Performance: "Bruce Goff—Rolls and Reimaginations" By Third Coast Percussion

Why It Matters

The presentation reframes Goff as a holistic modernist whose cross-disciplinary practice challenges conventional architectural narratives and suggests new curatorial and performance approaches to materiality and sound in architecture. The show and accompanying performance broaden public and scholarly appreciation of overlooked innovators, potentially reshaping preservation and interpretive priorities.

Summary

At the Art Institute of Chicago, curator Alison Fisher introduced Third Coast Percussion’s performance “Bruce Goff—Rolls and Reimaginations,” presented alongside the museum’s first large-scale Bruce Goff retrospective in 30 years, “Bruce Goff: Material Worlds.” Fisher framed Goff as an idiosyncratic, multidisciplinary architect whose career (1920s–1980s) fused architecture, painting, music and unconventional materials, illustrated by his mixed-media interiors, Klimt collection, and experimental homes such as the Harder house. The talk highlighted Goff’s Tulsa salon and collaborations with artists like Olinka Hrdy, and described projects that literally integrated music and architecture—most notably a combined concert school and residence—and introduced Goff’s work with player-piano technology. Donor support and institutional partners enabling the exhibition and new Third Coast arrangements were acknowledged throughout the program.

Original Description

Grammy Award–winning quartet Third Coast Percussion reimagines the iconoclastic player piano compositions of architect and self-taught composer Bruce Goff in this special performance inspired by "Bruce Goff: Material Worlds."

Third Coast Percussion first debuted a performance of these pieces in 2014. This year, they completed arrangements for all Goff’s works for the player piano and are presenting the full suite in live performance for the very first time at the Art Institute. The performance combines direct transcriptions of Goff’s quirky, beautiful, and at times fiendishly difficult musical works with the ensemble’s expansion and reimagination of the musical fragments and experiments that Goff left behind.

Made possible by the Carol Given Winston Fund for Docent and Patron Education.