Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddler, and electronic musician. He began studying violin at the age of 4, and decades later, after a chance encounter, fell in love with the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, an instrument and tradition that has deeply affected all of his work, whether as a fiddler, a composer, or musical explorer.
 
Dan’s current projects include: a double-quartet for So Percussion and the JACK Quartet, commissioned by the Barlow Foundation; Olagón — an evening length work in collaboration with singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, poet Paul Muldoon, and eighth blackbird; the Prepared Digital Piano project; ongoing collaborations with Irish fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and guitarist Monica Mugan (Trollstilt). His recent albums with Ó Raghallaigh (Laghdú) and So Percussion (neither Anvil nor Pulley) have met with wide acclaim. Upcoming record releases include The Nostalgic Synchronic Etudes for prepared digital piano, to be released by New Amsterdam Records, and The Sideband Chronicles (a Princeton Laptop Orchestra project).
 
His explorations have ranged from the oldest to the newest technologies; Dan co-founded the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, the first ensemble of its size and kind that has led to the formation of similarly inspired ensembles across the world, from Oslo to Dublin, to Stanford and Bangkok. Dan’s compositional work reflects this complex and broad range of activities, exploring rhythmic connections between traditional dance music and machines, for instance, or engaging with the unusual phrasing, tuning and ornamentation of the traditional Norwegian music while trying to discover new music that is singularly inspired by, and only possible with, new digital instruments that he designs and constructs. His tools of the trade are the first-of-its-kind Hardanger d’Amore fiddle by Salve Hakedal (played with a beautiful baroque bow by Michel Jamonneau), and the ChucK music programming language by Ge Wang.
 
Dan’s work has been recognized by fellowships, grants, commissions, and awards from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, the Barlow Endowment, the Fulbright Commission, the American Composers Forum, the American Council of Learned Societies, Meet the Composer, among others. He is Professor of Music and Director of the Princeton Sound Kitchen at Princeton University, where he teaches counterpoint, electronic music, and composition.
 
“The dazzling results mixed George Crumb’s knack for unearthly timbres, Alvin Lucier’s infinitesimally fine gradations of tone and the fierce creative audacity of Jimi Hendrix.”
–The New York Times
 
Dan Trueman’s Nostalgic Synchronic offical site

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Our Mission:

Sō Percussion is a percussion-based music organization that creates and presents new collaborative works to adventurous and curious audiences and educational initiatives to engaged students, while providing meaningful service to its communities, in order to   exemplify the power of music to unite people and forge deep social bonds.

Our Vision:

To create a new model of egalitarian artistic collaboration that respects history, champions innovation and curiosity, and creates an essential social bond through service to our audiences and our communities.

Ensemble Bio:

Sō is: Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting

With innovative multi-genre original productions, sensational interpretations of modern classics, and an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam,” (The New Yorker), Sō Percussion has redefined the scope and vital role of the modern percussion ensemble.

Their repertoire ranges from “classics” of the 20th century, by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, et al, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Steve Mackey, and Caroline Shaw, to distinctively modern collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including Shara Nova, the electronic duo Matmos, the choreographer Susan Marshall, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, The National’s Bryce Dessner, and many others.

Sō Percussion also composes and performs their own works, ranging from standard concert pieces to immersive multi-genre programs – including Imaginary City, Where (we) Live, and A Gun Show, which was presented in a multi-performance presentation as part of BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival. In these concert-length programs, Sō Percussion employs a distinctively 21st century synthesis of original music, artistic collaboration, theatrical production values and visual art, into a powerful exploration of their own unique and personal creative experiences.

In the current season, Sō performs the New York premiere of David Lang’s man made with Louis Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra; tours a new work by Caroline Shaw with Dawn Upshaw and Gil Kalish to the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Performances, UCLA, Penn State, and elsewhere; returns to Carnegie Hall with the JACK Quartet in a program of new works by Donnacha Dennehy and Dan Trueman; tours the United Kingdon with its original production exploring the community and culture of English coal mining country, From Out a Darker Sea; and more.

Recent highlights include an acclaimed Trilogy portrait at the Lincoln Center Festival; appearances at Bonnaroo, the Eaux Claires Festival, MassMoCA, and TED 2016; international tours to Poland and Ireland; performances of man made with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil; Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings at the Barbican in London; and an original score for a live performance and broadcast of WNYC’s Radiolab with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich at BAM.

Rooted in the belief that music is an essential facet of human life, a social bond, and an effective tool in creating agency and citizenship, Sō Percussion enthusiastically pursues a growing range of social and community outreach. Examples include their Brooklyn Bound presentations of younger composers; commitments to purchasing offsets to compensate for carbon-heavy activities such as touring travel; and leading their SōSI students in an annual food-packing drive, yielding up to 25,000 meals, for the Crisis Center of Mercer County through the organization EndHungerNE.

Sō Percussion is the Edward T. Cone Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University, where they offer educational work and present an annual series of concerts. They are also Co-Directors of the percussion department at the Bard College-Conservatory of Music, and run the annual Sō Percussion Summer Institute (SōSI, now in its ninth year), providing college-age composers and percussionists an immersive exposure to collaboration and project development.

