Canto Ostinato
Join us for a special performance featuring Metropolis Ensemble, Erik Hall, and Sandbox Percussion performing Simeon ten Holt's minimalist masterpiece, Canto Ostinato.
April 8th at 7:30PM
Tishman Auditorium, THE NEW SCHOOL
University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003
This performance is FREE. RSVP required.
The piece's captivating harmony and winding structure drew these collaborators together — first for sunrise and sunset performances at Brooklyn Botanic Garden on June 20, 2024 (recommended by NPR's Morning Edition), and now for a new studio album out April 3rd on Western Vinyl.
Arranged by Erik Hall, David Leon, Ben Wallace, and Jonny Allen, the adaptation expands ten Holt's piano manuscript into a prismatic chamber array — mallet percussion, woodwinds, strings, and Hall's concert grand piano threading through it all.
A breathtaking new form for an already-monumental opus.
Preview Canto Ostinato
Metropolis Ensemble, Erik Hall, Sandbox Percussion - Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87 (Simeon ten Holt)
Canto Ostinato LP out April 3rd via Western Vinyl
Meet The Artists
About The Artists
Erik Hall
Erik Hall is a musician and composer in Michigan. He is best known for his multi-instrumental solo recordings and live performances of contemporary classical works, which have been featured by The Wire, Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, WNYC New Sounds, and The New York Times. His 2020 re-creation of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians won the Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and his 2023 interpretation of Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato followed with a nomination in the same category. Erik has composed or arranged music for Chicago’s GRAMMY-winning Third Coast Percussion, NYC’s GRAMMY-nominated Metropolis Ensemble and Sandbox Percussion, and for feature films The Night Clerk and The Mountain. He has recorded and toured with NOMO, Wild Belle, His Name Is Alive, In Tall Buildings, and Lean Year, appearing at Lollapalooza, Coachella, Pitchfork Music Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, CONAN, and The Tonight Show.
Sandbox Percussion
The GRAMMY®-nominated Sandbox Percussion champions living composers through its dedication to contemporary chamber music. In 2011, Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum, and Terry Sweeney came together through a mutual interest in expanding the repertoire. They have toured the world since—from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris to the Beijing Music Festival—appeared on NPR’s popular Tiny Desk series, and collaborated with composer Kris Bowers on their first feature film, The Wild Robot (DreamWorks). Building on the success of Seven Pillars—a large-scale percussion suite composed by Andy Akiho that was nominated for two GRAMMY® Awards and a Pulitzer Prize—the group is creating a new work with Akiho joining on steelpan. Sandbox Percussion’s Don’t Look Down (PENTATONE), featuring music by Christopher Cerrone, won the 2026 GRAMMY® Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical (engineers Mike Tierney and Alan Silverman). It is the first percussion group to receive the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Metropolis Ensemble
GRAMMY-nominated Metropolis Ensemble, founded by conductor Andrew Cyr in 2006, has commissioned more than 450 new works over two decades — including a JUNO Award winner for Best Classical Composition. The ensemble moves fluidly between worlds: Lincoln Center and the Hollywood Bowl, Brooklyn Steel and Music Hall of Williamsburg, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and New Victory Theatre, COSM's immersive domes in Los Angeles and Dallas, Celebrate Brooklyn, Sounds from a Safe Harbour, and Eaux Claires Hiver. The ensemble's Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia — a collaboration with Cambodian artists addressing the Khmer Rouge genocide — premiered at BAM's Next Wave and toured internationally to Paris, Melbourne, Montreal, Boston, Taiwan, and Phnom Penh. Recent recognition includes Timo Andres' The Blind Banister, recorded by Metropolis Ensemble, which received a 2025 GRAMMY nomination for Best Engineered Album, Classical — as well as a New York Times Best of 2025 citation for the opera In a Grove at the PROTOTYPE Festival.
The ensemble's recordings span Nonesuch, New Amsterdam, Merge, Naxos, and Def Jam. Metropolis's ongoing collaboration with Brooklyn Botanic Garden includes their annual Biophony Solstice concerts, where the ensemble first performed Canto Ostinato with Erik Hall and Sandbox Percussion for over 3,000 audience members at sunrise and sunset.
