VERNACULAR with Jlin to Highlight Third Coast Percussion's 2026-2027 Season
The GRAMMY-winning quartet will bring the program to Carnegie Hall and cities including Chicago, San Francisco and Paris.
Third Coast Percussion has announced its 2026-2027 season, featuring a new touring program called VERNACULAR created in collaboration with electronic music artist Jlin. The Chicago-based percussion quartet will perform the program throughout the United States and Europe, with U.S. stops including Carnegie Hall and the ensemble's Philadelphia debut, plus performances in Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Richmond. European dates are set for London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Hamburg, and Rome. The tour coincides with the release of an album of the same name on Rockwell Records, with the first single from the record, PREMONITION, out now.
Called 'immensely enjoyable' and 'prodigiously gifted' (Gramophone), the GRAMMY Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and GRAMMY-nominated composer collective Third Coast Percussion (TCP) announced its Chicago and touring schedules for the 2026-2027 season. As the first percussion ensemble ever to win a GRAMMY in the classical genre, Third Coast is celebrated both as a quartet of stellar performers and as a composer collective, earning seven GRAMMY nominations overall – including their 2017 win under Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
During the 2026-2027 season, TCP will tour a new original program, Vernacular, in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-finalist electronic music artist Jlin – along with an album of the same name, due for release Friday, October 23, 2026 on Rockwell Records. Premiered in February 2026 at UC Santa Barbara, the Vernacular program explores the evolution of TCP's long partnership with Jlin. Third Coast Percussion and Jlin will perform live on stage together in brand new arrangements of some of Jlin's most exciting works reimagined for live electronics and acoustic percussion quartet, as well as new works composed specifically for the occasion for all five performers. Vernacular will receive its Chicago Premiere at the Museum of Contemporary Art, co-organized with the Chicago Humanities Festival on Thursday, October 15, 2026, before touring more than a dozen venues in the United States and Europe, including New York's Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, London's Barbican Centre, and the Philharmonie de Paris. In addition, TCP embarks on an early 2027 U.S. tour of Ripples in the Water: Philip Glass at 90, a celebration of Glass's impact on contemporary music, and of TCP's long collaboration with the iconic American composer. The season also brings performances of acclaimed TCP programs including Time Pieces: The New Classical; Murmurs in Time: Third Coast Percussion & Salar Nader, tabla; and The Drum Also Sings; as well as Clarice Assad's PLAY! (concerto with orchestra).
In a first look at the forthcoming Vernacular album with Jlin, TCP today releases the album's first single, Premonition. While Jlin has composed a number of previous works for TCP, this newest collaborative track features all five artists performing together for the first time. Premonition is one of two new pieces commissioned for TCP and Jlin by The 92nd Street Y, New York.
Curated around favorite works by Jlin—reimagined for a combination of acoustic and electronic sounds—the Vernacular album also features an original arrangement of Philip Glass's Mishima, as well as a five-part work by David Longstreth, frontman for the Dirty Projectors, entitled Butterfly Dancing Over a Barrel—a musical journey of symphonic proportions. The upcoming release marks the 25th feature album for Third Coast Percussion, which can also be heard as a contributor on 17 additional recordings. In just over 20 years, the prolific quartet has earned a total of seven GRAMMY nominations as a performing ensemble, plus an additional nomination as a composing collective and two separate nominations for individual members—winning a 2017 GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for its recording of Steve Reich's works for percussion.
TCP begins its 2026-2027 performance schedule with a performance of its 20th anniversary program, Time Pieces: The New Classical, on Sunday, September 20, 2026 in a concert to open the 70th Anniversary season of Friends of Chamber Music in Stockton, CA. A showcase of TCP commissions curated to celebrate the ensemble's two-decade mark, Time Pieces reflects on the passage of time through themes of heritage, history, and memory, featuring works by Jlin, Jessie Montgomery, and Tigran Hamasyan. TCP goes on to perform an abridged version of the program with Coast Live Music in Portola Valley, CA on Saturday, September 26, 2026 and with Tertulia Chamber Music in San Francisco, CA on Sunday, September 27, 2026. The complete Time Pieces program will be reprised in performances at Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah School District in Elkhart, WI on Friday, November 20, 2026, and at the Elgin Community College Arts Center in Elgin, IL on Saturday, May 8, 2027.
Tabla artist Salar Nader joins TCP on Thursday, October 1, 2026 at Rudder Theatre, Texas A&M University in College Station, TX for the season's only scheduled performance of Murmurs in Time, the program created and recorded in 2024 with the late tabla master Zakir Hussain. Now featuring tabla virtuoso Salar Nader, a disciple of Hussain's, the touring program spotlights Hussain's final composition alongside works by Jessie Montgomery, Jlin, and Tigran Hamasyan. Also titled Murmurs in Time, Hussain's work for tabla and percussion quartet combines the beauty and complexity of Hindustani classical music with the singular sound world of Third Coast Percussion. The program also features Jessie Montgomery's piece Lady Justice/Black Justice, The Song, Jlin's composition Please Be Still, and Tigran Hamasyan's three-movement work Sonata for Percussion – all commissioned for TCP's 20th anniversary.
