This week’s #RAArtistinFocus is Brooklyn-based percussion quartet Sō Percussion, who for over twenty years have been celebrated for their vibrant live performances and repertoire, their collaborations that transcend genre and disciplines, and their commitment to education and community work. This autumn-winter, they return to Europe with Caroline Shaw for six dates in the UK, Belgium, Lithuania, and the Netherlands.
Watch Sō in action in their new music video for 'Sing On' here.
In 2021 Sō Percussion joined forces with Caroline Shaw to release two new albums, ‘Narrow Sea’ and ‘Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part’ on Nonesuch Records. The discs were instant successes, receiving high praise from press on both sides of the Atlantic, and winning Shaw a Grammy. This year, they released their follow up album, ‘Rectangles and Circumstance’ with collaborators Ringdown. The album was nominated for a 2025 Grammy for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
Read reviews here.
From the outset, Sō Percussion has been at the forefront of commissioning new works from significant composers such as Steve Reich, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe.
In 2009, they commissioned and premiered Steve Reich's Mallet Quartet, and have also recorded Drumming. You can watch the recording here.
In 2013, they premiered David Lang's percussion quartet concerto, manmade, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and have performed it with the LA Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. Watch the performance here.
Their recent commission, Forbidden Love by Julia Wolfe, is available on YouTube here.
Sō Percussion also have a longstanding relationship with composer and guitarist Bryce Dessner, who wrote Music for Wood and Strings for them. The work is performed on wooden 'chordsticks', which were made custom for So for the 2013 premiere at Carnegie Hall. This work has been heard throughout the US and Europe and remains an integral part of the set on many tours.
Listen to the work here.
You can catch Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw next week at the Barbican Centre – the last time they performed there in 2022 was described as “strikingly beautiful…fresh and always inventive…So Percussion gleefully trample across the boundaries of musical genres and constantly provoke reassessments of what a percussion group can do” by The Guardian, and the live premiere of Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival was described as “a song cycle that is mostly poignant and often spiritually transcendental…I was hooked” (The Times).
More dates on the tour here.
