concerts + events.
CINCINNATI SANDBOX
CINCINNATI SANDBOX
EVENT DESCRIPTION
A sandbox is a place for experimentation: materials can be assembled, taken apart, and reshaped into something new. Cincinnati Sandbox takes that idea into the concert hall, exploring what happens when composers and performers reconsider the materials already around us.
Wood, metal, glass, found objects, and discarded materials become instruments, each contributing its own sounds and physical qualities to the music. Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion and violinist Kristin Lee join concertnova for the Cincinnati premiere of Vivian Fung’s Goddess//Insect. Works by John Corigliano, Andy Akiho, and Viet Cuong further explore the musical possibilities of familiar and unconventional materials.
The idea of creative reuse continues throughout the concert. In Spark, a new work by Miami University composer Tyler Henderson, performers use lighters, inspired by one the composer found discarded on the ground. Cincinnati’s Heavy Metal Marching Band will also perform using instruments created from reclaimed materials during a community workshop at Wave Pool (sign up below).
By transforming overlooked objects into sources of musical expression, Cincinnati Sandbox asks how we might listen differently and recognize the creative possibilities already present in our surroundings.
ADDITIONAL EVENTS
Instrument-Making Workshop at Indigo Hippo
Sunday, September 20, 2026, from 3:00–5:00 PM
Instrument-Making Workshop at Wave Pool with Heavy Metal Marching Band
Tuesday, September 29, 6:00-8:00 PM
Subscriber and Donor Event at Cincinnati Public Radio
Saturday, October 24, 2026, time to be announced
An exclusive performance by Sandbox Percussion and Kristin Lee inside Cincinnati Public Radio’s recording studio.
Get your season pass now for a chance to attend.
THE PROGRAM
The concert features the Cincinnati premiere of Vivian Fung’s Goddess//Insect, written for Sandbox Percussion and Lee, alongside music by John Corigliano, Andy Akiho, and Viet Cuong.
JOIN THE NAUGHTY LIST
JOIN THE NAUGHTY LIST
An Evening of Holiday Spirits, Served Neat
EVENT DESCRIPTION
The Nice List has become unsustainable. This holiday season, concertnova invites exhausted grownups to abandon perfection, put down their obligations, and accept an alternative offer from Krampus himself.
Part concert, part cabaret, and part theatrical ritual, Join the Naughty List combines dark holiday folklore, Weimar nightlife, lounge music, twisted Christmas classics, and gleefully questionable original songs. Krampus and the Ho Ho Ho’s lead audiences from the surveillance and forced cheer of Santa’s Christmas into a world of permission, self-expression, cocktails, and joyful misbehavior. The evening concludes with a ceremonial induction into the Naughty List.
Applications are now being accepted. Good is exhausting. Naughty is healing.
FEATURING: Krampus, the Ho Ho Ho’s, concertnova musicians, and special guests to be announced
THE PROGRAM
To be announced.
JOIN THE NAUGHTY LIST
JOIN THE NAUGHTY LIST
An Evening of Holiday Spirits, Served Neat
EVENT DESCRIPTION
The Nice List has become unsustainable. This holiday season, concertnova invites exhausted grownups to abandon perfection, put down their obligations, and accept an alternative offer from Krampus himself.
Part concert, part cabaret, and part theatrical ritual, Join the Naughty List combines dark holiday folklore, Weimar nightlife, lounge music, twisted Christmas classics, and gleefully questionable original songs. Krampus and the Ho Ho Ho’s lead audiences from the surveillance and forced cheer of Santa’s Christmas into a world of permission, self-expression, cocktails, and joyful misbehavior. The evening concludes with a ceremonial induction into the Naughty List.
Applications are now being accepted. Good is exhausting. Naughty is healing.
FEATURING: Krampus, the Ho Ho Ho’s, concertnova musicians, and special guests to be announced
THE PROGRAM
To be announced.
MINI MINI FEST
MINI MINI FEST
Curated by Timo Andres
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Minimalism has never been as simple as it sounds. Pianist, composer, and curator Timo Andres joins concertnova for a two-part festival tracing the movement from early, process-driven minimalism to the expansive post-minimalist music of the 1990s and 2000s.
