Cerrone: Don't Look Down Sandbox Percussion, Conor Hanick, Elspeth Davis

• Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984): Don't Look Down:
• 1 Cerrone: Don't Look Down: I. Hammerspace 04:46
• 2 Cerrone: Don't Look Down: II. The Great Empty 05:26
• 3 Cerrone: Don't Look Down: III. Caton Flats 06:14
• A Natural History of Vacant Lots:
• 4 Cerrone: A Natural History of Vacant Lots 09:01
• Goldbeater's Skin:
• 5 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: I. Apocastasis 02:46
• 6 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: II. Interlude 1 - Wood 02:12
• 7 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: III. In My Dream 01:51
• 8 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: IV. Interlude 2 - Metal 01:48
• 9 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: V. My Companion and I 04:07
• 10 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: VI. Interlude 3 - Skin - Fatal Exception 01:58
• 11 Cerrone: Goldbeater's Skin: VII. Against the Madness of Crowds 04:12
• Ode to Joy:
• 12 Cerrone: Ode to Joy 09:42
• Total Runtime 54:03

Info zu Cerrone: Don't Look Down

Don’t Look Down is an accidental diary of having lived through the worst pandemic of the last hundred years. When I started writing this piece in February 2020, it would be inconceivable to imagine the world we live in now. The one thing that kept me sane during this period was clocking into work—that is, working on this piece. So looking back, it’s not at all surprising the piece would wind up reflecting both the strangeness and the instability of the world we live in.

The title of the work takes its name from an article by the economist Paul Krugman, himself referring to the moment when the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote would look down and suddenly realize he’d fallen off a cliff, at which point he would actually drop. The first movement, “Hammerspace,” is the world before: all grooving and relentless energy. The pianist hammers away at the high notes of the piano which have all been muted with putty. I imagined his part as like a drum solo performed in an echo chamber—the rhythmic muted notes create unique and fantastic sympathetic resonances with the lower strings of the instrument when the pedal is held down. A variety of percussion instruments support him, from the more traditional to drum set to other oddities like a bicycle pump and sandpaper block.

The piece “looks down” at the start of the second movement, “The Great Empty,” when all of sudden, all of the energy stops and we are left with an uncertain and static soundscape: instead of playing the piano, the pianist “bows” the instrument by drawing fishing tackle over the strings. The percussionists play cheap harmonicas and blow over the tops of wine bottles alongside other instruments to create a dissonant and deliberately out-of-tune sound world. The piano part that interjects halfway through is similarly out-of-tune: the pianist has placed small pieces of putty, causing the piano to sound as out of tune as the percussion instruments. The title of the movement is drawn from a photographic series that was shown in the New York Times of city centers devoid of people.

The final movement, “Caton Flats,” refers to a construction site active on my block in Brooklyn. When I was working on this movement in my studio, my partner, Carrie, walked into the room and remarked that the music “sounds like the construction going on outside”! I loved the idea so much that I had to include it in the piece. I also loved the idea that the things that most drive us crazy—like noisy construction on our street—could become a thing of nostalgia when it’s gone.

Don’t Look Down was commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for Conor Hanick and Sandbox Percussion, with additional support provided by Sandbox Percussion.

"But the premiere of Christopher Cerrone’s “Don’t Look Down,” an 18-minute concerto for prepared piano and percussion quartet, was the highlight. As he explained in an interview before the performance, Mr. Cerrone began composing the score just as the shutdowns started in March, and finished it only recently. So it’s a piece written in lockdown. The piano is prepared similarly to John Cage’s innovative techniques, but with fewer screws and pieces of metal inserted between the piano strings, and more materials like putty — which dampens and distorts sounds — and fishing wire, which allows the strings to be bowed to create eerie, whining tones.

The first movement, “Hammerspace,” begins with the whooshing of a bike pump and droning gongs. In time, restless riffs played with mallets burst forth. Amid rushes of rhythmic, spiraling figures on the prepared piano, fragments for the percussion instruments coalesced into fleeting almost-melodies.

The second movement, “The Great Empty,” is more elemental, with music gurgling and heaving over ominous bass tones in the piano. The final movement, “Caton Flats,” is named for the mixed-use development in Brooklyn where Mr. Cerrone lives. As he said in the interview, the music recalls the metallic noise of construction crews at work in his neighborhood this summer." (Anthony Tomassini, The New York Times)

Sandbox Percussion
Conor Hanick, piano
Elspeth Davis, mezzo-soprano

Sandbox percussion
Described as “exhilarating” by The New York Times and “utterly mesmerizing” by The Guardian, the GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble 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 love of chamber music and the simple joy of playing together; they have since captivated audiences with performances that are both visually and aurally stunning. In 2024, Sandbox Percussion became the first percussion ensemble to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The 2021 album Seven Pillars, featuring Andy Akiho’s title piece, was nominated for two GRAMMY® awards. Following performances throughout the United States and Europe, Sandbox Percussion performs Seven Pillars in October at the Beijing Music Festival. They will also perform the piece at select dates throughout the 2024-25 season.