Photo Credit: Evan Monroe Chapman

Adam has been praised as a soloist by the New York Times for his “shapely, thoughtfully nuanced account” of David Lang’s marimba piece String of Pearls. He has performed as a percussionist many times with the International Contemporary Ensemble, founded by classmates from Oberlin. Though he trained primarily as a percussionist, Adam’s first major solo album, out on New Amsterdam records in 2015, is a collection of etudes called Nostalgic Synchronic for the Prepared Digital Piano, an invention of Princeton colleague Dan Trueman. In recent years, Adam’s collaborations have grown to include conducting. He has conducted over a dozen world premieres with the International Contemporary Ensemble, including residencies at Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. In 2014, ECM Records released the live recording of the premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Radhe Radhe with Adam conducting.
 
Adam writes about music on his blog. He has also contributed a series of articles tonewmusicbox.org, and the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Percussion from Cambridge University press will feature his chapter “Lost and Found: Percussion Chamber Music and the Modern Age.”
 
Adam is co-director of the So Percussion Summer Institute, an annual intensive course on the campus of Princeton University for college-aged percussionists. He is also co-director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and has taught percussion both in masterclass and privately at more than 80 conservatories and universities in the USA and internationally. Along with his colleagues in So Percussion, Adam is Edward T. Cone performer-in-residence at Princeton University. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts and his Masters degrees at Yale with marimba soloist Robert van Sice, and his Bachelors at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Michael Rosen. Visit www.adamsliwinski.net.

Pianist Cristina Altamura authentically embraces an older European sensibility while still capturing the spirit of a contemporary, multi-ethnic world. Her pianism has been described as “rich in abandon and emotional surprises,” (Amici della Musica, Bologna) with a “power that was astonishing” (La Presse, Montreal).
 
As a teen, Ms. Altamura made her Carnegie Hall solo orchestral debut with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Her European debut took place with the Bucharest Philharmonic under the baton of Karel Mark Chichon at the Ateneul Roman. This was followed by an invitation to be principal soloist of the State Philharmonic of Bacau, a position she held from 1999-2002. Her close musical association with Romania resulted in performances and recordings with all of the major Romanian orchestras, as well as other European orchestras. This period of work focusing on the vast piano concerto repertoire culminated in 2003, when Ms. Altamura was presented at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in two piano concerti: Mozart K. 488 and Beethoven’s First.
 
Cristina Altamura’s artistry stems from a deep connection to her Italian-born parents. Her mother – who studied singing during opera’s golden era with Maria Callas’ teacher and at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan – has had a profound influence on her bel canto-informed Chopin interpretations. From 1995-2002, she studied in Italy, first with Marcelo Abbado and then with Maestro Franco Scala, director of the famed Accademia Pianistica d’Imola. In 1997, Ms. Altamura was the only American musician awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Italy. That same year, she was awarded a scholarship from the National Italian American Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a subsequent Alitalia Airlines grant for touring.
 
Cristina has been a frequent guest on New York’s WQXR, where her winning, uncut Fulbright audition tape was broadcast on WQXR’s McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase. In 2001 WQXR host Robert Sherman presented Cristina as soloist with the State Philharmonic of Romania “Bacau” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Planting Fields Oyster Bay Beethoven Festival where she played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1. Other live radio appearances have included a recital on the Myra Hess concert series for Chicago’s WFMT.
 
Ms. Altamura’s taste, reflected in her multi-disciplined and multi-cultured background, also extends to Latin America. In 2004, she caught the attention of Guido López-Gavilán, the composer and principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, who invited her to present a solo recital in Havana at the historic Basilica de San Francisco. The concert was subsequently broadcast throughout South America. She has collaborated with Colombian-born composer and master conguero Samuel Torres on a program of new works from Latin America and the Caribbean.
 
The pianist’s background also includes ballet training with former Ballet-Russes and NYCB dancers, and at the Joffrey Ballet School. In 2007, Cristina conceived a project fusing the music of J.S. Bach with cutting-edge breakdance with Rokafella, world-renowned pioneer female breakdancer and choreographer. Their debut together took place at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, and they performed for a thousand-plus audience at Central Park Summer Stage. Their collaborative work eventually matured in the multi-disciplinary performance piece Outside the Bachx, a work co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center and New Victory Theater fusing classical piano, DJ, beatboxing while juxtaposing classical ballet with urban dance styles. They presented it at the Kennedy Center in February 2015 during a two week residency.
 
In the near future, Cristina plans to explore the idea of keyboard virtuosity across a vast span of time, from the Frescobaldi of her Italian heritage, to the standard repertoire of Bach and Chopin, to contemporary experiments of Ligeti and Dan Trueman’s new etudes for the “Prepared Digital Piano.” Cristina is currently finishing a masters degree at Rutgers University, having received her Bachelors at The Mannes College of Music. She lives in the New York City area with her husband Adam Sliwinski (So Percussion) and ten-year old son Guillermo.