Andres is an ideal guide to this repertoire: a composer whose work combines rigorous musical structures with an instinct for color, momentum, and surprise, and a pianist equally at home interpreting his own generation and the composers who shaped it. He will perform solo piano music, including a Glass étude and selections from his own work, while leading concertnova through rarely heard chamber music by European, Canadian, and American post-minimalists. Together, the programs consider what happened after repetition broke open: how later composers stretched, disrupted, and personalized the minimalist language.
SPECIAL GUEST: Pianist, composer, and festival curator Timo Andres
Location to be announced.
FEBRUARY 19: SUBSCRIBER AND DONOR EVENT
On Friday, February 19, Andres and concertnova musicians present an intimate house concert at the Lloyd Taft House, an award-winning modernist residence designed by architect Charles Gwathmey. The program is curated in direct response to the house itself — process-based works and pieces built on flexible instrumentation, chosen for their own architectural logic: repetition as structure, structure as form.
This event is reserved for concertnova subscribers and donors. Additional details will be shared directly with invited guests.
THE PROGRAM
To be announced.
WHAT IF WE’RE BEAUTIFUL
WHAT IF WE’RE BEAUTIFUL
EVENT DESCRIPTION
What if family is not something we inherit, but something we choose and create together? Presented during Pride Month, What If We’re Beautiful explores identity, belonging, home, and chosen family through the lens of queer experience.
Musicians from Hub New Music and concertnova come together as a single chamber ensemble for a program that moves from introspection toward connection and queer joy. Eve Beglarian’s I Will Not Be Sad in This World opens the evening as an intimate invocation, followed by music by Jennifer Higdon, Benjamin Britten, and Julius Eastman. The program culminates in Daniel Thomas Davis’s What If We’re Beautiful, a collection of musical gifts created for members of the composer’s chosen family. Together, these works celebrate the relationships through which we become fully known and imagine family as an act of love, trust, and mutual care.
SPECIAL GUESTS: Hub New Music
WHEN: June 2027, date and time to be announced
WHERE: To be announced
THE PROGRAM
To be announced.
BETWEEN FORMS
BETWEEN FORMS
Music, Sculpture, and the Living Landscape
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Click here for parking + event info, and directions
Life does not disappear; it changes form. At the sculpture-filled forested property of artists Steven Finke and Ana England, concertnova performs music of impermanence and transformation, moving through a natural landscape of beauty, loss, and ultimate renewal.
Visitors will be immersed in the experience: musicians will perform throughout the wooded property, in dialogue with Finke’s immersive, life-size sculptures and the land they are built from and on. Music exploring breath, stillness, transformation, and passage will create a dialogue among sound, sculpture, plants, and the surrounding environment.
This is not a traditional seated concert. Guests will walk through the forest, discovering performances stationed along the path and beside the sculptures. Between performances, visitors may explore the property, enjoy a picnic, and experience the artwork and landscape at their own pace.
Performances will take place at scheduled intervals between noon and 5:00 PM, with breaks throughout the afternoon. Structured like a festival, the event allows guests to arrive and depart freely and choose how much of the day they would like to experience. A detailed performance schedule will be shared very soon.
This is a rare opportunity to visit the artists’ private property, which is not ordinarily open to the public, and to experience its sculptures through music created and selected for this remarkable setting.
SPECIAL GUESTS: Flutist Molly Barth, percussionist Allen Otte, clarinetist Erin Fung, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, violist Brian Hong, violinists Jordana Greenberg and Zulya Bashirova, and artists Steven Finke and Ana England
MUSICAL PROGRAM: Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy, Lou Harrison, Jessie Montgomery, Caroline Shaw, and others, along with improvisation.
RAIN DATE: Sunday, October 4, 2026
LOCATION: Felicity, Ohio, approximately one hour southeast of Cincinnati. The exact address and arrival instructions will be shared with ticket holders.
SHUTTLE: Round-trip transportation from Cincinnati is available for an additional $35. The shuttle will depart Cincinnati at 10:45 AM and return by approximately 6:30 PM. To purchase a seat reservation on the shuttle, visit https://givebutter.com/between-forms-shuttle. The Cincinnati departure/return location is the Oakley Meijer store parking lot at 3195 Geier Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45209.
FOOD: Guests are encouraged to bring a picnic to enjoy on the property. Complimentary snacks will also be provided.
TERRAIN AND ATTIRE: This experience takes place outdoors on forest paths and uneven grass, dirt, and gravel terrain. Please wear sturdy, comfortable shoes and dress for the weather. We recommend bringing water and protection against sun, rain, and insects.
