Professional ensemble Sandbox Percussion collaborates with music students for performance of student-created works
by Cami Yates
Chattering students, parents and excited faculty members fill up Bates Recital Hall, their voices echoing as they find their seats and wave to the five student composers who crowd around one another near the stage. The stage holds only a few percussion instruments — a glockenspiel, a vibraphone, a set of hand drums, a kick drum and a couple of music stands. After introductions, four men step out from the wings of the stage and go to their respective instruments. The four of them look at one another, raise their mallets and hands, take in deep breaths.
And the music begins.
“It was such a magical experience,” said Joe Jaxson, a first-year music composition graduate student in the Butler School of Music. “Sitting there, it was just revitalizing to hear Sandbox perform my piece.”
Sandbox Percussion is a Grammy Award-nominated percussion quartet formed in 2011 with members Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum and Terry Sweeney. Last fall at the McCullough Theatre, Sandbox Percussion performed Andy Akiho’s Seven Pillars, an 80-minute, 11-part palindromic structure, with the “pillars” interspersed with four solos. Associate Professor of Composition Yevgeniy Sharlat had proposed inviting the group and was elated when he saw the project announced as part of Texas Performing Arts’ 2022-23 season.
“As soon as I found that out, I immediately wrote to Ian [Rosenbaum],” Sharlat said. “I said, ‘Hey, how about we plan something with the students while you’re here?’”
Sandbox Percussion agreed to meet with five students — on a first-come, first-served basis — who would work on composition pieces throughout the rest of the fall semester. Sandbox Percussion would then return to campus in February to perform the student works. For their compositions, the students could use only a limited number of percussion instruments in their arrangement, a constraint that tested how each composer approached the same medium. As part of the initial visit, Texas Performing Arts arranged a session for the whole composition studio to get a demonstration of those instruments and tips on how to write for them. Five composers stepped forward for the opportunity: Sebastian Zhang, Ginny Wang, Josiah Garza, Joe Jaxson and Ethan Gurwitz.
“I jumped on it,” said Gurwitz, a first-year composition graduate student. His piece, Life Speeds Up, explores his experience of the passage of time. “I had never written for a percussion ensemble, but it was very high on my to-do list. Sandbox Percussion are world-class, so it was the perfect opportunity. It was definitely a core memory kind of experience.”
Each student chose a faculty member to oversee and advise their project throughout the fall, but they mostly worked on their own time until their deadline in January. In February, the rehearsals with Sandbox Percussion gave the composers their first chance to hear their pieces performed and to make any last-minute changes, if needed. It also gave them the opportunity to observe how a professional ensemble of that size worked together, listening to the composers’ vision while also adding their own interpretation to the performance.
“Sandbox Percussion is an ensemble I’ve looked up to for quite some time, and it was the first time I had ever workshopped a piece with anyone,” said Zhang, a music studies sophomore with percussion as his primary instrument. His piece, Bubblegum Eyes, was a composition based around nostalgia, trauma, dreams and growth, all under the guise of misshapen cartoon popsicles. “It was mind-blowing how amazingly they worked together.”
Sandbox Percussion performed six pieces, including one by ensemble member Victor Caccese. Each student went up on stage to introduce their finished piece, describing what it was about and their creative process. The students’ passion and excitement came through in their speeches, as some showed visible emotion as they described how personal these pieces had become. Each piece ranged in style, tone and mood, fluctuating between upbeat, languid, boastful and, at one point, nearly silent.
“It was a really nice partnership between composer and performer,” said Sandbox Percussion member Jonathan Allen. “It’s the main reason why we did this program — to instill this idea that a great piece of music happens because of this dynamic between both sides.”