Sunken Garden
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In this immersive outdoor premiere, GRAMMY-nominated composer Christopher Cerrone explores the fundamental human journey of learning to exist in the world. Inspired by Robert Frost's poetry, The Only Way is Through traces the path from first sounds to full understanding. During the piece, Sandbox Percussion will physically assemble their instruments from raw materials—loose wooden bars, individual bells, scattered pipes—and the sounds of construction will become the music itself: the clatter of materials, the testing of pitches, the gradual building of something coherent from elemental parts. The Young People's Chorus of New York City will move among them, bringing components to the musicians, their physical journey mirroring their vocal evolution from wordless sounds to fully formed language. Throughout, the audience is invited to move freely through the Sunken Garden, navigating their own relationship with the unfolding work, experiencing the joy and struggle of watching consciousness take shape.
Sandbox Percussion
Young People’s Chorus of New York City
Francisco J. Núñez, Artistic Director
Mary Birnbaum, director
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE: The Only Way is Through (World premiere, co-commissioned by Caramoor)
Rain or Shine Policy: All events at Caramoor take place rain or shine. In the event of inclement weather, this performance will move indoors or under a covered space.
The “exhilarating” (The New York Times) and “utterly mesmerizing” (The Guardian) GRAMMY®-nominated Sandbox Percussion champions living composers through its unwavering dedication to contemporary chamber music. In 2011, Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum, and Terry Sweeney were brought together by their interest in expanding the percussion repertoire. Today, they are established leaders in contemporary music for percussion, engaging a wider audience for classical music through collaborations with leading composers and artists.
In 2025, Sandbox Percussion made its debut on NPR’s Tiny Desk with a genre-defying program of pieces by Andy Akiho and Viet Cuong; and, in 2024, they recorded percussion for the feature film The Wild Robot (DreamWorks). Sandbox Percussion is the first percussion ensemble to receive the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant; at the 2024 ceremony, they performed “Pillar V,” from Seven Pillars, Akiho’s 2021 suite for percussion quartet, which The New York Times called “as pure as music gets.” It was nominated for two GRAMMY® awards and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Building on that success, Sandbox Percussion and Akiho embark on a project in 2025-26 to create a new work with Akiho joining on steelpan; “Pentalateral I,” the first completed movement, is available now as a single. Throughout the season, the quintet continues to create and record the rest of the piece, giving premieres of individual movements in select venues.
Sandbox Percussion also continues to champion Re(new)al, Cuong’s green energy and environment-themed 2017 concerto for percussion quartet. They reunite for the world premiere of a new work by Cuong to be performed with the Albany Symphony, which commissioned and premiered Re(new)al.
Another season highlight is the collaboration with violinist Kristin Lee, the founder and artistic director of Seattle’s Emerald City Music, where Sandbox Percussion is ensemble-in-residence this season. Together, they present a Vivian Fung world premiere, and the Pacific Northwest premiere of recent works by Joan Tower and Gabriella Smith. Lee joins Sandbox Percussion again at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for Sonic Spectrum IV, a program that includes Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra.
Over the season, Sandbox Percussion performs Simeon ten Holt’s minimalist work Canto Ostinato. The group’s arrangement for percussion quartet and two pianos was performed at Lincoln Center Summer for the City. A new recording by Sandbox Percussion, Erik Hall, and Metropolis Ensemble is scheduled for release in spring 2026 on the Western Vinyl label. At Duke University, Sandbox Percussion and the Tyshawn Sorey Trio present Max Roach at 100, a tribute to the influential jazz drummer. At Stanford Live, Sandbox Percussion joins the choir The Crossing for You Are Who I Love, the last work by the late Harold Meltzer, set to Aracelis Girmay’s poem about the undocumented immigrant experience in the U.S.
