press

The Thunder that Smokes – New drum set solo from Glenn Kotche

The Thunder that Smokes – New drum set solo from Glenn Kotche

Written for the 2024 Ox and Lamb SMALL BATCH MUSIC PROJECT, check out this new drum set solo from Glenn Kotche! The Thunder that Smokes is inspired by American Jazz drummer, Max Roach, and takes a title from one of his pieces (it’s a nickname for Victoria Falls). But...

Glenn Kotche Live @ DRUMSFEST – PASIC 2023

Glenn Kotche Live @ DRUMSFEST – PASIC 2023

Join PAS November 8 – 11, 2023 in Indianapolis, IN at the Indianapolis Convention Center for one of the largest drum and percussion events in the world – the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC)! Featuring concerts, clinics, panels and...

Getting In Tune with Glenn Kotche

Getting In Tune with Glenn Kotche

A conversation with Glenn Kotche of Wilco on the ever changing beats in a musical life as teacher, composer, musician and father. The Homewood Arts Council (HAC) welcomes Glenn Kotche, to its debut interview series, Getting In Tune, for an in-depth conversation on his...

Make Music Winter 2022: Bell By Bell

Make Music Winter 2022: Bell By Bell

Make Music Winter’s signature Bell by Bell returns nationwide in 2022, featuring the world premieres of new compositions by Brian Chase (Grammy-nominated Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Glenn Kotche (Wilco), named one of the “Greatest Drummers of All Time” by Rolling Stone. An...

Solo Drumkit Compositions Channel Launched

Solo Drumkit Compositions Channel Launched

Glenn has started a YouTube channel and will be releasing videos of his solo drumkit compositions throughout 2022. He'll be adding new, old, traditional and experimental pieces all beautifully shot by Pat Burns and all with accompanying scores available on the...

Chelsea Walls – Original Music by Jeff Tweedy

Chelsea Walls – Original Music by Jeff Tweedy

Soundtrack from Academy Award-Nominated actor Ethan Hawke’s 2001 film. The same year of his Oscar®-nominated performance in Training Day, Ethan Hawke made his full-length film directorial debut with Chelsea Walls (starring Kris Kristofferson, Uma Thurman, Vincent...

Bow Shoulder – Pre-Order

Bow Shoulder – Pre-Order

Pre-order of Bow Shoulder. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

Keeping the Beat by TNMEA

Keeping the Beat by TNMEA

Glenn Kotche, Wilco drummer and composer, is the last guest presenter for the week on April 23rd on Keeping the Beat by TNMEA. The title of his presentation is, "The What If Question: How Asking Questions Fuels Discovery." Join us at 8/7p.m. CDT! #KeepingtheBeatSeries...

Drumming with Glenn

Drumming with Glenn

A one-hour private drum lesson with Grammy Award winning Wilco drummer and NNM parent, Glenn Kotche. This exclusive experience will take place at the Wilco Loft, the acclaimed indie-rock band's home base and recording studio. Date and time to be mutually agreed upon....

Chicago Drum Show

Chicago Drum Show

Date: May 18 & 19, 2019 Place: Odeum Expo Center, Villa Park, IL, USA Glenn Kotche Performance: May 18, 4pm More information: https://odeumexpo.com/event/chicago-drum-show-2019/

Ate9 Dance Company is breathtaking in Boston

Ate9 Dance Company is breathtaking in Boston

Mere mortals shouldn’t be able to move the way the extraordinary dancers of Ate9 Dance Company do. In the company’s Boston debut with artistic director Danielle Agami’s “calling glenn,” featuring original music performed live by Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche, the...

Why More and More Mainstream Musicians Are Composing Scores for Dance

Why More and More Mainstream Musicians Are Composing Scores for Dance

Balanchine and Stravinsky. Cunningham and Cage. Graham and Copland. Twentieth-century dance was dotted with memorable partnerships between musicians and choreographers that wrought magical, full-bodied, brilliant works. Today's composer-dancemaker duos, though, have...

