— ABOUT
Soundbox Ventures
A Sarasota-based 501©3 nonprofit striving to build a new generation of music lovers and advocates that organizes artist residencies and concerts that focus on making the artistic process accessible. Soundbox artists are not just world-class composers or performers but the next generation of music philosophers, curators, and educators who together build a platform that seeks to give voice to meaningful projects.
— VISION
Why we exist
Soundbox projects inspire artists in the belief that composers, performers, and audiences are not separated by self-imposed concert hall traditions but united by a shared curiosity about what the music is for.
Programming & Philosophy
Most classical music programming follows the logic of a museum exhibition, contextualising a curated selection of works under an exhibition theme or subject via an experience structured by traditional etiquette followed by performers and audiences. While silence and attention are important for deep and close listening, they can easily become barriers for many people.
Soundbox programs begin from a different premise, seeking alternatives to this narrow but common concert format. Our festivals and events are designed to give audiences direct access to the music: its context, questions, and relevance to the present. Listening to music then becomes an active and immersive experience.
— HISTORY
Our story
Since its founding in 2022, Soundbox Ventures has provided a platform that catalyses collaborations between artist-advocates and philosophers while engaging audiences in the artistic process. The organisation seeks to reinvigorate the social element of music-making for musicians and audiences alike. Previously, its two flagship programs, designed to address the urgent existential questions facing classical music today, include the Listen Hear Salon Concerts presented first at Sarasota Art Museum and later at St. Boniface Episcopal Church, and the Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program, a seasonal educational festival in which musicians, composers, and audiences gather to celebrate contemporary music and support the voices of the future. These two programs have been revamped and consolidated into the new Soundbox Fellowship Program (SFP).
The Soundbox Fellowship Program (SFP) has many versions, its longest being the SFP for Composers which provides a residency program for early-career composers to work with world-class mentors and performers/recording artists. Its events and programs have been extended to local audiences and music professionals worldwide. SFP offers a suite of programs every year serving composers from students to early-career professionals.
SFP composer alumni come from excellent composition programs including Peabody, NEC, Juilliard, USC, Brown, Penn, the universities of MIchigan, Miami, Denver, and many others. Soundbox resident artists are world-class, affiliated with such institutions as the Staatskapelle Dresden, Metropolitan Opera, Auckland Philharmonia, Pittsburgh Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, New York Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Curtis Institute of Music, University of Ottawa, Stony Brook University, to name a few.
Soundbox Ventures is proud to build partnerships with many community organisations, including St. Boniface Friends of Music, Sarasota Music Archive, Sarasota Music Conservatory, Plymouth Harbor on Sarasota Bay, ensemblenewSRQ, and Classical WSMR. Soundbox Ventures is proud to have received grants from Chamber Music America, The Women’s Exchange of Sarasota, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, Fundació Vera Musica, and the Patterson Foundation.
— HISTORY
Partners & collaborators
EDUCATION PARTNER
Sarasota Music Conservatory
VENUE PARTNER
St. Boniface Episcopal Church
MEDIA PARTNER
Classical WSMR
PRESENTING PARTNER
ensembleNEWSRQ
PRESENTING PARTNER
Sarasota Music Archive
PRESENTING PARTNER
St. Boniface Friends of Music
PRESENTING PARTNER