes Its Center Debut Performing Southern California Premiere of Perpetulum Composed by Philip Glass Technical precision, palpable groove and outstanding sound. Time Out New York Friday, April 5, 2019 Samueli Theater Tickets on sale now COSTA MESA, CA Grammy -winning quartet Third Coast Percussion makes its Segerstrom Center for the Arts debut performing the Southern California Premiere of Perpetulum, created for them by renowned composer Philip Glass in his first ever composition for percussion ensemble. The performance will be on April 5, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. in Samueli Theater. The trail-blazing ensemble has been praised for commandingly elegant (The New York Times) performances and the rare power (The Washington Post) of their recordings.

2 Third Coast Percussion NEWS 2/7 The evening also includes three original works by Third Coast Percussion members, Niagara from the quartet s most recent album Paddle to the Sea, as well as works by Grammy Award winner Augusta Read Thomas, British singer-songwriter Devonté Hynes and American composer Mark Applebaum. Third Coast Percussion members include Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore. Composer, musicologist and author Dr. Byron Adams will provide a fascinating and informative talk prior to the performance starting at 7:15 p.m. Single tickets start at $39 and are now available online at at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) For inquiries about group ticket savings of 10 or more, please call the Group Services office at (714) Perpetulum is a co-commission by Center Chamber Music patrons Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting. Segerstrom Center for the Arts applauds the Colburn Foundation for its support of the Chamber Music Series and its corporate partners including Kia Motors America, Official Automotive Partner; United Airlines, Official Airline. Program Notes Third Coast Percussion: Niagara from Paddle to the Sea As part of a multi-media performance project, Third Coast Percussion composed music to perform live with the 1966 film Paddle to the Sea, based on a children s book of the same name written in The film tells the story of a small wooden figure in a canoe, lovingly carved by a Native Canadian boy and set on a long journey through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, out to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. The people who find Paddle along the way must choose, rather than keeping him for themselves, to send him further along the waterways, perhaps with a fresh coat of paint or a new rudder. Paddle also encounters danger in his journey, as in this passage, when he goes over Niagara Falls. Third Coast Percussion s album Paddle to the Sea, featuring this music, as well as water-themed works that inspired this composition, was released on Cedille Records in February Duration: 4 minutes Peter Martin (Third Coast Percussionist): BEND Peter Martin s quartet BEND draws inspiration from the player piano compositions of Bruce Goff, a wonderfully unconventional architect and amateur composer. Many of Goff s piano rolls were highly stylized geometric designs perforated into the scrolls, resulting in music that created very clear sonic shapes. Whereas these shapes would create the pitch and rhythm in a player piano performance, BEND translates these shapes into volume, tone, and gesture. The composer s experience with the piano rolls through a blurry, decades-old video inspired an unconventional sound palette created with alternative techniques on 2 marimbas. Duration: 8 minutes Augusta Read Thomas: Resounding Earth, Mvt II. Prayer Resounding Earth is scored for four percussionists playing bells (and bell-like instruments) from a wide variety of cultures and historical periods. The piece was conceived as a cultural statement celebrating interdependence and commonality across all cultures; and as a musical statement celebrating the extraordinary beauty and diversity of expression inherent in bell sounds. Bells can be used to celebrate grand occasions, hold sacrificial rites, keep a record of events, give the correct time, celebrate births and

