Metamorphosis – Third Coast Percussion
GRAMMY Award-winning, Chicago-based quartet Third Coast Percussion return, bringing their impressive arrangements and sweeping sounds to Milton Court.
This performance is a meeting of fearless and generous collaborators from unique artistic backgrounds, creators deeply rooted in their own tradition but whose branches reach curiously into the broad expressive world surrounding them. Lil Buck and Jon Boogz founded Movement Art Is to explore how their virtuosic street dancing abilities, rooted in popping and Memphis jookin’, could tell the important stories of modern life. Third Coast Percussion has carved its own special place in the cultural landscape by showing the incredible flexibility of percussion chamber music to give voice to expressions from a diverse range of artists.
At the heart of this collaboration is a celebration of each individual’s expressive language and the experiences that shaped it, as well as a curiosity to see each artist’s energy translated into the vocabulary of another. Just as the choreography created by Buck and Boogz is set onto different bodies — the movement artists Cameron Murphy and Trent Jeray — for performance, tonight’s program highlights how music is also transformed as it is passed from one artist to another. The innovative producer Jlin (whose roots are in Chicago’s 'Footwork' style of dance music) composed her Perspective as a series of electronic tracks, with the intent that Third Coast Percussion would reimagine this music on acoustic instruments for live performance. The music of minimalist icon Philip Glass that appears on this program is an arrangement of an arrangement, music finding its third incarnation in TCP’s distinctive sound world.
This project was created in 2020, a year of isolation, and the opportunity to make art together took on a new value. The full creative team — choreographers, dancers, TCP, stage director Leslie Danzig and lighting designer Joe Burke — had planned to come together in Seattle for a residency in the summer of 2020 to build this project on the stage of the Meany Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Washington. When the residency could not take place, this determined team found ways—connecting via rehearsal videos shared on the cloud, simulated mock-ups of stage set-ups and light renderings, and of course, many Zoom meetings—to build this project together across long distances, and have since continued transforming the project into versions for audiences to experience through a screen, and finally, in person.
© Robert Dillon
Details
Programme and performers
Philip Glass (arr Third Coast Percussion) Metamorphosis No 1 (1988/1999/2020)
Jlin 'Obscure' and 'Dissoance' from Perspective (2020)
Philip Glass (arr Third Coast Percussion) Amazon River (1993/1999/2016)
Jlin 'Paradigm' from Perspective
Tyondai Braxton Sunny X (2019)
Jlin 'Embryo', 'Fourth Perspective', 'Duality' and 'Derivative' from Perspective
Third Coast Percussion:
Sean Connors
Robert Dillon
Peter Martin
David Skidmore
Movement Art Is:
Lil Buck co-founder and choreographer
Jon Boogz co-founder and choreographer
Trent Jeray movement artist
Cameron Murphy movement artist
Artist biographies
Third Coast Percussion is a GRAMMY® Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and GRAMMY®-nominated composer collective, and is the first percussion ensemble to ever win the revered music award. For nearly 20 years, the ensemble has created exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience and 'push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners' (NPR), with a brilliantly varied sonic palette 'dazzling rhythmic workouts' (Pitchfork).
The ensemble has been praised for the 'rare power' (Washington Post) of more than 30 recordings and 'an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity' (Minnesota Star-Tribune). Bringing their uniquely compelling programs worldwide, Third Coast Percussion maintains a busy tour schedule, with past performances in 40 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., plus international tour dates across four continents. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, the ensemble is embarking on the most ambitious collaborative projects of their career, with some of the world’s leading musicians, choreographers, and composers from around the world.
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 uniting fans around the world via one of their free mobile apps. The four members of Third Coast are also accomplished teachers, and make active participation by all students the cornerstone of all their educational offerings, including thoughtfully curated K-12 workshops and family programming.
The quartet’s curiosity and eclectic taste have led to a series of unlikely collaborations that have produced exciting new art. Their omnivorous musical appetite, paired with approachable and flexible working methods, remove collaborative boundaries across cultures and disciplines. 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 and footwork producers, to some of the world’s leading concert musicians. Third Coast Percussion served as ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center from 2013-2018, and currently serves as ensemble-in-residence at Denison University.
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 by Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, Jlin, Danny Elfman, Clarice Assad, Gemma Peacocke, Flutronix, Tyondai Braxton, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Georg Friedrich Haas, Donnacha Dennehy, Glenn Kotche, Christopher Cerrone, and David T Little, plus many of today’s leading up-and coming composers through their Currents Creative Partnership program. TCP’s commissioned works have become part of the ensemble’s core repertoire and seen hundreds of performances around the world. In 2023, Jlin’s Perspective, commissioned by TCP, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Third Coast Percussion’s recordings include 17 feature albums, and appearances on 14 additional releases. Besides putting its stamp on iconic percussion works by John Cage and Steve Reich, the quartet has created first recordings of commissioned works by Philip Glass, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Gavin Bryars, Danny Elfman, Donnacha Dennehy, David T Little, Ted Hearne, and more – in addition to recordings of original Third Coast 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 has since received four additional GRAMMY® nominations as performers, and in 2021 they received their first GRAMMY® nomination as composers.
