When Josh Jones premieres Augusta Read Thomas’s “Illuminations” on Monday, he’ll make the timpani speak.

Thomas’s piece, which she calls a “gratitude fanfare” with solo timpani, embeds words of thanksgiving into its main themes. The opening ta-taaaa gesture in the brass, played by students from DePaul University’s Wind Ensemble, is a musical “thank you.” A few bars later, Jones rollicks in, his rhythm mimicking the syllables of the phrase, “We give you our gratitude.”

That “gratitude” motif transforms, again and again, over the 10-minute fanfare. No two statements are the same, so naturally, Jones wouldn’t play them the same way. In the first rehearsal, Jones probed Thomas about the score’s staccato markings. Where did she want a touch staccato — a short, fast attack on the drum head? Where might she want a length staccato — tamping down the ringing instrument with his fingers?

“What I like about Thomas’s piece, and what I’m seeing more now in modern music, is that it puts a lot of vocal communication elements into the score,” Jones says. “For lack of a better term, it really humanizes percussion. It makes me feel less like the ‘noise creator.’”

These days, Jones has his own gratitude to add to Thomas’s fanfare. He just earned tenure as principal percussionist of the Grant Park Music Festival, a job that drew him home to Chicago after the Kansas City Symphony controversially denied him the same position earlier this year. The Nov. 13 premiere also brings Jones back to his alma mater, DePaul University, where he once played under the piece’s dedicatee, conductor Erica Neidlinger.

“I would not be the musician I am today without her. Whenever I practice now, I think of her, because she would always say to get to the core of the sound,” Jones says. “I’m just happy to be showing my gratitude to Dr. Neidlinger by playing timpani with her again.”

Jones’s earliest musical memories aren’t just aural but tactile. Growing up in Englewood, then South Chicago, he remembers how the plastic sticks of his first “instrument,” a toy Mickey Mouse drum set, felt in his hands; the kit was partly a Christmas gift, partly a strategy to get the toddler to stop rapping pots and pans. By five, Jones had graduated to a real drum kit, playing in all-day church services. That experience, as well as an excellent music program at the nearby Beasley Academic Center in Washington Park (Blue Note vibraphonist Joel Ross and his twin brother, Josh, who gigs locally on drums, were classmates), paved the way for Jones to join the Chicago Symphony’s Percussion Scholarship Program, run by CSO percussionist Patricia Dash and her husband Douglas Waddell, of the Lyric Opera and Grant Park orchestras.

After reviewing applications, Dash and Waddell typically sat down potential students for an interview. Jones’s interview, when he was around 10, left a special impression on Dash: he walked in wearing an “oversized tuxedo” and aced all their math and rhythm tests.

“I couldn’t stump him. He got in with flying colors,” she remembers.

Now, Jones is technically Waddell’s boss as principal percussionist of the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, a job far more taxing than snacking picnickers realize. As principal, Jones is responsible for making part assignments to section-mates and placing instrument rentals. Sometimes, the job requires sonic sleuthing — especially at Grant Park, whose repertoire can be as new to musicians as it is to audiences. For example, in preparation for William Dawson’s rarely performed “Negro Folk Symphony,” Jones listened back to recordings to figure out exactly what instrument to order for the second movement, during which a church bell of unspecified pitch tolls offstage.

“On paper, it looks very simple. But in practice, you have to figure out everybody’s way of communication, from the personnel manager to the stage crew,” Jones says.

That’s not counting the most obvious part of the job: learning the music.

“Grant Park’s a tough gig: eight services a week, with two different programs. But Josh is just so good. His execution on the instruments is unparalleled, especially on snare drum — his technique is better than anyone I’ve ever seen. I just kind of drop my jaw watching him,” Waddell says.

For Jones, his Grant Park hire was a special relief after his experience in Kansas City. After he was denied tenure, Jones, who is Black, accused the orchestra of racial discrimination in subsequent interviews with Kansas City-based publications.

The tenure process in many American orchestras is, by nature, contentious — look no further than the recent denial of tenure to the CSO’s former principal horn, David Cooper. Add the possibility of bias into the mix, and already murky employment decisions become even more so. In 1974, a committee of San Francisco Symphony musicians denied tenure to timpanist Elayne Jones and bassoonist Ryohei Nakagawa against the recommendation of then-music director Seiji Ozawa; Jones, who died last year, sued the orchestra for racial discrimination. More recently, oboist Alex Klein, who returned to the CSO as its principal after being diagnosed with focal dystonia, considered legal action against the orchestra due to his disability status when it denied him tenure in 2017.

Despite his experience in Kansas City, when his former position gets posted, Jones will most likely audition again — full-time orchestra jobs seldom become vacant, much less principal seats. Healthcare also remains a priority: Jones was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, shortly after joining the Calgary Philharmonic. He currently has a clean bill of health but lives in constant fear of a recurrence.

“It wouldn’t be my first choice. But it also would not be a choice,” Jones says. “Everything’s negotiable. … If they asked me back, I would have a very long conversation with my partner and with a lot of other people.”

Since Grant Park’s season ended, Jones has been subbing in orchestras as a section player while keeping an eye on auditions. He’s also writing a book series about percussion technique — he’s halfway through, at number five — and teaching intermittently, usually as a clinician or master class instructor.

In the meantime, “Illuminations” gives a hometown audience an opportunity to hear Jones in the spotlight, rather than tucked near the back wall of the Pritzker Pavilion bandshell.

“I’m technically the soloist, but I never think of myself that way. I always want to be collaborative, even with the concertos I play with orchestras,” Jones says. “I’m always a supporting role, for the most part. I’m just a little louder.”

“Illuminations” with Ensemble 20+ will be 8 p.m. Nov. 13 at Gannon Concert Hall, DePaul University, 804 W. Belden Ave.; free; RSVP and more information at depaul.edu.

Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.

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