TCP performs with Jlin in the Chicago Premiere of Vernacular at the Museum of Contemporary Art, co-organized with the Chicago Humanities Festival, on Thursday, October 15, 2026. In this program steeped in their shared Chicago roots, TCP and Jlin combine for a fresh sound blending TCP's contemporary classical training with Jlin's signature electronic technique, at once technically innovative and emotionally visceral. Jlin and Third Coast Percussion will perform live on stage together in brand-new arrangements of some of Jlin's most exciting works reimagined for live electronics and acoustic percussion quartet, as well as new works composed specifically for the occasion for all five performers.
In one of the season's key standalone engagements, TCP will perform with Jlin for its annual Fall Benefit fundraiser at Walden Chicago on Thursday, October 22, 2026.
Jlin then joins TCP for a seven-city European tour of Vernacular, beginning at the Barbican Centre in London on Saturday, October 31, 2026. They go on to perform the program on Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at the Philharmonie de Paris; Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes; Thursday, November 5, 2026 at Bozar (Centre for Fine Arts of Brussels) in Brussels; Wednesday, November 11, 2026 at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam; Thursday, November 12, 2026 at Parkstad Limburg in Heerlen, The Netherlands; and Saturday, November 14, 2026 at the Romaeuropa Festival in Rome.
TCP remains in Rome on Sunday, November 15, 2026 for a performance of Aguas da Amazonia, TCP's bespoke arrangement of Philip Glass's iconic work, also at Romaeuropa.
Vernacular returns to U.S. stages for a spring 2027 tour, beginning Friday, March 5, 2027 at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, followed by a performance on Saturday, March 6, 2027 at New York's Carnegie Hall. The tour continues at the University of Colorado Boulder on Friday, April 2, 2027; Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR on Tuesday, April 6, 2027; OSU-Cascades at the Tower Theatre in Bend, OR on Wednesday, April 7, 2027; and the Mondavi Center in Davis, CA on Thursday, April 8, 2027.
In an appearance at West Texas A&M in Canyon, TX on Friday, January 22, 2027—just days before the composer's milestone birthday—TCP takes the stage for the season's first performance of Ripples in The Water: Philip Glass at 90. A celebration of Glass's cultural impact writ large, the program also channels the composer's long and fruitful relationship with TCP, which commissioned his first-ever work for percussion ensemble—Perpetulum—in 2018. Along with this landmark commission, Ripples in the Water comprises portions of TCP's celebrated arrangements of Glass's Aguas da Amazonia and Metamorphosis One—plus works by Jlin, pop polymath Devonté Hynes, TCP's own David Skidmore, and minimalism master Steve Reich, a contemporary of Glass. Together, the selected works highlight Glass's stunning harmonic vocabulary while showcasing TCP on an array of traditional and unexpected percussion instruments.
The program will subsequently be performed at Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, MT on Sunday, January 24, 2027; Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, NM on Wednesday, January 27, 2027; Goshen College in Goshen, IN on Friday, January 29, 2027; the Center for the Arts at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA as part of the ensemble's Mason Artist-in-Residence programming on Saturday, February 6, 2027; Penn Live Arts in Philadelphia, PA on Sunday, February 7, 2027; Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA on Friday, February 13, 2027; the Modlin Center in Richmond, VA on Thursday, February 18, 2027; and the Arts Empowering Life Performing Arts Center in Brewster, MA on Sunday, February 21, 2027. The Penn Live Arts performance on Sunday, February 7—TCP's Philadelphia debut—will include a special appearance by acclaimed drummer and composer Glenn Kotche of Wilco.
TCP brings Ripples in the Water to its first overseas performance on Monday, April 12, 2027 at NDR Chamber Orchestra Concerts in Hamburg, Germany. The ensemble will then remain in the city for a performance of works by Missy Mazzoli at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie on Friday, April 16, 2027.
The season concludes with Currents—a program of new works—at Constellation Chicago on Thursday, June 10 and Friday, June 11, 2027.
