May 2012
6 posts
REVOLUTION:The Cage Century - Compete Program...
For our John Cage CD release concert on May 25 in Chicago, we created several versions of the program book, each containing different information about the works performed. Decisions about what information was contained in each book was made using chance operations similar to those Cage used in composing much of his music.
We have included the complete program notes below for those who would...
New John Cage Album on Mode Records!
We are thrilled to announce the release today of our first full-length album!
John Cage: The Works for Percussion 2 is the 45th volume of the Mode Records CAGE EDITION, which will eventually include Cage’s complete works. Other artists on the series include David Tudor, Ensemble Modern, the Arditti Quartet, Margaret Leng Tan, Percussion Group Cincinnati, and Stephen Drury.
The album is...
Cage:Percussion:3 - Fun with percussion lists
Just a quick post today…below is a list of John Cage’s percussion instrument collection dated July 8, 1940. Something about just holding this list (which is kept at the John Cage Collection - Northwestern University Library) was pretty awesome. As someone who has written quite a few lists of percussion instruments and checked them off by hand while either loading or unloading, it is...
Cage:Percussion:MoMA
Just announced…Third Coast Percussion will be presented in concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on August 9th of this year as part of the John Cage Centenary Celebration. The concert will feature music from our soon-to-be-released Cage percussion album on Mode Records, and the world premiere of the collaborative, 100-composer piece that TCP is curating entitled RENGA:Cage:100. ...
Cage:Percussion:2 - Instrument choice
When a percussionist decides to perform John Cage’s music from the 1930’s and 40’s, he or she might expect to see a list of instruments that looks something like this:
This is the instrument list for First Construction (in metal) from 1939, now a classic of the percussion ensemble repertoire. Aspiring professional percussionists have been tackling it for many years (we saw a...
April 2012
2 posts
Cage:Percussion:1
John Cage was many things in his lifetime: a composer, an author, a philosopher, an inventor, a poet, a pianist, an orator, a fundraiser (both for his own projects and for Merce Cunningham), a leading mycologist. Among his many inventions and innovations, he is credited with writing the first piece of electro-acoustic music (Imaginary Landscape No. 1), inventing the prepared piano, incorporating...
RENGA:Cage:100
2012 marks the 100th anniversary of John Cage’s birth, and the year has already seen some extremely exciting performances, festivals, exhibitions, lectures, and more. Here’s a full listing of events provided by the John Cage Trust.
Third Coast Percussion has been celebrating so far with concerts, master classes, a soon-to-be-released DVD and CD on Mode Records, a John Cage iPhone app,...
February 2012
1 post
We just received this recording of Clay’s...
December 2011
1 post
The Year Behind and the Year to Come
2011 was a truly unforgettable year for Third Coast Percussion. The Steve Reich Celebration with Eighth Blackbird drew over 9,000 people to Millennium Park in August. In September, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, with the premiere of David Skidmore’s “Common Patterns in Uncommon Time,” which was commissioned for the...
May 2011
1 post
January 2011
1 post
December 2010
6 posts
Manoury - mvt 2 Video
The second movement of Philippe Manoury’s piece “Le Livre des Claviers” is a marimba duo. Rob and I (this is David writing by the way…) have been performing this particular movement of the piece for almost 2 years on tour across the country. Playing this movement of the piece is what attracted us to the idea of putting the full 6 movement piece together.
We’ve played...
New Videos - Manoury "Le Livre des Claviers"
The premiere of David Little’s new piece for TCP at Chopin Theatre this week was a huge hit. Here is a brief preview mention in the Chicagoist. Haunt of Last Nightfall is a pleasure to play, and the audience really dug it. We had a great talk back session with David immediately after the performance thanks to a grant from Meet the Composer - Creative Connections. We’ll be posting video...
Program notes from the upcoming David T. Little...
Below are program notes from composer David T. Little for the piece TCP will be premiering this Monday, Haunt of Last Nightfall. Like so much of David’s music, the piece uses the occasion of a musical performance to bring to light some weighty extra-musical ideas. The piece itself spans a wide expressive ground. It certainly intimates the violence of the event, but moments of the piece have...
November 2010
6 posts
Some thoughts from Mr. Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Modern Architecture, a book that compiles a series of lectures given by the architectural magnate at Princeton University in 1930, contains an interesting passage that seems to be as readily applicable to ideas on modern music as it is to ideas on modern architecture.
