Sō Percussion

The Brooklyn-rooted four-piece So Percussion has expanded the conventional idea of a percussion ensemble by interpreting modern classical works alongside an extensive roster of composers, instrumentalists, and recording artists drawn from numerous styles. Beyond standard drums and percussion tools, the group constructs custom instruments and performs on objects ranging from teacups and walnut planks to flowerpots and amplified cactus. After issuing two albums devoted to other composers’ material, they introduced their own pieces on the 2006 release Amid the Noise. Electronic outfit Matmos joined them for the 2010 album Treasure State, while trumpeter Dave Douglas appeared on 2011’s Bad Mango. Further partnerships that decade encompassed composer Steve Reich on both the 2011 album WTC 9/11 and 2017’s Drumming Live. Into the following decade the group sustained its broad associations, teaming with composer Caroline Shaw on the Grammy-winning Narrow Sea and on Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, then with Buke & Gase on the 2021 set A Record Of …. Shaw became a member for the 2024 album Rectangles and Circumstance.

So Percussion formed while its members were graduate students at the Yale School of Music, although Jason Treuting remains the only original participant. Adam Sliwinski entered in 2002, Josh Quillen in 2006, and Eric Beach in 2007. Their initial focus centered on repertoire by twentieth-century figures such as John Cage, Steve Reich, George Crumb, and Iannis Xenakis. An encounter with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Bang on a Can co-founder David Lang altered and broadened their direction. Lang supplied their first commissioned piece, the three-movement “The So-Called Laws of Nature,” in 2002; it appeared with Evan Ziporyn’s “Melody Competition” on the self-titled 2004 debut issued by Cantaloupe Music. The ensemble subsequently began commissioning additional scores from composers including Steven Mackey and Paul Lansky, alongside Lang.

In 2005 the quartet presented a fresh realization of Reich’s Drumming, with all four members handling the nine percussion parts while the composer’s vocal ensemble participated. Extending their scope, they began creating original material, commencing with Treuting’s Amid the Noise, issued that same year and accompanied by videos from Jenise Treuting. In 2007 they founded their own imprint, shhh Productions, to issue projects falling outside their Cantaloupe Music agreement; its first release was an audio-video edition of Dan Trueman’s Five (And-a-Half) Gardens, performed by So Percussion and Trollstilt with visual art by Judy Trueman.

During 2008 the ensemble developed the Music for Trains initiative in southern Vermont through a month-long residency featuring concerts in and around Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, including the local train stations. The programs incorporated pre-recorded MP3 players for train listening, assorted objects collected from residents, an on-stage sculpture by Ahren Ahrenholz, and projected video. The following year brought the full-evening work Imaginary City, drawn from Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities and utilizing source material from the six commissioning and performing locales—Brooklyn, Houston, Cleveland, Helena, Denver, and Burlington—along with video by Jenise Treuting and direction by Rinde Eckert. Also in 2009 the So Percussion Summer Institute (SoSI) was established on the Princeton University campus.

The ensemble’s earliest documented non-classical collaboration arrived with the 2010 album Treasure State alongside American electronic band Matmos, marking the start of continued sonic exploration. Subsequent projects and appearances involved figures such as Dan Deacon, Bobby Previte, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Glenn Kotche, and the Dirty Projectors. The group was additionally named co-directors of a newly formed percussion department at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Although written for them in 2005, Lansky’s Threads received its So Percussion recording in January 2011, inaugurating a productive year. September saw the release of their account of Reich’s Mallet Quartet on the composer’s Nonesuch album WTC 9/11, together with their own rendition of Mackey’s It Is Time on Cantaloupe. October brought Bad Mango, the documented partnership with Dave Douglas issued on the trumpeter’s Greenleaf Music label, and the ensemble’s performance of Martin Bresnick’s Caprichos Enfaticos on Cantaloupe; November followed with David Lang’s score for the film The Woodmans.

March 2012 marked Cage’s centennial through three American presentations titled We Are All Going in Different Directions, each program assembled from varying pieces in keeping with the composer’s principle of indeterminacy, with contributions from Martin Schmidt, Deacon, Cenk Ergün, and Beth Meyers; a limited commemorative recording appeared in an edition of 300 copies. September yielded Where (we) Live, a collaboration with guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Grey McMurray that was also presented in multi-artist, multimedia formats. The digital release of Trueman’s “laptop/percussion quartet with turntable” piece Neither Anvil Nor Pulley, which had premiered live in 2010, arrived in 2013. Man Forever (John Colpitts, also known as Kid Millions) enlisted So Percussion as co-billed partners on the April 2014 Thrill Jockey album Ryonen. Later that year Previte’s Terminals featured the ensemble throughout, with guest appearances by Nels Cline, John Medeski, Greg Osby, and Zeena Parkins.

The group next documented Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings in 2015 and Glenn Kotche’s Drumkit Quartets in 2016 before issuing Drumming Live in 2017, which captured a 2013 performance of Reich’s Drumming at New York’s (Le) Poisson Rouge and added a reading of the composer’s Clapping Music performed by So Percussion together with Reich. The percussionists subsequently appeared on Prism Quartet’s Color Theory, a 2016 collection of saxophone-and-instruments pieces also released in 2017. Trueman composed Songs That Are Hard to Sing for So Percussion and the string ensemble JACK Quartet; the recording appeared on New Amsterdam Records in 2019.

Entering the new decade, the ensemble collaborated with singer/violinist/composer Caroline Shaw on her 2020 project Narrow Sea, which received the 2021 Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. That year also produced Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part from Shaw and So Percussion, as well as A Record Of … with Buke & Gase. In 2024 So Percussion, now including Shaw as a member, released the ten-song collaboration Rectangles and Circumstance.