Ear Taxi Festival 2021 Program Book by eartaxifestival

CONTENTS Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy as of September 1, 2021. Updates will be posted at eartaxifestival.com.

2–19

OVERVIEW

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS WELCOME LETTER FROM LORI LIGHTFOOT, MAYOR OF CHICAGO WELCOME FROM NEW MUSIC CHICAGO WELCOME FROM THE FESTIVAL LEADERSHIP

20–33

OFF-SITE MAINSTAGE EVENTS

20–33

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

CONCERT SCHEDULE & PROGRAM NOTES ESSAY BY JILLIAN DEGROOT

34–53

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

54–91

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

CONCERT SCHEDULE & PROGRAM NOTES

CONCERT SCHEDULE & PROGRAM NOTES ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

92–105

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

106–131

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

CONCERT SCHEDULE & PROGRAM NOTES

CONCERT SCHEDULE & PROGRAM NOTES ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

132–149

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

150–189

BIOGRAPHIES

CONCERT SCHEDULE & PROGRAM NOTES

CONTENTS

Photo Credit: Michael Hall

CONTENTS

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS For more program information, please visit www.eartaxifestival.com/spotlight-concerts. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

FIFTH HOUSE ENSEMBLE: RIVERS EMPYREAN 2:00 PM

Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods

21850 Riverwoods Rd, EAR TAXI SOCIAL EVENT AT PERILLA Riverwoods, IL RESTAURANT $20 members/Riverwoods 6:00 PM residents, $30 non-members 401 N Milwaukee Ave Free FOURTH COAST ENSEMBLE 3:00 PM Newberry Library, Ruggles Hall THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 60 W Walton Street $45 in person, $20 livestream RHYTHM IS IMAGE (HANNAH BARNES AND CHRISTOPHER JONES, KOEUN GRACE LEE, PIANO CO-DIRECTORS) 3:00 PM 8:30 PM Nevermore Performance Space Constellation Chicago 3411 W North Avenue 3111 N Western Ave $15 general/$10 students in person, Free/$10 suggested donation donation-based livestream CELEBRATING LGBTQ MUSICIANS IN CHICAGO, CURATED BY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 ANDREW MCMANUS Off-site mainstage series event MATT ULERY’S MANNERIST 11 7:30 PM 8:30 PM Elastic Arts Constellation Chicago 3429 W Diversey Ave 3111 N Western Ave $15 general $15 in person, donation-based livestream TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 QUIJOTE DUO 7:00 PM DCTorium 3026 W Armitage Ave $15 general, $12 students KOSMOLOGIA 7:30 PM Pianoforte Foundation 1335 S Michigan Ave, 2nd Floor $20 general, $10 students SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 KOSMOLOGIA 3:00 PM Pianoforte Foundation 1335 S Michigan Ave, 2nd Floor $20 general, $10 students

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

MAVERICK ENSEMBLE Off-site mainstage series event 11:00 AM Chicago State University Breakey Theatre 9501 S King Drive Free ERIC LEONARDSON 8:00 PM Jarvis Square Pottery 1443 West Jarvis Avenue Suggested donation THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 LOUISE & OSCAR’S FASHION SHOW (FT. JENNA LYLE AND RILEY LEITCH) 8:00 PM The Neo-Futurists 5153 N Ashland $15 general

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 MUSIC BY PATRICIA MOREHEAD 10:00 AM virtual concert (streaming on repeat until midnight) Free LIVESOURCING: AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION IN A LIVE CODING PERFORMANCE VISDA GOUDARZI AND ANNA XAMBÓ 12:00 PM Virtual performance with audience participation Free MARIE ALATALO, PIANO 6:30 PM Pianoforte Foundation 1335 S Michigan Ave, 2nd Floor $20 general, $10 students/seniors BEYOND THIS POINT Off-site mainstage series event 7:00 PM Rebuilding Exchange 1740 W Webster Ave $10 and up *This event is part of a larger fundraising event for Rebuilding Exchange

NON:OP OPEN OPERA WORKS 8:00 PM SITE/less 1250 W Augusta Blvd $20 in person, $10 livestream SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 MUSIC BY PATRICIA MOREHEAD 10:00 AM virtual concert (streaming on repeat until midnight) Free THE LUCKY TRIKES: MUSIC STORYTIME & LITTLE FREE LIBRARY RIBBON CUTTING (OUTDOOR CONCERT) 11:00 AM Douglass Park 1401 S Sacramento Drive Free