In the lecture “Machinery, Materials and Men” from Modern Architecture, FLlW...
Follow up to Percussive Arts Society panel...
Yesterday David spoke on a panel at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention about repertoire selections for middle school and high school percussion ensembles. The link below is a bibliography compiled for our December 2009 clinic at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Conference in Chicago. The list was painstakingly compiled, organized and annotated by Peter for several months in 2009.
...
TCP's recommended list of repertoire for middle... →
Dickinson College
On Friday evening, TCP played a concert at Dickinson College, a quaint gem of a liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The college is an unassuming mecca for contemporary music in America. New music powerhouse Alarm Will Sound spent three formative years in residence at the college, performing concerts and interacting with the students in and out of the classroom. We had a delightful,...
October 2010
3 posts
What We Build
Last week we had the pleasure of being guests of the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. The FJJMA is currently featuring an exhibit entitled “Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind”, a curatorial homage to one of the most creative American architects of the last century. Goff was a long-time Oklahoma resident and chairman of the School of Architecture at OU in the 1940’s....
September 2010
3 posts
A short excerpt from our performance of Cage Third...
A short excerpt of TCP performing the marimba duo...
Chicago Concert Season Opener - 2010
Here is some information on our season opener in Chicago…featuring the music of John Cage (who would have celebrated his 98th birthday yesterday) and Philippe Manoury…
Unquestionably one of America’s most influential composers, John Cage wrote some of the first music for percussion ensemble. All three of his Constructions are built on a strict numerical framework, and the fascination...
August 2010
10 posts
Elegy: Snow in June
Day 3 at Garth Newel started with a run-through and rehearsal of Tan Dun’s “Elegy: Snow in June”. Tan Dun often refers to John Cage as one of his principal influences, so it is interesting to play his music now while we are in the process of learning and performing so much music by Cage.
Some of Cage’s influence is readily apparent…Tan Dun uses certain sounds that...
TCP at Garth Newel...
We’re in the middle of our second day at the Garth Newel Music Center, a beautiful campus in western Virginia that hosts a summer chamber music series and several other concerts throughout the year. We’re playing two concerts this weekend with musicians from the Garth Newel Piano Quartet, the resident ensemble here in Hot Springs, VA.
The program is amazing…a great chance for us...
What the heck is a Sixxen part 3
After a combined 20 hours (over the course of 2 days) of measuring, sawing, drilling, and dodging tiny bits of flying aluminum shrapnel, Peter has completed the first of our 6 sets of Sixxen, one of the instruments called for in Third Coast’s upcoming performances of Philippe Manoury’s masterpiece “Le Livre des Claviers”.
The instrument sounds amazing. Now that we have...
July 2010
7 posts
Here’s a preview of Manoury’s...
2010-2011 Chicago Concert Season announced!
We’re excited to announce our 3rd annual Chicago Concert Season, the only complete season of concert percussion music (that we know of) in the country. Complete details are available on our website at http://www.thirdcoastpercussion.com/chicago.php, but below is a look at the music we’re playing and the amazing guests that will be joining us.
John Cage/ Philippe Manoury September 18,...
6 tags
Shout out
I was reminded by some recent posts on the Facebook that Third Coast owes a big tip of the hat to Adam Sliwinski of So Percussion (http://www.sopercussion.com), Mike Compitello and Ross Karre (http://rosskarre.synchronismproject.com/Site_3/intro.html) for their expertise in and advice on building these Sixxen.
Ross will be joining TCP for our performances and recording of Manoury’s...
Part 2 - What the heck is a Sixxen?
How to make a Sixxen…
Although instructions are available in the score for Greek composer/architect Iannis Xenakis’ piece “Pleiades” (as I mentioned in the last post, Xenakis invented the instrument), these instructions leave many questions unanswered.
The material we are using to make the bars for our Sixxen is aluminum U-channel. This is a construction material, so it...
What the heck is a Sixxen?
One of the major highlights of Third Coast Percussion’s 2010-11 season will be the performance of Philippe Manoury’s masterpiece “Le Livre des Claviers”, a tour de force half hour long percussion sextet that reaches towards the extreme limit of virtuosity on our “claviers” or keyboard instruments. Some of these keyboard instruments are the “standards” (marimbas and a vibraphone) but two...
WatchThese are some cuts of aluminum U-channel, the material used to make Sixxen.