Since July 13, 28 percussion and composition students from colleges and conservatories around the country as well as Hong Kong and Australia have been rehearsing daily as members of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, SōSI, founded by Princeton University’s Grammy-winning Performers-in-Residence, Sō Percussion.
Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting — the four musician/composers who are Sō Percussion — recognized the lack of a summer festival devoted solely to contemporary percussion chamber music, so they decided to fill that gap in 2009. Now there are more than 375 SōSI alumni.
Last week, I had the privilege of visiting their home base, the University’s Woolworth Center for Music Studies. I say “privilege” because every student I spoke with was articulate, thoughtful, and purposeful. Their words spoke more about their personal values than the musical attributes which earned them a place at SōSI 2025.
On the day of my visit, the small ensembles and their student composers were preparing for a July 18 concert at Small World Coffee on Witherspoon Street. They were rehearsing their “portable pieces,” works using mostly “found objects” as instruments that they could carry: wine glasses, decks of cards, egg shakers, a viola outfitted with the inner workings of music boxes, and a toy piano.
Gian Torrano Jacobs, the composer of “Iced Tea and Coffee,” is a classically trained harpist who somehow found his way to contemporary percussion. “It’s so refreshing, it’s not every day that you get to hang out with people that have such a niche interest,” says Jacbobs. Thinking about the little time you’re normally allotted to work with musicians before they perform your work, he explains, “Here, you get to really hang out with the musicians, play through it and workshop it, kind of massage the notes. What you start with is not necessarily what you come out the other side with, so that’s what I really like about this. It teaches you how to communicate with performers with respect and a collaborative spirit.”
Nicole Galicia, a percussion student at Ithaca College, notes, “It’s not even been a week, and I feel like I’ve been here for weeks, which is really nice. The big part of what I love about this is the community we’ve formed in just a few days. I’ve played percussion chamber music at school, but this is my first time at a festival dedicated just for it.” She relishes the process: “Being able to take it one step at a time, try something new even if it feels uncomfortable, or [just] talking to so many new people, I’ll apply that mindset when I go back to school.”
Jalen Jamal, a percussionist from Colorado State University, now sees himself as a composer first. He takes to heart what the four members of Sō Percussion have related, that “the people they enjoy being around when they’re not making music are the people that they make the best music with.”
Jamal has found that to be true at SōSI. “We’re here for two weeks, and you have to start talking to people. That aspect makes us trust each other. I can throw a bunch of things at the ensembles I’m working with and know that they’ll either say, ‘I cannot do it that way, we can figure it out, we’ll work on this,’ or ‘I’m gonna get it, I’ll take care of it, we’ve got this.’ The trust we build with each other in such a short time makes everything more free, it makes you feel ready to create music in a way that you want to,” he notes.
Kate Galyen, from the University of Michigan, recalls that she was one of the only female percussionists during high school, and sometimes it would be hard having to be a section leader of guys who would say, “I don’t want to listen to her.” “But now that I’m in college, it’s definitely easier with more women around,” she says. “On every instrument you get that empowerment, and my professors are really supportive and really love that representation. It’s a collaborative environment, the same as this program. It’s all about collaboration, not hierarchy.”
Anya Zions, a percussionist from Indiana University, was “happily surprised by the number of women” in this summer’s SōSI. She has had substantial chamber music experience in college, but says she is excited to be exposed to new things like electronic music and how to vocalize during a piece — something she likens to acting, which she enjoys.
I also got a chance to speak with Russell Makowsky, the chairman of Sō Percussion’s board of directors. Sō Percussion “know so many people throughout the percussion new music community, because they’ve expanded their network in so many ways. From that perspective, I think it’s a great thing. And as a board member, I love to see the expansion of the universe [with which] this ensemble is affiliated.”
In between rehearsing and performing, SōSI students are coached by Sō Percussion, Andrea Mazzariello of the Carlton College composition department, and Princeton faculty members Ayano Kataoka and Clara Warnaar. They also listen to talks given by guest artists Caroline Shaw, Angélica Negrón, and Becca Stevens, as well as by Dmitri Tymoczko, Donnacha Dennehey, and Nathalie Joachim of the Princeton faculty.
The excitement this year, Sō’s 25th anniversary, is a visit by 89-year-young Steve Reich, one of the founding fathers of contemporary percussion music, whose groundbreaking piece, “Drumming,” will be performed by Sō and SōSI students at the Lewis Center for the Arts on Friday, July 25, at 7 p.m. Also on the program are the Grammy Award-winning “Narrow Sea,” composed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw, with vocalist Becca Stevens and Adam Sliwinski as pianist. Selections from guest composer Angélica Negrón’s “Inward Pieces” will be heard, sung by Beth Meyers and Becca Stevens, with Amanda Baker on the piccolo.
Saturday, July 26, is designated the “Day of Sonic Exploration,” when SōSI offers five free concerts, featuring music that has been played during the course of the Institute, every hour on the hour at five popular Princeton locales. The first concert begins at 11 a.m. at the Princeton Record Exchange with pieces first heard at the Small World Coffee concert. At noon in the Princeton Library, Sō Percussion will perform “Note to Self” by Princeton faculty composer Nathalie Joachim and “Melodic Concept III” by Kendall Williams, a graduate student in Princeton’s composition department. SōSI students will perform Caroline Shaw’s “Taxidermy” — a piece she composed for Sō Percussion when she was a graduate student in their composition class — as well as “Count to 5” by Angélica Negrón.
The 1 p.m. concert at Hinds Plaza will include a steel band. At 2 p.m. in Labyrinth Books, there will be a listening party for the seventh album in the series, “A New Age for New Age,” recorded by SōSI 2024 participants and staff alongside live performances. In 2019, Clara Warnaar founded the series, which aims to reimagine New Age music by commissioning more than 60 artists to offer fresh interpretations of the genre.
At 3 p.m., walk to jaZams toy store for a fun program of pieces from the Small World Coffee concert.
The festival culminates with the SōSI Composers Concert at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Hall at the Lewis Arts Complex on the University campus. The student composers are Gian Torrano Jacobs, Spencer Kennedy, Rachel Lewindon, Lili Namazi, Jalen Jamal, and Sebastian Zhang. Both evening concerts on July 25 and 26 are free. Register via tickets.princeton.edu.
Students participating in the Sō Percussion Summer Institute rehearse with a selection of unique instruments. The final performances of the festival take place Friday and Saturday, July 25 and 26. ,
