Soundbox Ventures gives musicians a new place to play

Who is Max Tan? If you don't know already, you will by the time the first Suncoast Composer Festival wraps on Oct. 7.

Tax wears many musical hats. He's an alum of the Perlman Music Program and has been coming to Sarasota to study and perform since 2007. He's a violinist with Sarasota Orchestra who is the founder and artistic director of Soundbox Ventures, a music "think tank."

In 2022, Soundbox founded the Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program to partner emerging composers with mentors and performers.

This year, Soundbox is taking Suncoast public by launching the inaugural Suncoast Composer Festival. With a lineup of ticketed and free lectures and performances, the festival promises to be a worthy addition to Sarasota's vibrant classical music scene.

Tan and his associates at Suncoast have given a lot of thought to the state of classical music today, including how to attract a new generation of fans who may have a more casual or even interactive approach to enjoying music.

Case in point: It is verboten in the classical music world to applaud between movements of a work. But at this summer's Sarasota Music Festival, it was not uncommon for audiences to reward the festival's young fellows with enthusiastic applause after a solo. 

Tan says he would have had no problem with the spontaneous applause. "If they feel they want to express admiration, I don't think the audience should be stopped," Tan says. 

Of course, the venue also figures into the equation. A music festival has a more casual vibe than a formal concert.

"I'm interested in people's relationship to music and in other existential questions," Tan says in an interview. "How do we attract an audience, especially after Covid?"

Other questions that Tan is pondering include: "How do we expand the classical canon? How do we make it a more inclusive tent? What does classical music mean today?" Heady stuff, indeed.

A place for musicians and their fans to play

Tan believes that Sarasota, with its legion of supportive arts fans, is the perfect place to address some of these issues, but in a playful fashion. That's why he named his think tank Soundbox Ventures when he founded it in November 2022. "It's like a sandbox, but with music," he says.

"We're not trying to produce more concerts," Tan says. "There's plenty of that in Sarasota. The idea is that musicians need a place to express themselves. Sarasota has been helpful to artists. It’s a community that understands the importance of the arts and is interested in going behind the scenes."

Along with launching Suncoast, Soundbox has been hosting "Listen Hear" salon concerts in the Sarasota area. During the festival, two chamber music concerts will be held at a "chateau" in South Poinsettia Park that will allow attendees to mingle with artists. The location of the concerts will be revealed to ticket holders.

Both concerts will be held Saturday, Oct. 5. The first program, "Shades of Romance," features work by Francis Poulenc, Marc Migó Cortes and Johannes Brahms.

Image courtesy of Sophia Szokolay 

The second performance, "Nothing is Forever," showcases work by Sean Friar, Maurice Ravel, Sam Wu, Sarah Gibson and Gabriel Fauré. 

A native of East Lyme, Connecticut, Tan received his introduction to Sarasota through the Perlman Music Program, founded in 1994 by Toby Perlman, the wife of superstar violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Tan attended a summer session at PMP's Shelter Island, New York, center, before coming to Sarasota in December 2007 for the program's winter program.

He's returned nearly every year since, first as a PMP student and alum who performed concerts and then as a member of the Sarasota Orchestra since 2017. 

Along the way, Tan earned a degree at Harvard and began pursuing a doctorate at the Juilliard School. In April, he made his Carnegie Hall debut, with pianist Marisa Gupta, after winning the 2023 Gershon Cohen Violin Award.

Working in concert with partners

In programming the first Suncoast Composer Festival, Tan has relied on such partners as Sarasota Music Archive, housed in Selby Library, contemporary classical music group ensembleNewSRQ and classical music radio station WSMR.

Suncoast Fellows will take part in free public seminars hosted by the Sarasota Music Archive. Their compositions will be featured on Tyler Kline’s “Modern Notebook,” airing in November on WSMR. 

Tan will speak on Friday, Oct. 4, at Selby Library in a presentation entitled "How Recordings Redefined Music: From Brahms to Today." That program will include a performance of "Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115."

But that's just part one of the double header. The second is focused on the 100-year struggle to achieve recognition for Catalan classical music. That program will be led by Suncoast composer faculty member Marc Migó Cortes.

The festival will culminate in the “Composer Fellows Concert,” presented in collaboration with ensembleNewSRQ on Monday, Oct. 7, at First Congregational Church.

What a way to kick off season!