Glenn Kotche :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Glenn Kotche :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

As anyone who’s ever seen him live can attest, Glenn Kotche is an inventive player, not beholden to typical rock & roll tropes and unafraid to interject left of center approaches on stage. The Wilco/On Fillmore drummer seems to have an innate ability to seize a...

Wild Sound

Wild Sound Part 4 Performed by the Vanderbilt Percussion Ensemble Directed by Ji Hye Jung https://youtu.be/N5jaT4LtqKo

Glenn Featured on New First Aid Kit Album, Ruins

Glenn Featured on New First Aid Kit Album, Ruins

“Sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg have a way of making knees crumble with their heaven-sent harmonies. Aided by an all-star backing cast that includes R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and Midlake’s McKenzie Smith, the 10 songs here are the perfect antidote...

Calling Glenn at Royce Hall, UCLA on Nov. 11

Glenn will join Ate9 Dance Company on stage at Royce Hall, UCLA on November 11 at 8pm for their collaboration, Calling Glenn. More information and tickets are available here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-1ad7-ua4Y

Calling Glenn Collaboration with Ate9

Calling Glenn Collaboration with Ate9

Glenn's collaboration with Ate9 Dance Company, 'Calling Glenn', will premiere of at The Moore Theater in Seattle, WA on March 3 at 8pm. Tickets available here.  

CYSO Composer-in-Residence

CYSO Composer-in-Residence

Glenn will join the Symphony Orchestra for the world premiere of his composition, 'Infinite Tree' at Orchestra Hall on May 21. He will then join the Philharmonic Orchestra at Studebaker Theater on June 3.

Wild Sound in Madison, WI

Wild Sound in Madison, WI

Glenn will join Third Coast Percussion at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, WI on May 6, 2017.

New On Fillmore Song, “Jornada Inteira”

New On Fillmore Song, “Jornada Inteira”

Listen to the new On Fillmore track, "Jornada Inteira" – the first single from forthcoming album, Happiness of Living, out March 24 on Northern Spy Records.

The Colorado: Music from the Motion Picture on VIA Records

The Colorado: Music from the Motion Picture on VIA Records

The Colorado: Music from the Motion Picture on VIA Records Norman Cahn on February 28, 2017 at 6:00 am “[Polystylistics] … creates new possibilities for the musico-dramatic embodiment of ‘eternal’ problems—war and peace, life and death.” Today, composer Alfred...

Big Ears Festival

Big Ears Festival

Looking forward to a full weekend at Big Ears Festival March 24-26 in Knoxville, TN. Don't miss Glenn playing with Wilco on Friday, performing solo on Saturday and then with On Fillmore on Sunday. Tickets here. XBLU NOTE: Website http://www.onfillmore.com/...

Meinl Percussion

Meinl Percussion

Glenn is pleased to announced he proudly uses Meinl Percussion. Check out the products he's using now . XBLU NOTE: Include specific instruments and products. Add new category for sponsorship or product endorsements that have featured article or video profiles? See...

DePaul University Percussion Ensemble

DePaul University Percussion Ensemble

The DePaul University Percussion Ensemble is to perform Glenn's piece, Clapping Music Variations directed by Michael Kozakis on Saturday, November 12 at 3pm at the DePaul Concert Hall in Chicago, IL. For more information, visit here.

Earth Drums Installation at Artpark

Earth Drums Installation at Artpark

Check out Glenn's Artpark installation, Earth Drums, in Lewiston, NY. Free and open to the public during park hours (dawn to dusk). For more information, visit here.  

Process of Making Wild Sound

Process of Making Wild Sound

Check out this piece for a sneak peek into the process of making Wild Sound, Glenn's original composition which has musicians construct and deconstruct their instruments on stage as a part of the performance. Glenn will join Third Coast Percussion for Wild Sound next...

