BECOME A STUDIO PARTNER, WITH FULL ACCESS TO THE SŌ STUDIO!
Sō Percussion’s studio is located at 20 Grand Avenue, Unite 205, Brooklyn, NY 11205.
Or you can RENT our studio or gear! With the support of the NY State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), we offer signficantly subsidized discounts on space, including the use of our instruments and gear. LEARN MORE.
The Sō Percussion Studio Partner Program commits to fostering New York City based music ensembles and organizations at Sō’s Brooklyn Navy Yard area Studio. Residency partners receive rehearsal time in the Sō percussion studio, informal mentoring sessions with Sō Percussion and staff, and a performance on Sō Percussion’s Sō Laboratories concert series. The Studio Residency was founded in 2016-2017, with the help of the New Music USA Impact Fund. Today we are able to continue the work with support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and all of our generous supporters toward’s Sō’s efforts to build a sustainable environment for new music to flourish.
We’re proud to announce our new partners for 2024-25 – partners are Charlotte Greve, John Colpitts aka Kid Millions, Rodney Clark, Jeff Tobias, Other Faces and Noise Catalogue.
Here’s more about our brilliant new “housemates!”
Our 2024-25 Sō Percussion Studio Residency Partners
Charlotte Greve is a saxophonist, composer, singer, songwriter and arranger, based in Brooklyn. After having released nine records as the leader of her two main projects, her upcoming album made with help from the Sō Partnership, will be her first major statement as a Solo Artist. She says “musically it will sum up everything I did so far, spanning from Jazz, Choral music, Singer-Songwriter music to contemporary classical and Indie Rock. The record will feature an extended cast of musicians that I have worked with over the years, as well as newly found relationships I’m eager to expand upon. Being able to bring all these different people together and work on the music in a creative space like the Sō Percussion Space will make my endeavor significantly easier and inspire the process in the most creative way I can imagine.
Rodney Clark is a multi-talented performer, improviser, and percussionist based in New York. His passion for music is deeply intertwined with his desire to inspire and unite people from diverse backgrounds. Currently a junior at Bard College/Conservatory, Rodney is pursuing a double degree in politics and music performance for percussion.
Under the mentorship of esteemed musicians such as Sò Percussion members Jason Treuting and Eric Cha-Beach, as well as Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Principal Timpanist Jason Haaheim, Rodney is honing his skills as a percussionist. His dedication to music has led him to participate in various prestigious summer festivals, including the NYU Sandbox Virtual Percussion Seminar, Eastman School of Music Classical Studies Program, BUTI, SoSI, and the Taneycomo Festival Orchestra.
Jeff Tobias is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who has been an active part of the American music underground since 2003. He has contributed to over one hundred physically released recordings, performs on over a dozen different instruments, and has toured the United States and Europe extensively as a member of groups including Modern Nature, Sunwatchers, and other ensembles. His saxophone playing has been described as “authentically fearsome … just the sort of thing that fries microphones and never pays the rent.” (Bill Meyer, The Wire, March 2018)
For his Sō Percussion studio partnership, he will be developing and recording material for two new solo releases. One will be a song-based follow up to his 2022 “pop” album Recurring Dream; the other will be a long form instrumental piece in two movements composed for prepared horns and percussiion.
Noise Catalogue is at the beginning of its journey, striving to enhance our administrative capabilities and transition towards a non-profit status. Our focus is on refining our concert curation process—artistically, interpersonally, and logistically. As musicians with extensive performance training, the broader aspects of managing an ensemble are relatively new to us. Our “just do it” approach to organizing concerts has been instrumental in developing our organizational skills, yet we recognize the need for further growth in areas such as making longer-term plans for concert seasons, reaching out to potential presenters, grant writing, approaching creative differences amongst collaborating artists, delegating administrative tasks effectively, self-promotion on social media and our website, and finding donors.
We view a residency at Sō Percussion as a pivotal opportunity to gain invaluable insights into the music industry through the lens of contemporary music ensembles, which could otherwise take decades to acquire through experience. As a percussion-centric ensemble specializing in new music, our artistic visions and logistical challenges closely align with those of Sō Percussion, making their mentorship uniquely beneficial to us. Access to percussion instruments and studio space, alongside expert guidance, could significantly impact our ensemble’s development during this crucial early phase.
OTHER FACES – Adam Lutz, Dan Langa and Kristian de Leon
Other Faces is a multimedia electroacoustic trio creating radiant, bold, and expansive work fusing visual and sonic textures. “With two of our three members being percussionists, residency at So Studios provides an optimal facility to help us realize and expand upon our ambitions. The provided rehearsal time, physical space, and availability of instrumental and technological resources are key elements in our collaboration that have been challenging to procure. With this residency, we will finally have the physical and artistic space to explore, finding new synergies in our technical abilities and artistic identities. Beyond physical space, the opportunity for support and guidance in finance, execution, and general collaborative artistry will be invaluable to our progress as a young ensemble. This residency will be a great step forward in our individual and collective creative paths, and we look forward to finding more ways to develop our artistic futures sustainably.”
You may know him as Kid Millions, from indie-rock legends Oneida. But John Colpitts has recently been developing a new “Colpitts” album that includes Gamelan-esque percussion interpretations of Cole Porter’s I Happen to Like New York, an arrangement of Max Roach’s A Man of Double Deed, a take on the Sun Ra composition The Conversation of JP and a number of new percussion compositions that he started recording at the Sō Percussion studio in December, 2023. Says John “I have never been able to develop my compositions in this way before. It usually involves creating a demo and maybe rehearsing once, before recording it in the studio or going on tour. This residency will give me the chance to work on this material with the proper instruments and with an extended period of experimentation. I do not have easy access to “classical” percussion instruments and love working with them. This opportunity will lead to a new album and an opportunity to leverage that recording into tours in the US and Europe.”
Past Sō Percussion Studio Residency Partners
Longleash
Pan In Motion
MEDIAQUEER
Resonant Bodies
Rates for Non-PROFITS and Students AND YOUNG ARTISTS:
Without use of Sō Percussion’s gear – $10/hour after determining appropriateness.
With use of Sō Percussion’s gear – $20/hour after determining appropriateness
Questions:
Contact admin@sopercussion.com for booking space or rentals.