SEATING: Limited seating will be available throughout the property. Guests are encouraged to bring portable camping chairs or picnic blankets.
PROGRAM + PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Performances will take place at different locations throughout the property. During many time blocks, several musicians will perform simultaneously at separate stations. Guests may move among the performances and shape their own experience.
12:00–12:20 PM
OPENING
Semantron Invocation
Allen Otte, percussion
12:20–12:40 PM
Quatuor pour la fin du Temps
III. Abîme des oiseaux
Olivier Messiaen
Erin Fung, clarinet
Selections for Solo Violin, Set I
Johann Sebastian Bach
Zulya Bashirova, violin
Afro Blue
Mongo Santamaría
Jordana Greenberg, violin
Selections for Solo Cello, Set I
Johann Sebastian Bach
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
12:40–1:00 PM
Syrinx
Claude Debussy
Molly Barth, flute
Improvisation
Allen Otte, percussion
Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009
Set I
Johann Sebastian Bach
Brian Hong, viola
1:00–1:20 PM
GATHERED PERFORMANCE
First Concerto for Flute and Percussion
Lou Harrison
Molly Barth, flute
Allen Otte, percussion
1:20–1:40 PM
Sonata No. 2 in A Minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1003
Grave
Johann Sebastian Bach
Jordana Greenberg, violin
Selections for Solo Violin, Set II
Johann Sebastian Bach
Zulya Bashirova, violin
Solo Cello Selection
Hafliði Hallgrímsson
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
Rhapsody No. 1
Jessie Montgomery
Brian Hong, viola
1:40–2:00 PM
GATHERED PERFORMANCE
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Selected variations
Johann Sebastian Bach
Zulya Bashirova, violin
Brian Hong, viola
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
2:00–2:20 PM
Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009
Set II
Johann Sebastian Bach
Brian Hong, viola
Cantiga del Merolico
Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon
Molly Barth, flute
2:20–2:40 PM
GATHERED PERFORMANCE
Hibbie Jibbies
Marco Granados
Jordana Greenberg, violin
Molly Barth, flute
2:40–3:00 PM
Selections for Solo Violin, Set III
Johann Sebastian Bach
Zulya Bashirova, violin
12 Caprices for Solo Cello, Op. 25
Caprice No. 7
Alfredo Piatti
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
Additional Selections from Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009
Johann Sebastian Bach
Brian Hong, viola
3:00–3:20 PM
GATHERED PERFORMANCE
The Evergreen
Caroline Shaw
Jordana Greenberg and Zulya Bashirova, violins
Brian Hong, viola
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
3:20–3:40 PM
Serenity
Julia Perry
Erin Fung, clarinet
Soflama
Composer to be confirmed
Molly Barth, flute
3:40–4:00 PM
Additional Selections for Solo Violin
Johann Sebastian Bach
Zulya Bashirova, violin
Additional Selections for Solo Cello
Johann Sebastian Bach
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
Additional Solo Selection
Jordana Greenberg, violin
4:00–4:15 PM
TRANSITION
Percussion and Semantron Procession
Allen Otte, percussion
4:15–4:20 PM
Brief reset
4:20–5:00 PM
FINALE
Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
Johannes Brahms
Erin Fung, clarinet
Jordana Greenberg and Zulya Bashirova, violins
Brian Hong, viola
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
HEAVY METAL MARCHING BAND INSTRUMENT MAKING WORKSHOP
Overview
Build recycled instruments with Heavy Metal Marching Band for concertnova’s Cincinnati Sandbox at CCM on October 25.
This is a free pre-concert event for concertnova’s Cincinnati Sandbox concert, which will be at CCM on October 25, 2026.
What can you build from the things other people throw away?
Join concertnova, Wave Pool, and Cincinnati’s Heavy Metal Marching Band for a free, hands-on workshop devoted to building instruments from reclaimed metal and other discarded materials.
Participants will work in Wave Pool’s woodshop using hand tools and potentially power tools to construct, modify, and test original noise-making instruments. Materials will be provided, but you are welcome to bring safe recycled or reusable materials that could clang, rattle, scrape, ring, or otherwise make an interesting sound.
This workshop is intended for adults who are comfortable working around heavy tools and in an active woodshop environment. No musical or instrument-building experience is necessary, but participants should come prepared to build, experiment, and make some noise.
Space is limited, so advance registration is required.
WHO: Adults who are comfortable using hand tools and potentially power tools.
