Third Coast Percussion to Release 20th Anniversary Album STANDARD STOPPAGES

GRAMMY Award-winning Third Coast Percussion will release its 20th anniversary full-length album, Standard Stoppages. The recording explores the passage of time, both through the eyes of percussionists charged with "keeping time" for an ensemble, and on the grander scale of time elapsed over decades. In the creation of this album, TCP reconnected with some of its favorite past collaborators along with musicians they have dreamed of collaborating with for years, including Jlin, Musekiwa Chingodza, Jessie Montgomery, Tigran Hamasyan, and the late Zakir Hussain.

"We're fortunate that the past 20 years have been full of inspiration and joy for our ensemble," the TCP artists said of their upcoming release. "We've seen extraordinary moments and met extraordinary challenges. We are so thankful for the time we have had together, and we are reminded never to take it for granted. We feel very fortunate to be able to spend our time making music with each other. Percussionists are in the time-keeping business. Other musicians often look to us to create a rhythmic framework, a steady beat within which the music unfolds. One of the joys of being a band of four percussionists is that we often explore how time can be stretched, manipulated, played with, and reimagined. Our collaborators on this album helped us to do just that."

The musical selections on Standard Stoppages depict a range of unique reflections on the passage of time. The album opens with Jlin's Please Be Still, a piece inspired by a 275-year-old work by J.S. Bach. A lover of Bach's music since childhood, Jlin reimagines materials from the "Kyrie Eleison" movement of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor with a focus on Bach's rhythmic vocabulary. The piece was composed in collaboration with TCP in a similar process to that which yielded Jlin's 2023 Pulitzer-finalist work, Perspective.

Tigran Hamasyan's Sonata for Percussion is a three-movement work that bends and stretches time through the composer's fantastically complicated rhythmic language. Drawing from his own past, with such movement titles as "Memories from Childhood," Hamasyan places his rhythmic vocabulary within a traditional classical music form as he weaves asymmetrical rhythms into compelling counterpoint. The composer weaves together memorable melodic lines that transcend the mathematics of their complex rhythmic skeletons.

Zakir Hussain's Murmurs in Time represents the late tabla master's only composition for a classical percussion group, though his career was filled with collaborations with percussionists of all kinds, and explorations of the special bond between "fellow rhythmists." This two-movement work echoes with memories of Hussain's personal history beginning with the childhood experience of singing rhythms alongside his father and Guru, the famous tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha. These vocalizations of drum sounds ("bols"), an important element of the Hindustani classical music tradition, feature prominently in the first movement of Murmurs in Time. The composition's second movement also uses a rhythmic cycle inspired by his father, characterized by a balance of strictly composed material and opportunities for improvisation. Hussain highlighted this compositional openness in his program notes, writing, "It is important that respect is given to the artists that I'm working with, by allowing them to be able to find their own way in the piece that I'm presenting. I love to see how it comes back to me in a different costume."

Hussain himself recorded the work in studio with Third Coast Percussion in October 2024, just weeks before his passing in December of that year. He had originally been set to perform with the quartet on a live national tour, which was subsequently recast as a tribute to the late artist. Together with Hussain's family, TCP engaged tabla artist Salar Nader, a disciple of Hussain's, to perform for the tour, which brought performances in five cities during February and March 2025.

In Jessie Montgomery's Study No. 1, TCP features a key composition in their years-long artistic relationship. The piece was originally composed for the Percussive Arts Society's International Convention, where TCP's real-time creative contributions made them a "musical laboratory" for the composer, yielding the first in their ongoing series of collaborative works.

A second Montgomery work on the recording, her three-movement In Color Suite, emerged during workshops with Third Coast Percussion for her Study No. 1, where she used excerpts from various pre-existing works to experiment with percussion instruments, exploring timbral possibilities, and the blending of sonic colors. TCP member Sean Connors was particularly captivated by In Color and sought the composer's permission to arrange three movements for percussion quartet, the version heard on the album. His arrangement introduces unique timbral combinations, such as bowed marimba with melodica, whistling and humming in unison with vibraphone, and a wooden rasp drawn across low marimba bars, all of which add a touch of the unexpected to the expressive harmonic language of Montgomery's writing.

Following a joint performance with TCP at Northwestern University in January 2025, Montgomery will join the ensemble for a national tour in April and May 2025. Spotlighting Montgomery as both composer and performer, the tour brings performances of her latest percussion work Lady Justice / Black Justice, The Song, and features her as violin soloist on Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra.

The album's final track is Musekiwa Chingodza's Dzoka Kumba, which translates to "Come Back Home" in the Shona language of the composer's native Zimbabwe - capturing a universal sentiment that reminds us of the places and people in whom our personal stories are rooted. The piece was written for the composer's daughter, inviting her to come back to the family's home for care and comfort during a trying time. The recording features Chingodza singing and playing Mbira, a traditional instrument of the Shona people, with TCP supporting on marimba, vibraphone, drumset, sun drum, and hosho (Shona shakers made from dried gourds).

A "TCP 20th" microsite is available at tcp20.thirdcoastpercussion.com with more information on the ensemble's history and milestone engagements.