Third Coast Percussion 2026/2027 Season
Thursday, August 20–Sunday, August 23, 2026 – Chamber Music America – MCA Chicago | Chicago, IL – cmachicago.vfairs.com/en/#agenda
Sunday, September 20, 2026 – Friends of Chamber Music – Faye Spanos Concert Hall | Stockton, CA – www.chambermusicfriends.org/2026-2027-season
Saturday, September 26, 2026 – Coast Live – Portola Valley Town Center | Portola Valley, CA – coastlivemusic.com/event/third-coast-percussion/
Sunday, September 27, 2026 – Tertulia – Southern Pacific Brewing Company | San Francisco, CA – www.tertulianyc.org/events/thirdcoastpercussion
Thursday, October 1, 2026 – Texas A&M University – Rudder Theatre | College Station, TX – calendar.tamu.edu/academyarts/event/385867-third-coast-percussion-murmurs-in-time
Thursday, October 15, 2026 – MCA Presents, co-organized with the Chicago Humanities Festival – Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago | Chicago, IL – mcachicago.org/whats-on/events/jlin-third-coast-percussion-vernacular/
Thursday, October 22, 2026 – TCP Fall Benefit – Walden | Chicago, IL – thirdcoastpercussion.com/event/tcp-fall-benefit-with-jlin/
Saturday, October 31, 2026 – Milton Court Concert Hall – Barbican Centre | London, England – www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/jlin-third-coast-percussion-vernacular
Tuesday, November 3, 2026 – Philharmonie de Paris – Philharmonie de Paris | Paris, France – philharmoniedeparis.fr/en/activite/29386
Wednesday, November 4, 2026 – Le Lieu Unique – Le Lieu Unique | Nantes, France – www.lelieuunique.com/en/event/jlin-and-third-coast-percussion-concert-nantes
Thursday, November 5, 2026 – Bozar – Bozar Centre for Fine Arts | Brussels, Belgium – www.bozar.be/en/calendar/jlin-third-coast-percussion
Wednesday, November 11, 2026 – Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ | Amsterdam, Netherlands – www.muziekgebouw.nl/en/agenda/vernacular-zr5t
Thursday, November 12, 2026 – Parkstad Limburg – Theater Heerlen | Heerlen, Netherlands – www.plt.nl/programma/jlin-third-coast-percussion-vs-vernacular/12-11-2026-20-30
Saturday, November 14, 2026 – Romaeuropa – Auditorium Parco della Musica | Rome, Italy – romaeuropa.net/festival-2026/vernacular/
Sunday, November 15, 2026 – Romaeuropa – Auditorium Parco della Musica | Rome, Italy – romaeuropa.net/festival-2026/philip-glass-aguas-da-amazonia/
Friday, November 20, 2026 – Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah School District – TBD | Elkhart Lake, WI – Ticket information TBA
Monday, November 30–Sunday, December 6, 2026 – Denison University Ensemble-In-Residence – Denison University | Granville, OH
Saturday, December 12 & Sunday, December 13, 2026 – ProMusica Chamber Orchestra – Southern Theatre | Columbus, OH – promusicacolumbus.org/event/play-schuberts-third-2026/
Wednesday, December 16, 2026 – The Midwest Clinic International Band & Orchestra Conference – McCormick Place | Chicago, IL – www.midwestclinic.org/performers/midwest-clinic-performing-organization?gid=15041&pyear=2026
Friday, January 22, 2027 – West Texas A&M – TBD | Canyon, TX – Ticket information TBA
Sunday, January 24, 2027 – Warren Miller Performing Arts Center | Big Sky, MT – Ticket information TBA
Wednesday, January 27, 2027 – Lensic – Lensic Performing Arts Center | Santa Fe, NM – lensic.org/events/third-coast/
Friday, January 29, 2027 – Goshen College – Goshen College Music Center | Goshen, IN – www.purplepass.com/events/381644-third-coast-percussion-jan-29th-2027
Saturday, February 6, 2027 – George Mason University – Center for the Arts | Fairfax, VA – cfa.calendar.gmu.edu/third-coast-percussion
Sunday, February 7, 2027 – Joined by Wilco's Glenn Kotche – Penn Live Arts – Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts | Philadelphia, PA – pennlivearts.org/event/ThirdCoastKotche
Saturday, February 13, 2027 – Kennesaw State University – Morgan Concert Hall at the Bailey Performance Center | Kennesaw, GA – artspurchase.kennesaw.edu/EventAvailability?EventId=2401
Thursday, February 18, 2027 – Modlin Center – Modlin Center for the Arts | Richmond, VA – calendar.richmond.edu/page.html?eventid=25258
Sunday, February 21, 2027 – Arts Empowering Life Performing Arts Center | Brewster, MA – Ticket information TBA
Friday, March 5, 2027 – Hamilton College – TBD | Clinton, NY – www.hamilton.edu/campuslife/arts-at-hamilton/performingarts
Saturday, March 6, 2027 at 7:30pm – Carnegie Hall – Zankel Hall | New York, NY – www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2027/03/06/Jlin-and-Third-Coast-Percussion-0730PM
Friday, April 2, 2027 – CU Presents – Macky Auditorium | Boulder, CO – cupresents.org/show-details/jlin-third-coast-percussion
Tuesday, April 6, 2027 – Oregon State University – Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) | Corvallis, OR – prax.oregonstate.edu/events/third-coast-percussion-and-jlin
Wednesday, April 7, 2027 – OSU-Cascades – Tower Theatre | Bend, OR – osucascades.edu/event/prax-and-osu-cascades-present-third-coast-percussion-x-jlin
Thursday, April 8, 2027 – Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts – Mondavi Center | Davis, CA – www.mondaviarts.org/whats-on/jlin-third-coast-percussion
Monday, April 12, 2027 – NDR Chamber – TBD | Hamburg, Germany – Ticket information TBA
Friday, April 16, 2027 – NDR Philharmonie Concert – TBD | Hamburg, Germany – www.ndr.de/orchester_chor/elbphilharmonieorchester/konzerte
Saturday, April 24, 2027 – NDR Vokal Ensemble Vocal Exchange – TBD | Hamburg, Germany – Ticket information TBA
Saturday, May 8, 2027 – Elgin Community College Arts Center – Blizzard Theatre | Elgin,