WHAT: A free, hands-on workshop building noise-making instruments from reclaimed materials with members of Heavy Metal Marching Band.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 29, 2026, from 6:00–8:00 PM
WHERE: Wave Pool, 2940 Colerain Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45225
WHAT TO EXPECT
Hands-on instrument construction in the Wave Pool woodshop
Recycled and reclaimed building materials
Hand tools and potentially power tools
Members of Heavy Metal Marching Band sharing their creative approach
Plenty of joyful, unconventional noise
Participants and their newly created instruments will be invited to perform with Heavy Metal Marching Band during Cincinnati Sandbox on Sunday, October 25. Performing is completely optional, and participation in this workshop is not required to join the band at the concert. Every workshop attendee will receive discounted tickets to the show, and every performer will be welcomed for free to the show.
Want something more family-friendly? Check out our all-ages instrument-making workshop at Indigo Hippo on September 20, where children and adults can transform playful recycled materials into imaginative musical instruments.
ABOUT HEAVY METAL MARCHING BAND
Heavy Metal Marching Band is a celebratory, noise-making, dancing, all-inclusive, joy-filled social revelry. The band includes very few people who “know what they’re doing” and is open to anyone who wants to join in. Every instrument is made from trash.
Special thanks to River City Metal Recycling.
ABOUT CINCINNATI SANDBOX
Cincinnati Sandbox explores how music can transform what we discard by repurposing everyday objects, found sounds, and recycled materials into something entirely new. Presented by concertnova, Cincinnati’s artist-led collective creating immersive and interdisciplinary concert experiences, the program brings together Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion, acclaimed violinist Kristin Lee, and Cincinnati’s Heavy Metal Marching Band.
The concert features the Cincinnati premiere of Vivian Fung’s Goddess//Insect, written for Sandbox Percussion and Lee, alongside music by John Corigliano, Andy Akiho, Viet Cuong, and others.
CINCINNATI SANDBOX CONCERT
Sunday, October 25, 2026
5:00 PM
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Tickets: $35 general admission, $20 young professionals, and $10 students.
ALL-AGES INSTRUMENT-MAKING WORKSHOP
Overview
Make instruments from recycled materials ahead of concertnova’s Cincinnati Sandbox concert at CCM on October 25.
This is a free pre-concert event for concertnova's Cincinnati Sandbox concert, which will be at CCM on October 25, 2026.
What sounds are hiding inside the things we throw away?
Join concertnova and Indigo Hippo for a free, all-ages workshop exploring how everyday materials can become imaginative musical instruments. Using wood, cardboard, plastic, tubing, bells, rubber bands, and other reclaimed materials, participants will build, experiment, and discover entirely new sounds.
An Indigo Hippo facilitator will lead the workshop, with additional support from concertnova. All materials will be provided, and no musical or building experience is necessary. Children must participate with an accompanying adult.
Space is very limited, so advance registration is required.
WHO: All ages. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
WHAT: A FREE, hands-on workshop making musical instruments from recycled and creatively reused materials.
WHEN: Sunday, September 20, 2026, from 3:00–5:00 PM
WHERE: Indigo Hippo
WHAT TO EXPECT
A playful, hands-on instrument-making experience
An assortment of recycled and creatively reused materials
Guidance from Indigo Hippo and concertnova
Plenty of opportunities to experiment and make noise
Want to get more heavy-duty and make an instrument you can play during the concert? Check out our instrument-building workshop with Heavy Metal Marching Band at Wave Pool on September 29.
Participants who make instruments during the workshops will be invited to bring them to the performance during Cincinnati Sandbox on Sunday, October 25. Every workshop attendee will receive discounted tickets to the show!
ABOUT CINCINNATI SANDBOX
Cincinnati Sandbox explores how music can transform what we discard by repurposing everyday objects, found sounds, and recycled materials into something entirely new. Presented by concertnova, Cincinnati’s artist-led collective creating immersive and interdisciplinary concert experiences, the program brings together Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion, acclaimed violinist Kristin Lee, and Cincinnati’s Heavy Metal Marching Band.
The concert features the Cincinnati premiere of Vivian Fung’s Goddess//Insect, written for Sandbox Percussion and Lee, alongside music by John Corigliano, Andy Akiho, Viet Cuong, and others.
CINCINNATI SANDBOX CONCERT
Sunday, October 25, 2026
5:00 PM
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Tickets: $35 general admission, $20 young professionals, and $10 students.