3 Third Coast Percussion NEWS 3/7 weddings, mark funerals, caution a community, enhance any number of religious ceremonies, and are even hung around the necks of animals. Duration: 9 minutes. Devonté Hynes: Perfectly Voiceless Devonté Hynes composed the music for an entire evening-length program featuring Third Coast Percussion and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, with new choreography created by Emma Portner, Jon Boogz, and Lil Buck, which premiered in Chicago in September To create this 75-minute opus, Hynes composed music with synthesized and sampled sounds, which he then sent to Third Coast Percussion. TCP experimented with instruments to create a live performance version of the music, which they then recorded and sent back to Hynes for feedback, then eventually to the choreographers to create the dance. Perfectly Voiceless is a section of that program which served as a musical interlude between choreographed pieces. Duration: 11 minutes. Mark Applebaum: Aphasia Aphasia is a work for solo vocalist, notable as the composer says, for its absence of live singing. Instead, this work (which has gained great popularity among percussionists) consists of a recording of transformed voice samples from baritone Nicholas Isherwood and a series of specifically-prescribed physical gestures to be performed live. These gestures include familiar everyday motions such as turning a key, eating a sandwich, or buckling a seatbelt, and are synchronized with the samples, but unrelated in meaning. Duration: 9 minutes Robert Dillon (Third Coast Percussionist): Ordering-instincts Ordering-instincts draws a big sound from a very compact setup of instruments. The four percussionists share eight wooden planks, an octave of loose crotales and two tom-toms, from which they create a variety of different sonic colors in tightly interwoven rhythms. All musical content arises from the composite of all the players together; no one player s part forms a complete voice by itself. Duration: 8 minutes. Philip Glass: Perpetulum Although percussion instruments have played an important role in much of Philip Glass s music, and a number of his works have been arranged for percussion by other musicians, Glass has never composed a work for percussion ensemble until Third Coast Percussion commissioned Perpetulum. Glass is now 81 years old, but when composing this work, he harkened back to childhood memories of his first experience with percussion instruments. Though Glass s primary musical instrument was the flute, he had the opportunity to participate in a percussion class while a student at the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory in his hometown of Baltimore. Perpetulum blends an almost child-like exploration of the sounds of percussion with Glass s signature musical voice. The work is in three sections, with a cadenza between the second and third section. Glass proposes some general concepts and instruments for the cadenza but leaves it to the performers to compose this segment of the music themselves. Duration: 22 minutes David Skidmore (Third Coast Percussionist): Aliens with Extraordinary Abilities Aliens with Extraordinary Abilities is a cycle of works exploring a common idea: that the same piece of music can move at several different speeds at the same time. An electronic audio track Skidmore s most intensive work with electronic composition to date expands and reinforces the live percussion in many of these works, and video artist Xuan was commissioned to create accompanying video. Many of the individual pieces take their cryptic names from memorable Third Coast Percussion touring experiences or inside jokes. Duration: 10 minutes.

4 Third Coast Percussion NEWS 4/7 Biographical Information Third Coast Percussion is a Grammy -winning, artist-run quartet of classically-trained percussionists hailing from the great city of Chicago. For over ten years, the ensemble has forged a unique path in the musical landscape with virtuosic, energetic performances that celebrate the extraordinary depth and breadth of musical possibilities in the world of percussion. The ensemble has been praised for commandingly elegant (The New York Times) performances, the rare power (The Washington Post) of their recordings, and an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity (Minnesota Star-Tribune). The four members of Third Coast are also accomplished teachers, and since 2012, have served as ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre Dame s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. A direct connection with the audience is at the core of all of Third Coast Percussion s work, whether the musicians are speaking from the stage about a new piece of music, inviting the audience to play along in a concert or educational performance, or inviting their fans around the world to create new music using one of their free mobile apps. Third Coast Percussion maintains a busy touring schedule, with past performances in 32 of the 50 states plus Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland, and venues ranging from concert halls at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and De Doelen to clubs and alternative performance spaces such as New York s Le Poisson Rouge and the National Gallery s West Garden Court. The quartet s curiosity and eclectic taste have led to a series of unlikely collaborations that have produced exciting new art. The ensemble has worked with engineers at the University of Notre Dame, architects at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, dancers at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and musicians from traditions ranging from the mbira music of Zimbabwe s Shona people, to indie rockers, to some of the world s leading concert musicians. A commission for a new work from composer Augusta Read Thomas in 2012 led to the realization that commissioning new musical works can be and should be as collaborative as any other artistic partnership. Through extensive workshopping and close contact with composers, Third Coast Percussion has commissioned and premiered new works from Donnacha Dennehy, Glenn Kotche, Lei Liang, Gavin Bryars, Christopher Cerrone, Timo Andres, Marcos Balter, Ted Hearne, and today s leading up-and-coming composers through their Emerging Composers Partnership Program. These works have become part of the ensemble s core repertoire and seen hundreds of performances across North America and throughout Europe.

