Sandbox Percussion Wins a 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant
Congratulations to our client Sandbox Percussion, a fearless percussion quartet, for becoming the first-ever percussion ensemble to receive the prestigious award.
Brooklyn-based quartet becomes the first-ever percussion ensemble to receive award
The GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion, a quartet of established leaders in contemporary art music and percussion, received a 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant on March 20. The awards ceremony took place in the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR studios, where Sandbox Percussion and four other artists were announced as this year’s recipients of the career-advancing grant, which the Avery Fisher Artist Program awards every year to no more than five artists. The $25,000 grant provides professional assistance and recognizes instrumental artists who the program believes have great potential for major careers in classical music.
“We are deeply honored by this award from the distinguished Avery Fisher Artist Program,” said percussionist Ian Rosenbaum, who co-founded Sandbox Percussion in 2011 with fellow members Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, and Terry Sweeney through a mutual love of chamber music and contemporary composition. They are now an internationally renowned new-music quartet and have become the first percussion ensemble to receive the prestigious award. “We have looked up to many of the previous recipients and been inspired by them for years,” added Rosenbaum. “It’s exciting to become part of the celebrated history of this program.”
Deborah Borda, the Avery Fisher Artist Program Chair, and Nancy Fisher, daughter of the late Avery and Janet Fisher, presented the awards at the ceremony, which coincided with the program’s 50th anniversary. The annual ceremony includes a short performance by each selected artist and a professional recording. This year’s performances, which included music by the Balourdet Quartet, violinists Njioma Chinyere Grevious and Julian Rhee, and pianist Clayton Stephenson, besides Sandbox Percussion, will be broadcast on April 11 at 8 p.m. and April 13 at 7 p.m. on WQXR 105.9 FM.
2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipients (L-R) Balourdet Quartet, Njioma Chinyere Grevious, Clayton Stephenson, Julian Rhee, and Sandbox Percussion.
(Photo credit: Jennifer Taylor)
Sandbox Percussion performed “Pillar V” from the riotous Seven Pillars, a 2021 feature-length suite for percussion quartet composed by Andy Akiho and commissioned by Sandbox Percussion, which the New York Times called “a lush, brooding celebration of noise.” “Pillar V” is built around a hexatonic scale and an interminable ostinato; with each repetition, the music swells and presses forward relentlessly, ending with an obsessive acceleration of the six pitches of the scale. Seven Pillars earned Sandbox Percussion and Akiho a GRAMMY® nomination for “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance,” and the composer a “finalist” placement for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Since the world premiere in 2021, Sandbox Percussion has taken Seven Pillars on tour throughout the United States and Europe, with stage direction and lighting design by Michael Joseph McQuilken.
The Avery Fisher Career Grant will allow the recording and touring ensemble to jumpstart a follow-up commission from Akiho, a steelpan virtuoso with whom the quartet has a mutual synergy that resulted in the creation of Seven Pillars. The success of that work and its ongoing performance history has inspired Sandbox Percussion and Akiho to collaborate on a new piece, this time with Akiho joining the group on the steelpan. The planned quintet, about an hour long, will bring to fruition the potential that was discovered and cultivated throughout the collaborative process for Seven Pillars. It will add Akiho’s virtuosic talents as a performer. A recording and a tour as a live quintet are also in the works.
This season, Sandbox Percussion performed at the Park Avenue Armory’s Veterans Room, featuring premieres by Chris Cerrone and Viet Cuong, and at the 92nd Street Y with new-music specialist Conor Hanick on piano. In May, the quartet performs at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with acclaimed new-music performers Dawn Upshaw, Gilbert Kalish, and Alisa Weilerstein. Sandbox Percussion will also continue to champion Viet Cuong’s ingenious concerto for percussion quartet Re(new)al, which they have performed every season since the premiere in 2017.
In the summer, the ensemble will give the world premieres of Prophecies of Fire, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams; and To Sing or Dance, for violin and percussion quartet, by GRAMMY® winner Joan Tower, also featuring violinist Soovin Kim. Later this year and in upcoming seasons, Sandbox Percussion will also perform new music by Douglas J. Cuomo, Tyshawn Sorey, Paola Prestini, and Gabriel Kahane. Future album releases include music by Michael Torke and by Chris Cerrone.