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

CHICAGO COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA 7:30 PM St. James Cathedral 65 E Huron Street $35 general, $15 student MAJEL CONNERY + SKY CREATURE 7:30 PM Richard Gray Gallery Warehouse 2044 W Carroll Ave Free NON:OP OPEN OPERA WORKS 8:00 PM SITE/less 1250 W Augusta Blvd $20 in person, $10 livestream ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE AND KEN VANDERMARK: LAST TRANE TO CLOVER FIVE 7:15 PM Logan Center for the Arts (Hyde Park Jazz Festival) 915 E 60th Street Free SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 ETERNAL UNITS OF BEAUTY FOR STRING QUINTET (COMPOSER RENÉE BAKER) 3:00 PM Phantom Gallery 440 E 47th Street Free COMPOSER/PERFORMERS: LIZA SOBEL (SOPRANO) AND JONATHAN HANNAU (PIANO) 8:30 PM Constellation 3111 N Western Ave $15 general, donation-based livestream MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 DELMARK RECORDS PRESENTS... THE MUSIC OF JULIA A. MILLER & ELBIO BARILARI, WITH KAIA STRING QUARTET & TREVOR WATKIN 7:00 PM Delmark Records 4121 N Rockwell $10 in person or livestream 5

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

SINGING BRONZE: JOEY BRINK (CARILLON), KAITLIN FOLEY (SOPRANO), JOSEPH MIN (CARILLON) (OUTDOOR CONCERT) Off-site mainstage series event 5:00 PM Rockefeller Memorial Chapel 5850 S Woodlawn Ave Free

Kehrein Center for the Arts 5628 W Washington Blvd Free

CHICAGO FRINGE OPERA 8:00 PM After-Words Bookstore 23 E Illinois Street Free WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 Professional development workshops DePaul Art Museum 935 W Fullerton Ave Free WORKSHOP: GRANT WRITING AND A DREAM FOR FUTURE PHILANTHROPY (DEIDRE HUCKABAY) 11:00 AM–12:00 PM WORKSHOP: FORGING A NEW PATH (SETH BOUSTEAD) 12:15–1:15 PM WORKSHOP: CHOREOGRAPHY/MUSIC COLLABORATION (JESSICA TONG, JULIA RAE ANTONICK, PETER FERRY) 1:45–2:45 PM WORKSHOP: CULTIVATING CREATIVE COMMUNITIES (MELISSA NGAN) 3:00–4:00 PM PANEL: WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF A THRIVING ECOSYSTEM FOR NEW MUSIC? PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH NEW MUSIC USA 4:30–6:00 PM LAKESHORE RUSH 6:00 PM livestream from Garfield Park Conservatory Virtual, Free 6

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

PICOSA 12:00–12:45 PM CLARE LONGENDYKE, PIANO 12:45–1:15 PM FONEMA CONSORT 1:45–2:30 PM LISA GOETHE-MCGINN, FLUTIST AND COMPOSER 2:30–3:15 PM QUINCE ENSEMBLE 3:45–4:15 PM BLUE VIOLET DUO 4:15–4:30 PM CHICAGO ARTS AND MUSIC PROJECT/ DEPAUL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC STUDENTS 5:00–5:30 PM PANEL DISCUSSION: DISSOLVING PARADIGMS: ASPIRING TOWARDS A FREE AND INCLUSIVE FLOW OF IDEAS, INFLUENCES, AND INNOVATION IN THE ARTS 6:00–7:30 PM MICHAEL HALL, MICHAEL DELFIN, AND MEGAN IHNEN TRIO 8:00–8:45 PM KAIA STRING QUARTET 8:45–9:30 PM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 DePaul Art Museum 935 W Fullerton Ave Free SARAH PLUM (WITH NICK PHOTINOS): PARAMETERS OF SOUND: WORKS BY FOUR INTERNATIONAL COMPOSERS ASSOCIATED WITH CHICAGO 11:30 AM–12:15 PM

OGNI SUONO 12:15–1:00 PM JILLIAN DEGROOT: LECTURE ON SILENCE FOR CHICAGO 1:15–1:35 PM 5TH WAVE COLLECTIVE 1:45–2:30 PM

DePaul University School of Music Holtschneider Performance Center Gannon Hall 2330 N Halsted St Free DEPAUL WIND ENSEMBLE, ERICA NEIDLINGER, CONDUCTOR 3:00–3:15 PM NICK PHOTINOS: EVERYTHING IN BLOOM 3:15–4:00 PM FAT PIGEON WITH DANIEL ROBLES LIZANO 4:30–5:15 PM FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC PROJECT, STEPHEN BURNS, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 5:15–6:00 PM SONATA FOR AN EMPTY ROOM WITH ANGEL BAT DAWID, DR. CHARLES JONES SMITH, AND DR. ADAM ZANOLINI 6:30–7:15 PM DEPAUL ENSEMBLE 20+, WITH ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE 7:15–8:00 PM ERNEST DAWKINS BLACK STAR LINE: THE CHICAGO OUTET PROJECT 9:15–10:30 PM DePaul University School of Music Holtschneider Performance Center Allen Recital Hall 2330 N Halsted St Free BACH + BEETHOVEN EXPERIENCE 3:30–4:15 PM CHICAGO WIND PROJECT 4:15–5:00 PM ZAFA COLLECTIVE 5:30–6:15 PM F-PLUS 6:15–7:00 PM JENNIE OH BROWN, FLUTE 7:30–7:45 PM

