Description
Scored for four percussionists playing bells from a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, Sonorous Earth can be heard and imagined as a United-Nations-of-Resonances. John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 'Although Sonorous Earth draws some of its musical materials and its movement titles from Resounding Earth (a 2012 piece for solo percussion Thomas wrote for the Third Coast group), so greatly has she expanded the concept and structure that it feels like an entirely new work. Here one encounters the tintinnabulations of the earlier piece in a different context. What once felt ritualistic and intimate now is big, bold and public — a joyous affirmation of commonality across world cultures. Debra Davy, Splash Magazines INVOCATION called to mind the sound of zithers. It was a flourish literally cosmic in scope and sound effects, with isolated bright shimmering shapes. At times this dramatic movement seemed to stretch and then build upon itself, dying away and leaving traces in the air. PRAYER found the members of Third Coast decisively selecting mallets and approaching the table of metal objects with a reverent deliberateness; they literally gently stirred the sound. This piece was cerebral,mystical, deliberately otherworldly and intellectual. MANTRA ranged from delicate and intimate through lively and picturesque. The movements of Third Coast followed suit, as they seemed to pose and dance, with the Philharmonic providing a welter of complex cerebrally sensuous melody. REVERIE CARILLON was played attacca, using all of the instrumentation of Third Coast Percussion. In their own words, they
