Sō Percussion with Becca Stevens

Groundtone is PS21’s annual weekend-long celebration of adventurous music by an eclectic selection of today’s most original voices. Dazzling performances and immersive experiences take place across the PS21 grounds with concerts in our theater, fields, installations, and barns. 

This year’s Groundtone features Sō Percussion in collaboration with Grammy-nominated songwriter Becca Stevens, pathbreaking harpist Parker Ramsay, and a full slate of artists who defy categorization. On June 21, PS21 will usher the globally-renowned Make Music Day to Chatham for the first time, with a sunrise musical procession created by Phil Kline; and Annea Lockwood’s Home Ground, a new site specific work spanning the PS21 terrain.

Groundtone is four days of audacious music, unexpected collaboration, sound, and community in the PS21 landscape.

For 25 years, Grammy-winning percussion quartet Sō Percussion has redefined chamber music for the 21st century through an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker). The group is celebrated by audiences and presenters for a dazzling range of work: for live performances in which “telepathic powers of communication” (New York Times) bring to life the vibrant percussion repertoire; for an extravagant array of collaborations in classical music, pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and theater; and for work in education and the community, creating opportunities and platforms for music and artists that explore the immense possibility of art in our time. 

A commitment to the creation and amplification of new work, and extraordinary powers of perception and communication have made Sō a trusted partner for composers, helping inspire music that expands the style and capacity of brilliant voices of our time. Sō’s collaborative composition partners include David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Nathalie Joachim, Dan Trueman, Kendall K. Williams, Angélica Negrón, Shodekeh Talifero, claire rousay, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Bora Yoon, Olivier Tarpaga, Bobby Previte, Matmos, and many others.

In May 2025, Sō Percussion embarks on a two-week residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) for two programs, one featuring new collaborations with Helado Negro and Kate Stables (This is the Kit), and the other featuring Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan (Ringdown) performing highlights from the recent Grammy-winning album, Rectangles and Circumstance. Dates with Shaw and Ringdown also include the Barbican in London, the BOZAR in Brussels, Saffron Hall in Essex, and the 92NY in New York City. The season also includes collaborations with composer Viet Cuong; solo shows at the Clark Art Institute in the Berkshires; performances at PASIC, and much more.

Other recent Sō highlights include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Big Ears, Cal Performances, at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Penn Live Arts in Philadelphia, the Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa, the Oklahoma Philharmonic (for David Lang’s man made, written for Sō, and featured in their latest recording with the Cincinnati Symphony and Louis Langrée), the Library of Congress, touring Benin and Burkina Faso with Olivier Tarpaga, and more.

Their latest album, Rectangles and Circumstance, with Caroline Shaw, was released in 2024 on Nonesuch Records, following their debut co-written album with Shaw, Let the Soil Play its Simple Part. Other recent albums include A Record Of… on Brassland Music with Buke and Gase, and – on new imprint Sō Percussion Editions – an acclaimed version of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It, plus Darian Donovan Thomas’s Individuate. This adds to a catalog of more than 25 albums featuring landmark recordings of works by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steven Mackey, and others.

The members of Sō Percussion are the Edward T. Cone Performers-in-Residence at Princeton University. Rooted in the belief that music is an elemental form of human communication, and galvanized by forces for social change, Sō enthusiastically pursues a range of social and community outreach through their nonprofit umbrella, including an ongoing partnership with Pan in Motion; the Sō Laboratories concert series; a studio residency program in Brooklyn; and the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for percussionists and composers.

Becca Stevens is a 2X GRAMMY-nominated songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer known for her emotionally resonant, genre-defying music. Drawing from Appalachian folk roots, a background in jazz, and a love of experimental indie, she creates songs that are as technically daring as they are deeply human. Though often compared to artists like Joni Mitchell and Björk, Stevens has carved out a voice and sound that are unmistakably her own, at once tender, agile, and emotionally rooted. Her work has resonated deeply with a generation of musicians working beyond the boundaries of genre.

Stevens grew up in a deeply musical family in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was welcomed into the world to the sound of her father playing an Irish fiddle tune in the delivery room. Her mother was an operatically trained singer and actress, and her father is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and classically trained vocalist. By age two, she was performing in the family’s band, The Tune Mammals, and spent much of her childhood on stage singing, acting, and dancing. Her musical language grew out of folk traditions, classical guitar, and jazz standards, threads she continues to weave into a voice that The Bluegrass Situation calls “conservatory-trained, but utterly unique and enthralling.”

