Go behind the scenes and observe CMNW’s world-class musicians working together to put the finishing touches on the music for upcoming performances. An informal Q&A follows the rehearsal. 

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FREE Open Rehearsal: JOHN LUTHER ADAMS World Premiere of “Prophecies of Fire”

Reed College

Don't miss the finale of this year's Sandbox Percussion Summer Seminar, where participants collaborate with Sandbox Percussion for a memorable culminating concert. This performance will feature the chamber works that seminar participants have prepared throughout the seminar.

Sandbox Percussion Seminar Closing Concert

Arnhold Hall

Sandbox Percussion and NOVUS NY present a third Renewal concert on December 3, at 4pm, in Trinity Church, featuring Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al and pieces inspired by Richard Powers’s powerful novel on activism, resistance, and the natural world— The Overstory: Jessica Meyer’s A Passage Between Earth and Sky and the collaborative eco-cantata by four composers and five authors, A Forest Unfolding. Free.

NOVUS NY Renewal: The Sound of a New World

Trinity Church

Sandbox Percussion performs composer Andy Akiho’s Grammy-nominated piece with captivating light design by theater director Michael McQuilken. Seven Pillars continuously flows percussion and light without pause to seamlessly integrate sounds and vision. Virtuosic, playful, and mesmerizing, this evening showcases an incredibly disciplined collective musical experience.

Sandbox Percussion

Walker Art Center

The table, and the stage, is set. The concert opens with Dvorak’s boisterous portrait of a street carnival before Gabriela Frank’s triumphant Escaramuza. The first half concludes when Sandbox Percussion, the second annual Fred & Charlotte Hubbell Visiting Artist In Residence, joins the Orchestra for Viet Cuong’s enthralling and magical Re(new)al, inspired by the power of nature. Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade evokes the tales of the legendary heroine and One Thousand and One Nights, bringing the concert to a dazzling close.

Discover Scheherazade

Des Moines Civic Center

Sandbox Percussion has established themselves as a leading proponent of this generation of contemporary percussion chamber music, captivating audiences with performances that are both visually and aurally striking while showcasing the imagination, integrity, and courage of their music making. Their unique mix of youthful energy with the precision of a well-established group is on full display in the Veterans Room with a lively program that vibrantly underscores their solid technique, rhythmical musicality, and lively showmanship including a world premiere piece by Chris Cerrone commissioned by the Armory and the New York premiere of Viet Cuong’s Next Week’s Trees.

Park Avenue Armory

Hailed by The New York Times as “a lush, brooding celebration of noise,” Andy Akiho’s GRAMMY-nominated Seven Pillars is his most ambitious project to date. The work is structured as a large-scale palindrome and consists of seven ensemble movements and one solo movement for each member of the critically acclaimed ensemble Sandbox Percussion. Michael McQuilken's lighting scheme reinforces the work's form throughout the theatrical live performance. Performed by Sandbox, this evening-length work is the largest-scale chamber music work that Akiho has written and that Sandbox has commissioned. Akiho and Sandbox's ongoing collaboration for Seven Pillars has spanned the past 8 years.

Seven Pillars

Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston

Part of Tippet Rise’s new Wander series, the innovative Sandbox Percussion will perform two Tippet Rise Commissions and World Premieres written by composers Amy Beth Kirsten and Douglas J. Cuomo, each written in response to sculptures on the land by artist Mark di Suvero. Beginning at Beethoven’s Quartet, Sandbox Percussion will premiere holy sonnet, a new work by Kirsten, known for her theatrical compositions and described by BBC Music Magazine as “one of America’s most innovative and visionary composers.” From there, musicians and audience members will hike together approximately one mile to Mark di Suvero’s Proverb. The ensemble will then perform a new work entitled Proverb by Douglas J. Cuomo, known for a range of expressive compositions written for the concert, opera, and theatrical stage, as well as for television and film. We are thrilled to welcome Sandbox Percussion, composed of members Jonny Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum, and Terry Sweeney, back to Tippet Rise for the third time – a group always eager to perform in nature and to explore the many synergies between art and landscape.

Wander series: Sandbox Percussion

Tippet Rise Art Center

Sandbox Percussion closes out the series and Bravo! Vail’s 36th Music Festival with John Cage’s Third Construction; George Crumb’s American Songbook III, Unto the Hills; and a selection of songs from Charles Ives, featuring the American soprano Susanna Phillips and Anne-Marie McDermott.

Classically Uncorked III: Sandbox Percussion

Donovan Pavilion

Hailed by The New York Times as “a lush, brooding celebration of noise,” Andy Akiho’s groundbreaking Seven Pillars is a genre-defying audio collaboration for percussion quartet, performed by Sandbox Percussion.

Classically Uncorked II: Sandbox Percussion

Sandbox Percussion opens the Classically Uncorked series with a dynamic program of new music and Bravo! Vail premieres, including works by Amy Beth Kirsten, David Crowell, Juri Seo, Viet Cuong, and Sandbox founder Victor Caccese.

Bravo! Vail’s Classically Uncorked returns with three bold chamber music programs cocurated and performed by Sandbox Percussion, a contemporary percussion quartet known for its visually and auditorily stunning presentations. Each Classically Uncorked program offers a unique chamber music experience with handcrafted wines and cabaret-style seating in the gorgeous Donovan Pavilion.

Classically Uncorked I: Sandbox Percussion

The next stop on the Music Box summer tour is at the Vail Farmers’ Market, as the Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion performs two eclectic sets of music hand-picked (get it?) for the occasion. This fun-for-the-whole-family experience includes audience participation, an instrument petting zoo, and a “big tent” approach to music-making.

Music Box III

Vail Farmer's Market

Described as “exhilarating” (The New York Times), and “virtuosic and utterly mesmerizing” (The Guardian), Brooklyn’s Sandbox Percussion has established themselves as a leading proponent of this generation of contemporary percussion chamber music. 2021’s Grammy-nominated record Seven Pillars is the jaw-dropping result of a years-long collaboration with trailblazing composer Andy Akiho. The boldly genre-defying collaboration consists of seven ensemble movements and one solo movement for each member of Sandbox. With a striking lighting scheme by Michael Joseph McQuilken, Seven Pillars is the largest-scale chamber music work that Akiho has written and that Sandbox has commissioned, with their collaboration spanning the past eight years. The 80-minute, 11-part work has a palindromic structure, with the “pillars” — all written for more than one musician — interspersed with four solos.

Sandbox Percussion — Andy Akiho’s Seven Pillars

McCallum Theatre

It begins softly. A single snare drum. Then, a flute. Gradually, each instrument of Pacific Symphony joins in, one after the other, until Ravel’s Boléro reaches one of the greatest climaxes in all of music. Also, Orli Shaham, Dennis Kim and Warren Hagerty perform Beethoven’s too-rarely encountered tour-de-force, the Triple Concerto.  Carl St.Clair begins the season with Wagner’s stormy overture to The Flying Dutchman, and Re(new)al, a new work by the brilliant young composer, Viet Cuong.

Sandbox Percussion

Jul 10, 2024

FREE Open Rehearsal: JOHN LUTHER ADAMS World Premiere of “Prophecies of Fire”

Jun 18, 2024

Sandbox Percussion Seminar Closing Concert

Sandbox Percussion