So Percussion performs at Conn College

So Percussion can create music from the most unexpected sources - even an amplified cactus.

On its website, the ensemble says it "has redefined the modern percussion ensemble as a flexible, omnivorous entity." And that's not just idle boasting.

The group's musicians originally aimed to perform pieces by such renowned modern composers as Cage and Reich. But they ended up commissioning works, creating a whole new repertoire for percussion.

So Ensemble - consisting of Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting - will perform Friday at Connecticut College.

(So's founding members, by the way, met as grad students at another Connecticut institute of higher learning: the Yale School of Music.)

Since its start in 1999, So Percussion has released more than a dozen albums and toured the U.S. and the world. It has drawn praise-filled reviews from publications ranging from the New York Times to Billboard Magazine. The New Yorker summed the group's appeal when describing their "exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam."

- KRISTINA DORSEY

So Percussion,

8 p.m. Friday, Evans Hall, Cummings Arts Center, Connecticut College, Mohegan Avenue, New London; $22 general admission, $20 seniors, $11 students; (860) 439-2787, onstage.conncoll.edu.