Wilco drummer, classical collaboration rises above

Glenn Kotche is not your average rock-and-roll percussionist. Eighth blackbird is not your average classical music sextet. Put the two together, and the result is a vastly above-average night in the concert hall.

Eighth blackbird and Kotche--percussionist since 2001 for Wilco, the acclaimed Chicago-based indie band--teamed up for a highly anticipated concert Tuesday night at the Harris Theater. Fans of contemporary chamber music know that eighth blackbird, founded in 1996 and currently in residence at the University of Chicago and the University of Richmond in Virginia, aims to stretch the boundaries of classical chamber music far beyond the limits of Haydn and Beethoven, Berg and Shostakovich.

Local music mavens also may be aware that Kotche, born in Roselle and trained at the University of Kentucky, has been collaborating with prominent classical ensembles recently. A few months ago he appeared at the Ravinia Festival with the Kronos Quartet in a seven-movement work he wrote for them in 2007 titled “Anomaly.’’ In addition to playing on such well-received Wilco CDs as “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,’’ he also has issued three CDs of his own original, solo percussion works.

Tuesday’s concert at the Harris offered a beguiling mix of Kotche solos, Kotche collaborations with eighth blackbird and two pieces, by Frederick Rzewski and Kotche, for eighth blackbird alone. At first glance, adding a rock percussionist to an ensemble whose instruments are ideally suited for Schoenberg and Stravinsky might seem like little more than a marketing gimmick. But Kotche and eighth blackbird are kindred musical souls. When they walked on stage or spoke to the audience, they were remarkably low-key, almost willfully unhip. (Except for Lisa Kaplan, eighth blackbird’s killer pianist, who sported sleek pants tucked into tall boots.) Once the music started, however, they were as fierce as any garage band or chamber players hurtling through a late Beethoven string quartet.

Tuesday’s program of nine pieces ranged from subtle lyricism to raw ferocity. After 15 mostly exhilarating minutes of relentless, pulverizing rhythmic assaults in Andriessen’s “Workers Union’’ from 1975, I began to fear for my hearing. But “Double Fantasy,’’ a new work written by Kotche for eighth blackbird’s unusual instrumental lineup--flutes, clarinets, violin, cello, piano and percussion, was full of quietly lush moments.

Inspired by a solo vibraphone piece Kotche wrote for himself, “Double Fantasy’’ opened with a slow, luminous melody from Matthew Duvall’s vibraphone. As the piece gathered steam, its mood shifted seamlessly, sometimes full of amiable good cheer from Michael J. Maccaferri’s clarinets and Tim Monro’s lilting flute, sometimes driven to darker territory by Kaplan’s stern, pounding piano, Matt Albert’s melancholy violin and Nicholas Photinos’ raw-edge cello.

Other high points on the program were Kotche’s hard-driving solo piano arrangement of “The Corner,’’ a song by Chicago rapper Common, and his almost hallucinatory percussion solo, “Monkey Chant.’’

Wynne Delacoma is a Chicago freelance writer and critic.