The group’s latest album is the three-time GRAMMY®-nominated Don’t Look Down (PENTATONE, 2025), featuring music by Christopher Cerrone. Other recent releases include BLOOM, with music by Michael Torke (Ecstatic Records, 2024); and Past Life / Lifeline, with music by Ellis Ludwig-Leone (Better Company Records, 2024).
Sandbox Percussion holds the positions of ensemble-in-residence and percussion faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and The New School’s College of Performing Arts, where they have created a curriculum with entrepreneurship and chamber music at its core. The 2025-26 season is the group’s second year on faculty at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Sandbox Percussion endorses Pearl/Adams musical instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Remo drumheads, and Black Swamp accessories.
sandboxpercussion.com
The Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) is a multicultural youth chorus internationally renowned for its superb virtuosity, brilliant showmanship, and innovative model of artistic excellence and diversity that enriches the community. Founded by Artistic Director Francisco J. Núñez, a MacArthur Fellow and Musical America’s 2018 Educator of the Year, YPC’s mission and values are deeply rooted in providing children of all cultural and economic backgrounds with a unique program of music education and choral performance. It is committed to empowering its youth and providing pathways to success through the arts so that each child, no matter what race, gender, socioeconomic background, or religion can reach their full potential.
When a child becomes a part of YPC, something magical happens: They transform into more than they thought they could ever be. That’s because YPC has a secret formula, a magic key that we call The Key of Love—a practice that is reflected in the success of our choristers and the quality of our music.
Among YPC's many awards is America’s highest honor for youth programs, a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, which was presented to members of YPC at the White House. YPC also earned the distinction of “Choir of the World” in July 2018 at the International Choral Kathaumixw (Powell River, British Columbia), marking the first time a North American chorus has ever won this title in the 34-year history of Kathaumixw. In 2023, YPC won five gold medals – three as world champions – at the 12th World Choir Games, the world’s largest international choir competition. Its feature-length holiday special Topsy Turvy New York won a 66th Annual New York Emmy® Award.
Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984) is internationally acclaimed for compositions characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. His GRAMMY-winning work balances lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details.
Cerrone's recent opera, In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), jointly produced by LA Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, received its sold-out premiere run in March 2022. The opera made its New York debut at the PROTOTYPE Festival in January 2025 and was named to The New York Times's Best Classical Performances of 2025, praised for "Cerrone's coolly caressing music, with its eerie haze of electronic and acoustic textures," which "deepens the mystery and leaves listeners suspended between ambiguity and wonder." Beaufort Scales, an oratorio commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble and premiered at Mass MoCA, earned him a GRAMMY nomination. His recent orchestral works include The Year of Silence, based on Kevin Brockmeier's story, for the Louisville Symphony and Dashon Burton; A Body, Moving, a brass concerto for the Cincinnati Symphony; Breaks and Breaks, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; The Insects Became Magnetic, an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and The Air Suspended, a piano concerto for Shai Wosner.
Cerrone's first opera, Invisible Cities, was a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist, receiving its fully-staged world premiere in a production by The Industry in Los Angeles' Union Station, where it played to sold-out audiences over 22 performances. In July 2019, New Amsterdam Records released his GRAMMY-nominated sophomore effort, The Pieces that Fall to Earth, collaborating with Wild Up. The Arching Path, released on In a Circle Records in 2021, earned his second GRAMMY nomination. His latest album, Don't Look Down (2025, PENTATONE Records), features collaborations with Sandbox Percussion, pianist Conor Hanick, and mezzo-soprano Elspeth Davis and won the GRAMMY for Best Engineered Album, Classical. The Washington Post praised the title work: "Cerrone is a composer with poetry and wit to spare, and both are put to use in 'Don't Look Down,' one of his most adventurous and inviting pieces to date." Cerrone won the 2015-2016 Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition and was a resident at the Laurenz Haus Foundation in Basel, Switzerland from 2022–2023.
Christopher Cerrone holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. He is published by Schott NY and Project Schott New York and in 2021 joined the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School. He lives in Jersey City with his wife and their young son.