To learn more about Sandbox Percussion, please visit sandboxpercussion.com.
New Sounds: Keyboard and "Percussion"
Hear music with piano and percussion of ALL kinds - from the inside of a piano with preparations, flower pots, ping pong balls, bowed vibraphone, and even echolocation by an endangered species of bat in works by Matt McBane and Sandbox Percussion, American composer Ellen Reid and the L.A. Percussion Quartet, and Andrew McIntosh for Yarn/Wire.
Listen to some of composer, producer, and violinist Matt McBane’s collaboration with Sandbox Percussion, Bathymetry -a “reference to how bass synthesizers affect percussive sounds, mimicking how the ocean floor shapes the waves above,” (National Sawdust event page.) McBane and Sandbox use monophonic Moog analog synthesizer, found instrument percussion (mixing bowls, ping pong balls, glass bottles), orchestral percussion and drum sets, drawing on minimalism and achieving something close to ambient music to evoke the mysterious underwater depths.
New Sounds
By John Schaefer
Hear music with piano and percussion of ALL kinds - from the inside of a piano with preparations, flower pots, ping pong balls, bowed vibraphone, and even echolocation by an endangered species of bat in works by Matt McBane and Sandbox Percussion, American composer Ellen Reid and the L.A. Percussion Quartet, and Andrew McIntosh for Yarn/Wire.
Listen to some of composer, producer, and violinist Matt McBane’s collaboration with Sandbox Percussion, Bathymetry -a “reference to how bass synthesizers affect percussive sounds, mimicking how the ocean floor shapes the waves above,” (National Sawdust event page.) McBane and Sandbox use monophonic Moog analog synthesizer, found instrument percussion (mixing bowls, ping pong balls, glass bottles), orchestral percussion and drum sets, drawing on minimalism and achieving something close to ambient music to evoke the mysterious underwater depths.
Read more here.
Fifteen Questions: Sandbox Percussion about Interpretation
When did you first start getting interested in musical interpretation?
Jonny Allen: The concept of interpretation first really came across my radar in college. Up until that point, I was mostly concerned with playing the music as faithfully as possible. This often meant playing as similarly as I could to recordings I found.
Many of my musical experiences were in the drumline of a marching band, where interpretation is all about precision and consistency. Dynamics are measured in the number of inches your sticks come off the drum, rhythms are meticulously subdivided and played with the utmost exactitude.
Fifteen Questions
When did you first start getting interested in musical interpretation?
Jonny Allen: The concept of interpretation first really came across my radar in college. Up until that point, I was mostly concerned with playing the music as faithfully as possible. This often meant playing as similarly as I could to recordings I found.
Many of my musical experiences were in the drumline of a marching band, where interpretation is all about precision and consistency. Dynamics are measured in the number of inches your sticks come off the drum, rhythms are meticulously subdivided and played with the utmost exactitude.
I actually think this was a healthy first step, but in college I realized how much further the subject of interpretation goes. Can you have a unique interpretation? Should you do that and if so why?
Read more here.
The Arts Desk: Dragonflies, harmoniums and folded paper
Two discs of music by American contemporary composer Andy Akiho have caught my ear in recent months. Born in 1979, his biography states that “he spent most of his 20s playing steel pan by ear in Trinidad and began composing at 28,” the physicality and theatricality involved in playing steel pans an essential element of Akiho’s music. Have a look at “Pillar IV” from the vast percussion piece Seven Pillars on YouTube; watching three members of Brooklyn’s Sandbox Percussion in action (look out for the wine bottles) is absorbing.
The Arts Desk
By Graham Rickson
Two discs of music by American contemporary composer Andy Akiho have caught my ear in recent months. Born in 1979, his biography states that “he spent most of his 20s playing steel pan by ear in Trinidad and began composing at 28,” the physicality and theatricality involved in playing steel pans an essential element of Akiho’s music. Have a look at “Pillar IV” from the vast percussion piece Seven Pillars on YouTube; watching three members of Brooklyn’s Sandbox Percussion in action (look out for the wine bottles) is absorbing. Seven Pillars is a huge, eleven-movement opus, written for Sandbox between 2018 and 2019, and described by one of the group as “the culminating project of our first decade as an ensemble.” “Pillar IV”, was conceived first as a standalone work, Akiho later adding six more quartet movements and interspersing them with solo sections, each one introducing a new instrument that becomes part of the ensemble.
