August 19, 2013

We are so excited to be posting our first ever newsletter! In case you didn’t know, we are a percussion quartet that came together in a similar way that children come together to play in a Sandbox, with the same purpose. In our case we all share the same passion and sought each other out to share that passion in chamber music.

It’s been a wild summer complete with a lot of planning and transitioning. Last spring members Jonathan Allen and Victor Caccese graduated with their Masters Degrees from the Yale School of Music. This fall Jonny will begin his third year at Yale pursuing his Artist Diploma. Victor has recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY and will be working full time for Sandbox. Besides being ecstatic to be Victor’s new next door neighbor, member Ian David Rosenbaum continues to tear up the New York scene. You can check out the cool things he’s doing here.

First and foremost, we’re pleased to announce the launch of our website. While here you can check out some pictures and videos from concerts at Washington College in Chestertown, MD and at the Yale Drama School where we collaborated with composer and sound designer, Palmer Hefferan. Our site’s development continues to be a work in progress, so keep an eye out for new features and updates. We thank Victor’s talented grandmother Olga Caccese, painting under the name Orucce, for the awesome cover art!

We have some interesting concerts coming up in the next few weeks. This month we are collaborating with composer and marimbist Rich O’Meara on two portrait concerts of his own works. These shows are on August 27 at the Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem and August 28 at the Hafele NYC Showroom in Manhattan. Included in the program is a NYC premiere of Impromptu for solo marimba and two of our favorite pieces by Steve Reich, Mallet Quartet and Music for Pieces of Wood. Both concerts are at 7pm, and on the 28th there will be a cocktail hour at 6pm leading up to the concert. The best part is (besides cocktail hour) admission is FREE, so if you’re around swing on by and check it out. We would love to see you there!

On Sunday September 8 we will be returning to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Brooklyn to begin our fall residency at the Concerts on the Slope series. This is a very special performance for us because it will be our two year anniversary as an ensemble. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long since we had our first rehearsal in Baltimore. Here’s to many more! The program will feature works by Steve Reich, Jason Treuting, and a special performance of Thomas Kotcheff’s exciting mallet quartet, Hammer/ring originally composed for the 2012 Norfolk New Music Workshop and dedicated to Sandbox. Thomas has since then extended and edited the piece which will make the performance of this version a world premiere. The church is located at 139 St. John’s Place in the middle of Brooklyn’s beautiful Park Slope. Admission is also FREE, so come on down and celebrate with us!

That’s about it for now. Stay tuned for more news about upcoming events in the near future. In the meantime enjoy the rest of your summer. This warm weather is not over with yet!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Allen, Garrett Arney, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum