The piece's captivating harmony and winding structure prove an adventurous enterprise for any like-minded players embarking down its path, and it is at this very threshold that Metropolis Ensemble artistic director/conductor Andrew Cyr, musician/composer Erik Hall, and the members of Sandbox Percussion all find each other. Their ensuing undertaking marks a world-class collaboration that yields an expansive and beautifully detailed new presentation of ten Holt's iconic work.

 
In conjunction with a brand new studio album—out April 3rd on Western Vinyl—the collective’s new large-ensemble arrangement of the work extracts and reframes every line, motif, and arpeggio from the original score, expanding ten Holt’s piano manuscript into a prismatic chamber array. Sandbox Percussion's mallet instruments maintain a unified and gracefully athletic expression of the piece's duration, while David Leon's woodwinds overlay a kaleidoscopic tapestry. Strings—led by award-winning violinist Kristin Lee—provide cinematic, otherworldly depth. And Erik Hall's concert grand piano threads through it all, a passionately reverent preservation of the piece's keyboard origins.

 
Altogether, a breathtaking new form for Simeon ten Holt's already-monumental opus, each element serving the whole while driving towards a rapturous resolution.

More about 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. (metropolisensemble. org)

More about 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. (erikhall.net)

More about 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. (sandboxpercussion.com)