Released: September 26, 2025
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Released: June 15, 2024
Label: Nonesuch Records
Artists: Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion
Released: September 15, 2023
Label: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Composer: David Lang
Released: August 19, 2022
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Julia Wolfe
Released: June 25, 2021
Label: Nonesuch Records
Artists: Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion
Released: January 29, 2021
Label: Brassland
Artists: Buke & Gase, Sō Percussion
Released: January 22, 2021
Label: Nonesuch Records
Composer: Caroline Shaw
Released: November 15, 2019
Label: New Amsterdam Records
Composer: Dan Trueman
Released: January 27, 2017
Label: Dog w/a Bone
Composer: Steve Reich
Released: April 14, 2017
Label: XAS Records
Composers: Steven Mackey, Ken Ueno, Stratis Minakakis
Released: February 26, 2016
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Glenn Kotche
Released: May 19. 2015
Label: Brassland
Composer: Bryce Dessner
Released: October 28. 2014
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Bobby Previte
Released: May 28. 2013
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Dan Trueman
Released: March 27. 2012
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composers: John Cage, Cenk Ergun, Martin Schmidt, Jason Treuting
Released: September 11. 2011
Label: Nonesuch
Composer: Steve Reich
Released: January 25. 2011
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Paul Lansky
Released: June 8. 2010
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Artists: Matmos, So Percussion
Released: October 10. 2006
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Jason Treuting
For its 25th Anniversary, Sō Percussion is releasing eight albums of new material from 25 favorite collaborators as a box set on Cantaloupe Music. This music ranges from noisy virtuosic quartets to music for mallet instruments, to electronics, to onstage collaborations with today’s music exciting artists. This program is a sample of that sprawling project.
Sō Percussion has long championed the work of American composers, and this program expands that category to include a wider range of voices and dynamic performers. Concurrent with innovations in experimental music, genres such as disco, jazz, hip-hop, tap dance, and rock n’ roll exploded in popularity and inevitably influenced concert music. These programs embrace the influence of these American art forms on composers.
Featuring: Helado Negro & Kate Stables
Recent collaborators Helado Negro (Roberto Lange) and Kate Stables (This is the Kit) add to Sō Percussion's string of successful vocal partnerships which have included Dawn Upshaw, Shara Nova, Shodekeh Talifero, and their Grammy-winning album with Caroline Shaw. Roberto and Kate joined Sō Percussion in 2025 to create an evening- length program of all new songs for Sō's two-week sold-out residency at The Brooklyn Academy of Music. Helado Negro’s latin-influenced electronic sounds and Kate Stables’ sophisticated English/Irish alt-folk charm fuse seamlessly with Sō Percussion’s percussive post-minimalism.
The legacy of Africa looms large in contemporary percussion music. Not just the rhythms; so many beloved instruments derive from West Africa; the marimba and xylophone grew out of the traditional balafon, for instance. Steve Reich's monumental Drumming drew on his work in Ghana and his background as a drummer in jazz-saturated New York City. Minimalism itself was a response to Africa and other global musical ideas previously unknown to Western ears. Sō designed a residency and concert that highlights this in a purposefully reflective and exhilarating program.
An intimate and varied program of "percussion chamber music" suitable for recital halls and smaller settings. This full-length concert uses a single marimba, four tables with small objects, a few drums, and an array of hand-held instruments all of which the group carries on tour. Audiences are treated to an up-close, acoustic experience, which includes sounds of the "lion's roar" (friction drum), a five-octave marimba played with fingertips and thimbles, hand held metal pipes, flower pots, and assorted household and found objects creating an array of unique sounds that are hallmarks of the quartets 25 years of performing together.
Sō Percussion & Caroline Shaw
Featuring: Ringdown (Caroline Shaw & Danni Lee)
In Sō's latest evening-length show, the ensemble provides a theatrical performance of songs by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, featuring Ringdown (Caroline Shaw & Danni Lee). Spanning years of working together across several albums, the evening-length performance is a band-generated theatrical experience, featuring staging and design by Director Mark DeChiazza. The musicians gradually place lights and reveal novel instruments as the show builds from a lone spotlight on Shaw to the ecstatic full ensemble performing thrilling up-tempo songs like "Sing On" and "To the Sky," as films by Sō Percussion member Jason Treuting splash across canvases throughout the stage. This production melds DIY design with dazzling original songs, to sensational effect.
Steve Reich's Drumming (1971), the continuous evening-length work in four parts for nine percussionists, two singers, and piccolo, stands at the summit of percussion ensemble repertoire. When prepared and performed live, Drumming easily transforms into a powerful two to three-day residency in which Sō Percussion teaches the work to five university percussionists who then join them onstage for the culminating performance. Reich's innovative concept of "phasing" —where musicians gradually speed up relative to the player next to them until they achieve a stable groove in canon—is incredibly exhilarating for both performers and audience members. It's a truly mesmerizing and revolutionary experience.
Sō's 2012 celebration of John Cage’s explosive legacy blew the roof off of Carnegie’s Zankel Hall! More than 10 years later, Sō has updated the program, which features both Cage’s work and that of current collaborators, to reflect both today’s interests and Cage’s timeless provocations. Favorite works such as the ultra-virtuosic, genre-defining Third Construction mix with ethereal chance-based pieces to express the range of Cage’s ideas.
Julius Eastman - Stay On It
Jason Treuting - Amid the Noise
Jason Treuting - Go Placidly with Haste
Steve Reich - Drumming
Select repertoire for Sō with orchestra.
Select repertoire for student collaborations.
