QUOTES & REVIEWS
“Endlessly musical and adventurous…”
“Wielding lightning-fast syncopated stickwork, Sandbox Percussion created a hypersonic morse code…”
– Musical America
“The energy in the room was palpable as the audience clapped after nearly every movement—usually a faux pas at any classical show. But what were we supposed to do after each incredible movement? Sit silently?… a stunning display of technicality throughout.”
–Oregon Arts Watch
“The coolest thing ever done… a showcase for some of today’s most inventive artists.”
– Oregon Arts Watch
“The quartet has quickly risen to be one of the world’s most prominent and accomplished new music percussion groups.”
– The Oregonian
“…strikingly original and frequently delivered with a soft touch.”
– Oregon Arts Watch
“Seven Pillars strikes a wonderful balance between timbral and rhythmic variety. It is a real showcase for everything the percussion ensemble is capable of when placed in the hands of four more-than-capable musicians like those in Sandbox Percussion, who exhibited a stunning display of technicality throughout.”
– Oregon Arts Watch
“Seven Pillars is pretty much as pure as music gets — it’s only “about” its own structure and self-imposed constrictions.”
– The New York Times
“Andy Akiho’s 11-part, 80-minute new work for percussion quartet is a lush, brooding celebration of noise.”
“…an incredibly disciplined collective musical intelligence: The Sandbox players execute hundreds of thousands of notes from a precisely notated score when they play “Seven Pillars.”
“One major highlight was the group’s riveting, stop-the-clocks Gilmore-commissioned performance of a work by Tyshawn Sorey. It was a stunning display of discipline, memory, coordination, use of space and piano as percussion instrument, offering offsetting vibes, gongs and water-glass/tape loop “bells,” all of it synchronized.”
– Downbeat
“This series included several premieres, among them Christopher Cerrone’s concerto for prepared piano and percussion quartet, which received an exhilarating performance by Conor Hanick and Sandbox Percussion.”
– The New York Times
“The virtuosic New York quartet play from memory, so attuned to each other that it all becomes performance art, utterly mesmerising to watch.”
– The Guardian
“Focusing on works written, more or less, last week by composers the group knows and works with, Sandbox brought out the immediacy, lack of pretension and high-end playfulness that seems — thankfully — to be revitalizing the world of contemporary music. And their jaw-dropping virtuosity made it all seem like . . . well, child’s play.”
– The Washington Post
“Sandbox Percussion let loose like a bombshell of raw talent”
– I Care if You Listen
“From the downbeat, the percussion quarter had the audience enthralled with a vigorous zest and machine-like precision. The group was so tight, it seemed that if one of them were to drop a beat, the other three would have known moments earlier and would have already adjusted.”
– I Care if You Listen
“With a crust of skills, talent and freshness, these young artists seem to be pushing their limits up in the skys, as I realized listening to them at Yale Summer School of Music. Sandbox Percussion is the promising group of the near future, battering right on your door.”
– (Aurél Holló – Amadinda Percussion Group)
“Sandbox Percussion are clearly an energetic ensemble with imagination, integrity and courage in their music making. … Sandbox’s mix of solid technique, musicality and showmanship ensured it was a hugely enjoyable evening all around.”
– I Care if You Listen
“The musicians of Sandbox threw themselves into the performance with the energy of youth and the precision of a well-established group, with a program that was both vibrant and exotic.”
– Feast of Music