Composer Highlight
Robert Dillon, percussionist and composer with Third Coast Percussion, gave the world premiere of Scoundrel at Nova Linea Musica's sold-out February concert in Chicago.
Publish Date:
May 1, 2026
When Third Coast Percussion took the stage at Gottlieb Hall on February 25 for a sold-out Nova Linea Musica concert, it was already a remarkable evening. Four-time GRAMMY-winning artists, a contemporary repertoire built for percussion ensemble, and a Chicago audience filling every seat. Among the works on the program was the world premiere of Scoundrel by Robert Dillon, percussionist, composer, and one of Third Coast's founding ensemble members.
A Composer Writing from Inside the Ensemble
Scoundrel gave the audience something unusual in classical music: a chance to hear a composer perform his own music alongside the colleagues who have been his closest collaborators for nearly two decades. Few works for percussion ensemble are written this way, from inside the ensemble that performs them, and Scoundrel carried the unmistakable energy of a piece shaped by the players who would bring it to life.
Scoundrel: Robert Dillon's Program Note
In his program note, Robert described Scoundrel as "a compact piece in every sense, written entirely from the simple rhythmic idea of dividing a pulse into five notes, rather than the more common subdivisions of 2, 3, or 4 notes within a beat." That single rhythmic decision, he wrote, gave him "an atypical home base from which to find interesting and less familiar types of musical themes, while giving the whole piece a slightly unstable feel." A "slippery, Bartók-inspired pitch sense" keeps the players on their toes, and "additional rhythmic shenanigans quickly propel the piece forward to its dramatic end." Robert closed his note with thanks to his fellow Third Coasters for fine-tuning the piece in workshops and rehearsals, and to Nova Linea Musica for providing a setting for the premiere. To welcome the world premiere on the NLM stage was an equal privilege for us.
A Wide-Ranging Performing Career
Robert's path to that stage has been characteristically wide-ranging. As Ensemble Member and Development Director of Third Coast Percussion, he has helped build one of the most adventurous percussion ensembles working today. His performing career has taken him into the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, and San Diego Symphony Orchestras as a substitute, and to the principal chair of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared on the Chicago Symphony's MusicNow series and the University of Chicago's Contempo series, and was selected as a member of Ensemble XII, the international twelve-percussionist group that grew out of Pierre Boulez's Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland.
He has performed as a soloist in America, Switzerland, and Jordan. His recording credits include Christopher Adler's Ecstatic Volutions in a Neon Haze on Innova Records, American Music for Percussion, Volume 1 on Naxos, and Katherine Young's Diligence is to Magic as Progress is to Flight on Parlour Tapes+, in addition to Third Coast's extensive discography.
A Teacher Shaping Chicago's Percussion Community
Robert is also a teacher whose investment in the next generation has shaped Chicago's percussion community. He previously served as chair of percussion studies at Merit School of Music and as a percussion instructor at Loyola University Chicago. Generations of young Chicago percussionists have studied under him.
His training reflects the same seriousness. Robert holds a Bachelor of Music from Northwestern University and a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory, where he received the John Cage Award for Outstanding Contribution to Contemporary Music Performance. His teachers include Michael Burritt, James Ross, and Will Hudgins.
Our thanks to Robert, to Third Coast Percussion, and to everyone who filled Gottlieb Hall that night for an evening of percussion artistry at its highest level.