5 Third Coast Percussion NEWS 5/7 Third Coast Percussion s recordings include three full-length albums, three EPs, and a number of appearances on other releases. The quartet has put its stamp on iconic percussion works by John Cage and Steve Reich, and Third Coast has also created first recordings of commissioned works by Augusta Read Thomas, David T. Little, and Ted Hearne, in addition to recordings of the ensemble s own compositions. In 2017 the ensemble won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble performance for their recording of Steve Reich s works for percussion. Third Coast Percussion has always maintained strong ties to the vibrant artistic community in their hometown of Chicago. They have collaborated with Chicago institutions such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and the Adler Planetarium, performed at the grand opening of Maggie Daley Children s Park, conducted residencies at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, created multi-year collaborative projects with Chicago-based composers Augusta Read Thomas, Glenn Kotche, and chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird, and taught tens of thousands of students through partnerships with Urban Gateways, the People s Music School, the Chicago Park District, Rush Hour Concerts, and others. The four members of Third Coast Percussion met while studying percussion music at Northwestern University. 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. Third Coast Percussion performs exclusively with Pearl/Adams Musical Instruments, Zildjian Cymbals, Remo Drumheads, and Vic Firth Sticks and mallets. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is an acclaimed arts institution as well as a beautiful multi-disciplinary cultural campus. It is committed to supporting artistic excellence, offering unsurpassed experiences and to engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance and a diverse array of inspiring arts-based education and community engagement programs. Previously called the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Center is Orange County s largest non-profit arts organization. In addition to its six performance venues, Segerstrom Center is also home to the American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School. The Center presents a broad range of programming for audiences of all ages, including international ballet and dance, national tours of top Broadway shows, jazz and cabaret, contemporary artists, classical music performed by renowned chamber orchestras and ensembles, family-friendly programming, free performances open to the public from outdoor movie screenings to dancing on the plaza and many other special events. Segerstrom Center is a leader among the nation s performing arts centers for providing education programs designed to inspire young people through the arts. The Center s programs reach hundreds of thousands of

6 Third Coast Percussion NEWS 6/7 students each year in five Southern California counties. Community engagement programs developed through the Center for Dance and Innovation and Center Without Boundaries also connect the Center more comprehensively with Orange County s many diverse communities. The CDI supports flagship artistic programming and a wide range of projects that celebrate innovation, nurture creativity and engage audiences of the future. It is home to the ABT Gillespie School and the School of Dance and Music for Children with Disabilities. The Center Without Boundaries develops partnerships with non-cultural organizations to help them in their own efforts to respond to the ever-changing needs of the community. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is also proud to serve as the artistic home to three of the region s major performing arts organizations: Pacific Symphony, Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Pacific Chorale, who contribute greatly to the artistic life of the region with annual seasons performed at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. In addition to Segerstrom Center for the Arts as a presenting and producing institution, it also identifies the beautiful 14-acre campus that embraces the Center s own facilities as well as two independently acclaimed organizations: Tony Award -winning South Coast Repertory and a site designated as the future home of the Orange County Museum of Art.

7 Third Coast Percussion NEWS 7/7 THIRD COAST PERCUSSION Segerstrom Center for the Arts Samueli Theater 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA Friday, April 5, 2019 at 8:00pm Program: Third Coast Percussion: Niagara from Paddle to the Sea (2016) Peter Martin: BEND (2016) Augusta Read Thomas: Resounding Earth, Mvt II. Prayer (2012) Devonté Hynes: Perfectly Voiceless (2018) Intermission Mark Applebaum: Aphasia (2010) Robert Dillon: Ordering-instincts (2014) Philip Glass: Perpetulum David Skidmore: Aliens with Extraordinary Abilities (2016) Tickets - Start at $39 In person - The Box Office 600 Town Center Drive Costa Mesa, CA Open 10 a.m. 6 p.m. daily Online - SCFTA.org Phone - (714) Open 10 a.m. 6 p.m. daily Group Sales - (714) Information provided is accurate at the time of printing but is subject to change. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is a public, non-profit organization. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is a registered trademark. # # #