Glenn Kotche

Chicago-based percussionist and composer Glenn Kotche has been called one of the most exciting, creative and promising composers and performers in modern music, receiving international attention for his "unfailing taste, technique and discipline" (Chicago Tribune). After 3 solos records, including his 2006 album Mobile (Nonesuch Records), Kotche will release his 4th studio album in 2013. Kotche has written pieces for world-renowned ensembles including Kronos Quartet, The Silk Road Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, So Percussion and Eighth Blackbird. His compositions have been performed at venues as wide-ranging as Chicagoland's Ravinia, Carnegie's Zankel Hall and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York and Teatro Castro Alves in Salvador, Brazil.

In addition to his work as a composer and solo percussionist, Kotche is a member of the groundbreaking American rock band Wilco, with whom he has played since 2001. With Wilco, he has recorded the records Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Kicking Television, as well as the Grammy nominated Sky Blue Sky, Wilco (The Album) and The Whole Love and the Grammy-winning A Ghost is Born. In 2010, Kotche and his Wilco bandmates started their own music festival, Solid Sound, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). Kotche contributed a permanent sound installation to the museum's collection, created for the 2011 festival.

Beyond Wilco, Kotche records and performs regularly along with Darin Gray in the longtime rhythm duo On Fillmore. Together they have released four records, the most recent being Extended Vacation (Dead Oceans) about which Pitchfork wrote, "These seven interwoven pieces delight... it reveals two focused, imaginative composers and performers." He is also a member of the trio Loose Fur, along with Jim O’Rourke and Jeff Tweedy, who have just recorded their third studio record. A frequent collaborator, Kotche has appeared on over 90 records to date.

Kotche has twice appeared on the cover of Modern Drummer and once on the cover of Percussive Notes, the official publication of the Percussive Arts Society of which Kotche is currently a board member. He resides in Chicago with his wife and two children.

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