This season, Sandbox Percussion and the Tyshawn Sorey Trio collaborate on a special Max Roach tribute with live performances that include the 92nd Street Y and the Library of Congress. Together, the two groups explore the extraordinary legacy of jazz pioneer Max Roach, who was born 100 years ago.

Sandbox Percussion recently teamed up with composer Michael Torke, who created the hourlong piece BLOOM for the group. The world premiere of BLOOM will take place in December at Tishman Auditorium, at The New School, New York City, following the album release in August, via Ecstatic Records.

In October, Sandbox Percussion performs at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, collaborating with the London-based Gandini Juggling. Over the season, Sandbox Percussion will also perform music by Viet Cuong, Julius Eastman, Gabriel Kahane, Gabriella Smith, Paola Prestini, and Doug Cuomo.

Sandbox Percussion recently recorded percussion music for its first feature film: The Wild Robot (DreamWorks, 2024), an animated science fiction survival film with music by Kris Bowers. The first recording of Lifeline, a vibrant percussion quartet composed by Ellis Ludwig-Leone for Sandbox Percussion, will be released on the album Past Life / Lifeline in December, on Better Company Records. A new album celebrating the group’s long-standing collaboration with Christopher Cerrone will be released in February on PENTATONE Records, including the piece Ode To Joy, co-commissioned by the group in 2023.

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. Starting in 2024-25, Sandbox Percussion will also be on faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Sandbox Percussion endorses Pearl/Adams musical instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Remo drumheads, and Black Swamp accessories.

Conor Hanick
is regarded as one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music new and old whose “technical refinement, color, crispness and wondrous variety of articulation benefit works by any master.” (New York Times) Hanick has recently worked with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ludovic Morlot, Alan Gilbert, and David Robertson; collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Juilliard Orchestra; and been presented by the Gilmore Festival, New York Philharmonic, Elbphilharmonie, De Singel, Centre Pompidou, Cal Performances, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Park Avenue Armory, and the Ojai Festival, where in 2022 with AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company) he served as the festival’s artistic director.

A fierce advocate for the music of today, Hanick has premiered over 200 pieces and collaborated with composers ranging from Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, and Steve Reich, to the leading composers of his generation, including Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey, Anthony Cheung, and Samuel Carl Adams, whose piano concerto, No Such Spring, he premiered in 2023 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. This season Hanick presents solo and chamber recitals in the US and Europe, including concerts at the Wallis, Cal Performances, Segerstrom Center, Stanford Live, Guild Hall, Musikverein, and elsewhere. He appears with the Phoenix and Alabama Symphonies, collaborates with Julia Bullock, Seth Parker Woods, Timo Andres, and the JACK Quartet, and premieres solo and chamber works by Tania León, Nico Muhly, Matthew Aucoin, and others.

Hanick is the director of Solo Piano at the Music Academy of the West and serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School, Mannes College, and the CUNY Graduate Center. He lives with his family in the Hudson Valley.

Christopher Cerrone
(b. 1984, New York) is internationally acclaimed for his compositions. His work is characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. Cerrone's music balances lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details, dramatic impact and interiority. His three-time GRAMMY-nominated compositions are utterly compelling and uniquely his own.

Beaufort Scales, an oratorio for voices, electronics, and video, was commissioned and performed by Lorelei Ensemble and premiered at Mass MoCA in November 2023; its recording on Cold Blue Music earned him his latest GRAMMY nomination. His opera In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), premiered in March 2022 to sold-out audiences in a co-production by Pittsburgh Opera and LA Opera, directed by Mary Birnbaum. The opera had its midwestern premiere at Northwestern University in Fall 2022 and will make its New York debut at the PROTOTYPE Festival in January 2025. The studio recording of In a Grove was named one of the best recordings of 2023 by The New York Times, which praised: "Not a word or note is without purpose, and both are captured, if not enhanced, in this richly produced recording."

Recent major works include The Year of Silence, based on the story by Kevin Brockmeier, for the Louisville Symphony and baritone 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 and a consortium of American orchestras. Upcoming projects include new large-scale works for the LA Philharmonic, Roomful of Teeth, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and The Crossing.

Cerrone's first opera, Invisible Cities, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist, was praised by the Los Angeles Times as "A delicate and beautiful opera…[which] could be, and should be, done anywhere." It received its fully-staged world premiere in a wildly popular production by The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon, in Los Angeles' Union Station. Both the film and opera are available as CDs, DVDs, and digital downloads. In July 2019, New Amsterdam Records released his sophomore effort, The Pieces that Fall to Earth, featuring collaborations with the LA-based chamber orchestra Wild Up, to widespread acclaim, including his first GRAMMY nomination. The Arching Path (2021, In a Circle Records), featuring performances by Timo Andres, Ian Rosenbaum, Lindsay Kesselman, and Mingzhe Wang, earned him his second GRAMMY nomination in 2022.

A recipient of the 2015–2016 Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition, Cerrone was also a resident at the Laurenz Haus Foundation in Basel, Switzerland from 2022–2023. He 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. In 2021, he joined the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School. He lives in the Journal Square neighborhood of Jersey City with his wife.

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