Sandbox Percussion Brings "Canto Ostinato" to Emerald City Music

Sandbox Percussion, the exciting New York-based group at the forefront of contemporary music for percussion, performed Canto Ostinato at Seattle’s Emerald City Music. Written by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt (1923-2012), Canto Ostinato is a classic of Minimalism that emerged alongside much better-known masterpieces in a similar style, particularly Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. The April 10 performance was part of Sandbox’s residency this season with Emerald City Music, under the artistic direction of Kristin Lee.

The project is a collaboration between multi-instrumentalist and arranger Erik Hall and Sandbox Percussion, with an expanded ensemble of winds, strings, and additional percussion assembled through the new-music collective Metropolis Ensemble. The 16 musicians included faculty and students from the University of Washington School of Music, with Hall at the piano, and winds, strings and an expanded percussion group anchored by the four Sandbox members.

Critic Tom May reports:

This fuller chamber setting gave the internal workings of ten Holt’s design a new, more textured dimension. Small dissonances — sometimes absorbed in the keyboard original — emerged with sharper profile, introducing moments of piquant friction, while carefully calibrated swells and ebbs gave the larger ensemble passages an oceanic breadth, like the breathing of a single organism.

Read the full piece here.

(Photos by Carliln Ma)