Introductions and More:
12:00pm – 1:30 EDT
Who doesn’t love a good icebreaker? We’re all coming in with our favorites to make sure the atmosphere is just right for the work we’ll do together this week. You’ll get to hear some Sandbox bloopers—possibly even from our concert the night before. We’ll also show you around our rehearsal space, introduce the small group project that we will all work on all week, and field any questions there may be.
Small Group Session
1:45pm – 3:00pm EDT
One of our goals for the week is to give everyone the experience of pursuing a commission and curating a program. Aside from actual performing and rehearsing, this is one of the most artistically stimulating things that Sandbox does and we would love for everyone to see what goes into it. Participants will be put into small groups, each with a member of Sandbox to help facilitate conversation. All the groups will have one common piece to serve as the first artistic kernel. That piece is Dark Full Ride, by Julia Wolfe and a recording of the piece can be found here. Groups will then dream up a piece they would like to commission as part of the program. This involves decisions about who to commission, how long of a piece, what sort of instrumentation, any other aesthetic or thematic constraints, etc. The rest of the music (if any) is also up to the group – you will decide what works best logistically, aesthetically, and thematically. These sessions will continue each day and culminate with a presentation at the end of the week, complete with narration from members of each group guiding us all through your choices.
Kendall K. Williams Presentation
4:00pm – 5:00pm EDT
Check out Kendall’s bio to get a sense for what an inspiring artist he is. Kendall also happens to be the composer of Walk, March, Run, the piece that we’ll be remotely recording and performing together. Kendall will talk to us about his trajectory as a musician and as a human being. Bring any questions you may have.
Open Rehearsal with Sandbox – Pillar III by Andy Akiho
5:00pm – 6:00pm EDT
In this class, Sandbox will give the participants a “behind-the-scenes” look into our rehearsal process. You’ll have the chance to watch Sandbox dissect and discover a new piece while observing exactly how we make musical decisions and work together in a rehearsal. We’ll also talk about general rehearsal techniques we use, and how those may change depending on who you’re working with.
Rhythmicity
6:00pm – 7:00pm EDT
Often percussionists are expected to have better rhythm than other musicians, and this isn’t completely unreasonable. Thanks to the articulate nature that most of our instruments possess, and the rapidity with which these articulations can be manifested and conceptualized, percussionists have the opportunity to develop an extremely high resolution representation of rhythm. This responsibility for rhythmic accuracy and precision can be daunting, but after this class, you’ll have many tools for practicing it.