Glenn’s Zildjian Sound Legacy Video

Ever wonder what kind of cymbals Glenn uses for Wilco? Check out this ‪Sound Legacy‬ video from Zildjian to find out. https://youtu.be/Urp_BY8Raos

The Colorado is Q2 Music’s Album of the Week

The Colorado is Q2 Music’s Album of the Week

"The result is an album so energized by the possibilities of contemporary music-making that it practically glows in the dark." Thrilled that The Colorado is the Q2 Music Album of the Week and is currently streaming on the site.

New York Times Review of the Colorado

New York Times Review of the Colorado

"Mr. Kotche drew evocative sounds from an array of instruments and provided suspenseful rhythms that lent tension to the film’s historic arc." Read more of The New York Times review of 'The Colorado' from Wednesday's New York premiere at The Metropolitan Museum of...

Anomaly Concerto World Premiere – National Sawdust Brooklyn, NY

Anomaly Concerto World Premiere – National Sawdust Brooklyn, NY

I am thrilled to be performing the world premiere of Anomaly Concerto for Percussion and String Orchestra with Norway’s fantastic 1B1 Orchestra at National Sawdust in Brooklyn next Thursday, May 12 at 7pm. The piece is a reimagined version of my String Quartet with...

Glenn Kotche / John Luther Adams  / Ilimaq

Glenn Kotche / John Luther Adams / Ilimaq

Composer John Luther Adams and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche collaborate on a recording of Luther Adams' roiling percussion work Ilimaq. Luther Adams won a Pulitzer last year for Become Ocean, while Kotche has made some serious inroads into modern classical, and the two...

Glenn Kotche’s Wild Sound is Unexpectedly Brilliant

Glenn Kotche’s Wild Sound is Unexpectedly Brilliant

“Here is your audience instrument; you take it apart like chopsticks,” said the usher, handing me a couple of glued-together jagged pieces of wood along with my concert program. Audience participation, oh my. This concert was either going to be very good or, more...

Adventureland

Adventureland

The Wilco drummer returns with an album of pieces influenced by classical minimalism, including a work writen for the Kronos Quartet. Where his previous albums foregrounded himself as a virtuoso performer, Adventureland is about Kotche as a composer first...

Glenn Kotche / Mobile

Glenn Kotche / Mobile

Wilco drummer creates a solo record rooted in Steve Reich, the thumb piano, and a variety of rhythmic puzzles. Since the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, "experimental" is a word that has been clinging like a lamprey to descriptions of Wilco's post-alt-country phase....

Dusted Reviews

Dusted Reviews

Fortune has smiled upon percussionist Glenn Kotche. His famous rock band has gotten to that exalted level of success where the record label gives the drummer a solo album. But this isnt just any drummer, nor is Nonesuch any old label. Kotche is a skilled improviser,...

Articles and Interviews

Wilco’s Glenn Kotche – Devilishly detail-oriented

At one point in the middle of this interview with percussionist, composer, and Wilco band member Glenn Kotche, I joke that we’re going to tag him with the description “The John Cage of Rock Drumming.” (“He’d be rolling,” Kotche responds.) But if you’ve ever seen the Chicago-based drummer/explorer in action—shaking Scandinavian chicken paddle toys, scraping cymbals with threaded rods, or making otherworldly sounds with his various “in-Glenn-tions”—you’ll know that such a seemingly incongruent comparison isn’t really that far off.

See, back in the 1930s and ’40s, Cage shattered the rules of “classical” composition by forgoing traditional music theory in favor of unconventional ideas like treating rhythm as melody (“Pulse”) and writing for silence and the randomness of environmental space (“4’33″”). Cage was also one of the first composers to explore the new sounds of the prepared piano (“Bacchanale”), which involves modifying the instrument with nails, screws, paper, and other items placed between the strings.

FULL ARTICLE

AteNine and Glenn Kotche Collaborate with Stunning Results

The Executive and Artistic Director of CAP UCLA, Kristy Edmunds has been in consultation with Danielle Agami, the Artistic Director and Choreographer of AteNine Dance Company for several years as to when the right time to present them at CAP UCLA would be. They both agreed that it would also have to include presenting the right work. CAP UCLA has a seating capacity of 1,800; a big undertaking for most companies to fill. AteNine Dance Company premiered calling glenn at the Moore Theatre in Seattle this past March. This was the work that Edmunds and Agami agreed had the required elements and the company performed to an almost full house. Agami’s calling glenn was a collaboration with musician, composer and Grammy winner Glenn Kotche of the Chicago based alternative rock band Wilco. It is said that Kotche is the rhythmic anchor of Wilco, and after experiencing his performance in calling glenn, it is clear why.

FULL ARTICLE

Article in Kentucky Alumni Magazine

Glenn Kotche: Painting The Sky Blue Sky

This past winter, the duality of rock drummer / experimental percussionist Glenn Kotche’s eclectic career reached an all-time high as he juggled writing/recording sessions for Grammy award–winning rock band Wilco’s latest release, Sky Blue Sky, and composing “Anomaly,” a seven-movement commission for world-renowned string ensemble The Kronos Quartet. “There were times when I would spend five hours writing in the morning, track Sky Blue Sky with Wilco for eight hours, and then write for another hour,” Kotche recalls with a tinge of disbelief. “It was very intense.”

But this is nothing new for the Chicago-based rhythmic explorer. In fact, much of Glenn’s career has revolved around this cross-pollination between the mainstream and the avant-garde. “I’ve always balanced the academic and the rock-drummer sides of my playing, since when I first started taking lessons in fourth grade,” Kotche explains. “I was active in school concert and marching bands, and I formed my first rock band at the same time.”

FULL INTERVIEW

press archives

Drum Lesson: Wilco’s Glenn Kotche on found sounds – LA Times – January 2012

Drummer to Drummer: R.E.M.’s Bill Rieflin / Glenn Kotche of Wilco – Modern Drummer – July 2010 [download]

Top 10 Tracks to Download – Rhythm – March 2009 [download]

Wilco drummer, classical collaboration rises above – Chicago Sun-Times – November 2008

Curiosity/Creativity – Drumhead Magazine – Spring 2008 [download]

Wilco’s Glenn Kotche Painting the Sky Blue Sky – Modern Drummer – August 2007 [download]

The P.A. System Featuring Glenn Kotche – Spokane7 – February 2007

Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche finds a rhythm of his own on his new solo CD, “Mobile” – San Francisco Gate – February 2007

Wilco’s Glenn Kotche helps percussion take the lead – Tucson Weekly – February 2007

UK stages intimidate Wilco drummer – The Lexington Herald – September 2006

Glenn Kotche Interview – Centerstage Chicago – August 2006

Glenn Kotche – Mobile (Review) – Urban Pollution – June 2006

Nobody Suspects the Cricket – Signal to Noise – July 2006 [download]

Glenn Kotche – Mobile (4 1/2 Stars) – Modern Drummer – July 2006 [download]

Interview: Glenn Kotche – Pitchfork Media – June 2006

Glenn Kotche-Mobile (Review) – Pitchfork Media – May 2006

Glenn Kotche: Mobile (4 Stars out of 5) – Orlando Sentinel – April 2006

Glenn Kotche, Mobile (Review) – The Guardian Unlimited – March 2006

Glenn Kotche-Mobile (Review) – MusicOMH.com – March 2006

PASIC Turns 30 – Modern Drummer – March 2006 [download]

WILCO drummer returns to toast UK percussion – The Lexington Herald [download]

Spiel Ohne Grenzen – Sticks (Germany) – April 2005 [download]

WILCO’s Sonic Innovator – Modern Drummer – January 2005 [download]

The Man With The Drums – Blow Up (Italy)- February 2003 [download]