The 92nd Street Y, New York presents Pulitzer Prize winner, composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey and his trio – pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Harish Raghavan – and the GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion to celebrate the extraordinary legacy of legendary drummer, composer and activist Max Roach on his centenary. The concert is in person and streaming on Friday, February 21 at 7:30 pm and available online for 72 hours following the performance. Tickets are available at https://www.92ny.org/event/max-roach-at-100.

Roach, a pioneer of bebop and the founder of modern jazz, played with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and other jazz icons. He had a deep connection to 92NY, curating a concert series in the 1990s and performing with artists including Lester Bowie, Julius Hemphill, Christian McBride, Tito Puente and others.

Sorey shares a profound affinity with Roach – as a jazz drummer, curator, composer, arranger, and an endlessly inventive artist. Long a champion of Roach’s music, the Tyshawn Sorey Trio opens the program with tunes by Roach or associated with him. Sandbox Percussion, a leading performer of percussion and contemporary chamber music, follows with a Roach-inspired set. Tyshawn’s trio and Sandbox Percussion then join together for their first time on the 92NY stage with the New York premiere of Cogitations, a new work by Sorey inspired by Roach to close out a concert from two of the most forward-looking ensembles in music.

"The work that I have done for the entirety of my career exhibits Max Roach's influence—both directly and indirectly. This has been made clear too many times to count,” comments Sorey. “Cogitations is a work that champions Roach’s revolutionary history as one of, if not the, first noted drummer-composer in sophisticated Afrodiasporic music-making whose body of work extends far beyond compositions written solely for the drum set and employs a wide range of instrumentations. This music features a percussion quartet along with my piano trio and primarily draws inspiration from the M'Boom percussion ensemble and from spontaneous compositions/interpretations of compositions written for and by all of its original members."

Program to include:
Julius Eastman, Joy Boy (arr. Sandbox Percussion)
George Lewis, Le témoignage des lumières
Omar Clay & Warren Smith, Morning/Midday (arr. Sandbox Percussion after M’Boom)
Tyshawn Sorey, Cogitations (92NY co-commission; NY premiere)

About Tyshawn Sorey
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey has performed globally with his own
ensembles as well as alongside industry titans including John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Joe
Lovano, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, King Britt, Claire Chase, Roscoe Mitchell, and Steve
Lehman, among many others.

The bar is set high for Sorey’s continued evolution and success. He was named the
2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music winner for his composition Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith),
after being recognized as a 2023 Pulitzer Finalist for Monochromatic Light (Afterlife).
Previously, Sorey roared onto the international landscape as a 2017 MacArthur Fellow
and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow. Adding to his reputation as a multi-faceted
Downbeat Magazine recognized Sorey with its 2023 Critics Poll Award as a
Rising Star Producer, while annually placing him near the top of its Composer and Drum
Set performance lists. Other recent accolades include the Pew Fellowship, the Fromm
Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Goddard Lieberson Fellowship,
and the Koussevitzsky Prize.

Sorey has composed works for the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea
Ensemble, soprano Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble,
Brooklyn Rider, A Far Cry, cellists Seth Parker Woods and Matt Haimovitz, the San
Francisco Contemporary Music Players, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound,
pianist Awadagin Pratt and vocal group Roomful of Teeth, pianist Sarah Rothenberg, violinist Johnny Gandelsman, and tenor Lawrence Brownlee, as well as for countless others. His music
has been performed in notable venues such as the Library of Congress, the Walt Disney
Concert Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Hollywood Bowl, The
92nd Street Y, Park Avenue Armory, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lucerne Festival, and
Lincoln Center. His compositions are published by Edition Peters.

Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2020,
where he maintains a vigorous touring schedule in addition to his academic duties. He
was selected as a Peabody Resident at Johns Hopkins University for Fall 2023, and has
taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at an impressive assortment of
institutions, including: Columbia University, Harvard University, Darmstadter Ferienkurse,
Wesleyan University, The New England Conservatory, University of Michigan, The Banff
Centre, Berklee College of Music, Mills College, University of Chicago, and The Danish
Rhythmic Conservatory.

In spring 2023, Sorey debuted a musical collaboration with percussion ensemble
Yarn/Wire titled “Be Holding,” a multimedia adaptation of the book-length poem by Ross
Gay about the beauty and cultural significance of Julius Erving’s momentous sky hook
dunk during the 1980 NBA Finals. The production included performances by
professional wordsmiths Yolanda Wisher and David A. Gaines, along with students from
Girard College, and was featured in the New York Times. Sorey’s trio (featuring pianist
Aaron Diehl and bassist Harish Raghavan) is currently touring with Sandbox Percussion
Ensemble, performing a newly commissioned piece in honor of the Max Roach
Centennial titled Cogitations. In the future, Sorey plans to continue pushing boundaries,
extending cultural norms, and reformulating public perceptions of modern
Black/Afrodiasporic creative practice through the breadth and depth of his works.

About 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. This season's highlights include a performance of their 2021 Grammy-nominated album Seven Pillars, featuring Andy Akiho’s title piece, at the Beijing Music Festival; a collaboration with the London-based Gandini Juggling at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art; and a special Max Roach tribute with the Tyshawn Sorey Trio, including performances at 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 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 movie was nominated for three Oscars, in the Music (original score), Sound, and Animated Feature Film categories. In August 2024, Sandbox Percussion released their latest album via Ecstatic Records with composer Michael Torke, who created the hourlong piece BLOOM for the group. The first recording of Lifeline, a vibrant percussion quartet composed by Ellis Ludwig-Leone for Sandbox Percussion, was released on the album Past Life/Lifeline (Better Company Records) in December 2024. A new album celebrating the group’s long-standing collaboration with Christopher Cerrone will be released in February 2025 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. 

(from )

• February 21

  February 21, 2025
• 92NY
  1395 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY

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