Third Coast Percussion has always maintained strong ties to the vibrant artistic community in their hometown of Chicago. They have collaborated with Chicago institutions including Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Uniting Voices Chicago choir, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival, and the Adler Planetarium. TCP performed at the grand opening of Maggie Daley Children’s Park; conducted residencies at the University of Chicago and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago; created multi-year collaborative projects with Chicago-based composers Jessie Montgomery, Clarice and Sérgio Assad, Augusta Read Thomas, Glenn Kotche, and chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird; and has taught tens of thousands of students through partnerships with Uniting Voices Chicago, The People’s Music School, the Chicago Park District, Rush Hour Concerts, Urban Gateways, Changing Worlds, and others.
The four members of Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore) met while studying percussion music at Northwestern University with Michael Burritt and James Ross, and formed the ensemble in 2005. Settling in Chicago, the four friends have carefully and thoughtfully built a thriving nonprofit organization – including full-time staff, office/studio space, and a board of directors – to support their vision and facilitate their efforts to bring new works to life. 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.
Movement Art Is, co-founded by Jon Boogz and Lil Buck, is an organization that uses movement artistry to inspire and change the world while elevating the artistic, educational, and social impact of dance. Through movement art films, workshops, performances and exhibitions, MAI is resetting the spectrum of what dance is.
MAI’s award-winning short film Color of Reality directed by Jon Boogz, featuring the art of Alexa Meade and the movement artistry of MAI, went viral in fall of 2016. The film has gone on to receive coverage internationally, won Great Big Story’s Art as Impact Award; Best Experimental at Toronto International Short Film Festival; and Concept Video of the Year from World of Dance, among others. MAI’s recent/upcoming projects include: a short film created in collaboration with DAIS entitled AM i A MAN (April 2017), a performance entitled Honor Thy Mother at TED Conference in Vancouver, a live rendition of Color of Reality at Aspen Ideas Festival (June 2017) and a VR collaboration with director Terrence Malick and Facebook launched at SxSW and Tribeca Film Festival in spring 2018.
The duo recently choreographed for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago with music composed by Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange) performed by Third Coast Percussion, and is currently touring a new full length show Love Heals All Wounds. As a movement artist, Emmy nominated choreographer and an Emmy nominated director, Jon Boogz seeks to share with audiences of all backgrounds an appreciation of the melding of art forms while inspiring and bringing awareness to social issues. First motivated to dance by the work of Michael Jackson, Jon was just recently nominated for an Emmy award in 2023 for his choreography on the Starz hit tv show Blindspotting, created by Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal.
Jon has choreographed for icons including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Naomi Campbell, Gloria Estefan, and for Pharrell’s Adidas Originals campaign; he also creative directed, choreographed and performed in Adidas’s Standing Rock campaign at ComplexCon. He has worked as a director & choreographer for ads launching campaigns for Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh tribute, Banana Republic, NFL (Emmy nominated), Apple and Lexus. Boogz’s collaborators include TriBeCa Film Festival, Netflix, Hulu, Dom Perignon, Anonymous Content, Terrence Malick, TEDx, Lil Buck, and Flying Lotus. Jon’s choreography has been featured several times on FOX's So You Think You Can Dance and in Cirque du Soleils MJ ONE show in Las Vegas, and he was featured at the Geffen Playhouse's Backstage at the Geffen with his dance company Control Freakz to honor Morgan Freeman and Jeff Skoll. Jon’s role as a pioneer of street dance is profiled in the Netflix documentary Move. The documentary follows the journeys of Boogz and Lil Buck and explores how they are changing audiences’ perception of the stories that can be told with this art form.
Jon currently is developing a show at the Public theatre in NYC and has many film & tv projects in development.
International phenomenon Lil Buck (Charles Riley) began jookin’ – a street dance that originated in Memphis – at age 13 alongside mentors Marico Flake and Daniel Price. After receiving early hip-hop training from Teran Garry and ballet training on scholarship at the New Ballet Ensemble, he performed and choreographed until relocating to Los Angeles in 2009.
Named one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch, his collaboration with Spike Jonze and Yo-Yo Ma performing The Swan went viral in 2011. Since then, he has collaborated with a broad spectrum of artists including JR, Damian Woetzel, the New York City Ballet, Madonna, Benjamin Millepied, and Spike Lee. Buck is an avid arts education advocate, recipient of the WSJ Innovator Award, collaborates frequently with global brands including Apple, Lexus, Glenfiddich and Louis Vuitton, and launched a capsule collection with Versace. He co-starred in the viral short film Color of Reality, which continues to screen at film festivals worldwide and has won numerous awards.
Trent Jeray is a performer from Memphis, Tennessee, who specializes in the style of Memphis jookin’. He has performed as a soloist in Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles Love and Michael Jackson One. Jeray was featured in the Louis Vuitton tribute to Virgil Abloh and also performed for Aerosmith at their Deuces Are Wild Las Vegas residency. He loves being able to share the art of dance to help move, motivate, and inspire. Dance saved his life.
Cameron Murphy is a movement artist, actor and a former bronze medalist Junior Olympian. Throughout his 8 years of experience, he has infused various styles of street dance, body contortion and acting techniques into his performances. Taking advantage of his surroundings, he spent his first few years training as a self-taught dancer performing in the heart of Las Vegas. Street performing helped prepare him to eventually take on larger roles such as the lead character of Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson One and a featured dancer for Aerosmith’s Deuces are Wild residency.