Stevens has many longtime collaborators, including Jacob Collier — with whom she has co-written and performed on each other’s albums — and pianist Taylor Eigsti, whose GRAMMY-winning albums Tree Falls and Plot Armor feature her vocals. She is a core member of Lighthouse Band, formed by the late David Crosby alongside Michael League and Michelle Willis, and she co-leads the international ensemble Mirrors with League, Gisela João, Louis Cato, and Justin Stanton. With League, she also co-wrote and performed on a full album for The Secret Trio, blending Middle Eastern, Balkan, and jazz traditions. 

Stevens has been the bandleader of Becca Stevens Band since 2005, with a longstanding core of Christopher Tordini, Jordan Perlson, Liam Robinson, and Michelle Willis. Her solo albums Regina and WONDERBLOOM have featured a wide range of guest artists, including Laura Mvula, Cory Wong, Jacob Collier, David Crosby, Alan Hampton, Ryan Scott, Roosevelt Collier, Laura Perrudin, Michael Mayo, Kaveh Rastegar, and many others. 

Outside of her bands and albums, Stevens has written music for legends like Antonio Sánchez (“The Bucket”), Ambrose Akinmusire (“Our Basement”), and Kneebody (“Wounds Let In the Light”). She has had the rare joy of sharing the stage and studio with many of her heroes, including Brad Mehldau, Michael McDonald, Chris Thile, Tim Heidecker, Gretchen Parlato, Louis Cole, Vince Mendoza, Brian Blade, The Metropole Orkest, Esperanza Spalding, Vijay Iyer, Lizz Wright and Travis Sullivan’s Björkestra.

Her forays into contemporary classical music have opened up some of her most boundary-blurring collaborations to date. She recorded and premiered Timo Andres’ Work Songs (Nonesuch Records), has performed with Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw, and maintains a longstanding creative partnership with the two-time GRAMMY-winning Attacca Quartet. Their joint album, Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet, earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals, for her and Nathan Schram’s kaleidoscopic reimagining of Radiohead’s “2 + 2 = 5.” She has premiered two works at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall: first as a featured soloist in a commissioned piece by Brad Mehldau, and later as a co-writer and performer in a collaborative premiere with Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke. She has also been commissioned by Melodia Women’s Choir and Princeton Playhouse Choir to create new choral works for voices.

Her passion for text and storytelling extends far beyond the concert hall. She wrote and recorded the original song “Go Rogue” for the film The Idea of You, directed by Michael Showalter, created poetry settings for Nikola Madzirov’s works (performed with Nikola and premiered with Limelight Poetry), and penned the foreword and commentary for The Heart’s Necessities, a posthumous collection of poems by Jane Tyson Clement. Whether she’s writing for voices, strings, the silver screen, or the printed page, Stevens’ work is woven with emotional fluency and a fearless devotion to where the music wants to lead her.

Her latest album, Maple to Paper (GroundUP, 2024), is a stripped-down meditation on motherhood, grief, and transformation. Stevens began writing it while pregnant with her first daughter, all while navigating her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Six months after her daughter was born, her mother passed away. She continued writing through that loss, began recording during her second pregnancy, and finished the final track just six days before giving birth to her second child. Produced and engineered entirely by Stevens in her home studio in Princeton, New Jersey, the album was recorded live with no overdubs and mixed by longtime collaborator Nic Hard. It captures her at her most elemental: voice, guitar, and the alchemy of presence. The record pairs spellbinding guitar work with a raw yet luminous vocal performance, balancing its exacting minimalism with an emotional force that envelops the listener from the first track. Some have said listening to it feels almost voyeuristic, like stumbling into a deeply private moment and being invited to stay. Maple to Paper invites the listener into a much quieter room, unguarded and fully present.

Alongside her work in theaters and studios around the world, Becca is a sought-after educator and mentor, specializing in songwriting workshops, album planning and production, ensemble instruction, and multifaceted career consultation. She’s been invited as a guest teacher and lecturer at numerous festivals and institutions around the world—from serving as regular guest faculty for the Jazz Campus’ “FocusYear Band” in Basel, Switzerland, to guest artist and educator for Ensemble Transience in Hong Kong, to visiting lecturer and composer-in-residence of the alma mater at the University of Colorado. She also runs a private teaching studio and leads 5-week online songwriting courses that center intuition, storytelling, and tools to tame the critic and serve the songs.

In 2024, she made her Broadway debut in Illinoise, returning to the stage in a new light, one that fused her theatrical roots with decades of artistic evolution.

After a twenty year stint in New York City, Becca lives in Princeton, NJ where she can go on walks with her two young daughters, and see a forest of real trees right outside her window. 

Eric Cha-Beach
Josh Quillen
Adam Sliwinski
Jason Treuting
Becca Stevens