Read more here.
Gramophone: Video of the Day: Sandbox Percussion & Matt McBane
Sandbox Percussion & Matt McBane perform 'Groundswell' from their latest album 'Bathymetry', released on November 4, which draws on various strains of classical minimalism and modern electronic music production
Grammy-nominated percussion quartet Sandbox Percussion’s latest collaboration with composer Matt McBane introduces the world of analog synthesizer through their album, Bathymetry, released on 4 November. It draws on various strains of classical minimalism and modern electronic music production, taking influence the world of YouTube ASMR(autonomous sensory meridian response) and ambient modular synth.
Gramophone
Sandbox Percussion & Matt McBane perform 'Groundswell' from their latest album 'Bathymetry', released on November 4, which draws on various strains of classical minimalism and modern electronic music production
Grammy-nominated percussion quartet Sandbox Percussion’s latest collaboration with composer Matt McBane introduces the world of analog synthesizer through their album, Bathymetry, released on 4 November. It draws on various strains of classical minimalism and modern electronic music production, taking influence the world of YouTube ASMR(autonomous sensory meridian response) and ambient modular synth.
An initial single ‘Groundswell’ is available to watch below, scored for two drum sets (panned left and right), Moog analog synthesizer, vibraphone, and tam-tam. Over the track’s 7 minutes, according to the artists ‘two big waves of sound are formed as layers of interlocking patterns of cycling polymeters build up and then recede in an ecstatic meditation’.
Read more here.
I Care If You Listen: 5 Questions to Viet Cuong
On September 22-24, the Pacific Symphony and the endlessly musical and adventurous Sandbox Percussion will perform Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al concerto. The three continuous movements of Re(new)al explore the power of hydro, wind, and solar energies through the brilliant use of found objects and orchestral instrumentation.
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN
By Anne Goldberg-Baldwin
On September 22-24, the Pacific Symphony and the endlessly musical and adventurous Sandbox Percussion will perform Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al concerto. The three continuous movements of Re(new)al explore the power of hydro, wind, and solar energies through the brilliant use of found objects and orchestral instrumentation. The hydro movement uses tuned crystal glasses to create an otherworldly sound environment, while the second movement is transformed into marching band-style drum line licks and bold brass bursts. The third movement reflects on the sun’s energy and power through metallic percussion instruments. Cuong also takes special care in choosing players’ orientations to one another, as well as specific choreographic instructions as the piece develops. Following the Pacific Symphony performance, Sandbox Percussion will bring Re(new)al to Carnegie Hall with American Composers Orchestra on October 20.
Read more here.
The Oregonian: Portland composer Andy Akiho’s ‘Seven Pillars’ blends sound and light into a percussion extravaganza
Created by Portlanders past and present, Chamber Music Northwest’s “Seven Pillars” is more than a concert. Composer Andy Akiho’s 11-movement extravaganza for Sandbox Percussion quartet also integrates stage director Michael McQuilken’s colorful lighting effects and stage design that add up to a multicolored dance of light and sound.
The Oregonian
By Brett Campbell
Created by Portlanders past and present, Chamber Music Northwest’s “Seven Pillars” is more than a concert. Composer Andy Akiho’s 11-movement extravaganza for Sandbox Percussion quartet also integrates stage director Michael McQuilken’s colorful lighting effects and stage design that add up to a multicolored dance of light and sound.
It’s also a showcase for some of today’s most inventive artists. Akiho created “Seven Pillars” explicitly for and with Sandbox and McQuilken. The quartet has quickly risen to be one of the world’s most prominent and accomplished new music percussion groups. Another opera designed by McQuilken, “Angel’s Bone,” won the 2016 Pulitzer. Sandbox’s recording of “Seven Pillars” earned a pair of Grammy nominations.
Read more here.