DEIDRE HUCKABAY WITH JESSICA ANNE, MABEL KWAN, AND JASMINE LUPE MENDOZA: WORDS FOR WORDS FROM 8:15–9:00 PM SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Penthouse (9th Floor) 915 E 60th Street Free GARRETT MENDELOW, PERCUSSION 11:30 AM–12:00 PM SUSAN MERDINGER, STEINWAY ARTIST, PIANO 12:15–1:00 PM PATRICIA MOREHEAD, OBOE/ COMPOSER 1:00–1:15 PM GAUDETE BRASS 2:00–2:45 PM

TRI-AGAIN

3:00–3:45 PM AVONDALE TRIO 4:15–5:00 PM ZACHARY GOOD AND TONIA KO: UP HIGH (world premiere, commissioned by Ear Taxi Festival) 6:00–6:45 PM Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry 929 E. 60th St Free SHANNA PRANAITIS & JAY ALAN YIM: THE ROPE DANCER ACCOMPANIES HERSELF WITH HER SHADOWS 1:15–2:00 PM PRESENTATION BY TAALIB-DIN ZIYAD: THE OTHER SIDE OF PERFORMANCE 5:00–5:45 PM

STIMMEN: A FIVE-CHANNEL ELECTROACOUSTIC COMPOSITION BY FLORIAN HOLLERWEGER & CHRISTINE SCHERZER (2019) 7:45–8:15

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Hall 915 E 60th Street $20 General Admission Students free with ID WET INK ENSEMBLE 7:30–9:00 PM Presented by Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition in partnership with UChicago Presents

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3 Epiphany Center for the Arts 201 S Ashland Ave Free CITY BEAUTIFUL: FEATURING MARIANNE PARKER, MEGAN IHNEN, MICHAEL HALL 11:00–11:45 AM

FEED: TED MOORE AND BEN ROIDL-WARD 11:00–11:45 PM MONDAY, OCTOBER 4 Kehrein Center for the Arts 5628 W Washington Blvd Free ELENNA SINDLER AND HASCO DUO 11:00–11:45 AM PETER FERRY 11:45 AM–12:30 PM CROSSING BORDERS MUSIC 1:00–1:45 PM

DANIEL QUINN, TROMBONE AND JANNA WILLIAMSON, PIANO // DANIEL PESCA, PIANIST & COMPOSER + HANNA HURWITZ, VIOLINIST 11:45 AM–12:30 PM

UNSUPERVISED WITH CHICAGO COMPOSER’S CONSORTIUM 1:45–2:30 PM

A•PE•RI•OD•IC 1:00–1:45 PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY GEORGE LEWIS: NEW MUSIC DECOLONIZATION IN EIGHT DIFFICULT STEPS 4:00–4:15 PM

THE DREAM SONGS PROJECT AND TED MOORE 1:45–2:30 PM FIRE THIEF 3:00–3:45 PM CHAI COLLABORATIVE ENSEMBLE 3:45–4:30 PM D-COMPOSED 5:00–6:00 PM Constellation Chicago 3111 N Western Ave Free JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL: RESISTANT NOISE (2020), FOR VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE, AND ELECTRONICS (world premiere) 7:30–8:00 PM ~NOIS 8:30–9:15 PM

WURTZ-BERGER DUO 9:45–10:30 PM

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

CSO MUSICNOW 3:00–3:30 PM

HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PLAYERS 6:00–7:45 PM THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE AND BIENEN CONTEMPORARY/EARLY VOCAL ENSEMBLE (BCE) OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 7:30–8:15 PM CHAD MCCULLOUGH 8:30–9:15 PM

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Chicago is part of the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes like the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox also called this area home. Located at the intersection of several great waterways, the land naturally became a site of travel and healing for many tribes. American Indians continue to call this area home, and now Chicago is home to the sixth largest Urban American Indian community that still practices their heritage, traditions, and care for the land and waterways. Today, Chicago continues to be a place that calls many people from diverse backgrounds to live and gather. Despite the many changes the city has experienced, our American Indian, Ear Taxi Festival, and New Music Chicago communities see the importance of the land and this place that has always been a city home to many communities and perspectives. —Based on language from the American Indian Center of Chicago

Ear Taxi Festival 2021 is supported by a generous gift from Helen Zell, contributing partners Reva and David Logan Center for the

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ear Taxi Festival 2021 is supported by a generous gift from Helen Zell, contributing partners Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, WFMT, and StoryCorps, and grants from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, The CliffDwellers Arts Foundation, Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Irving Harris Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, and New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Helen F. Whitaker Fund and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. DePaul Art Museum, which champions traditionally marginalized artists’ voices and communities in order to connect people through art and ideas from Chicago and beyond, is a proud supporting partner of Ear Taxi Festival. New Music Chicago is supported by the Amphion Foundation, Inc., the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Ear Taxi Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our funders and donors:

ARCHER $125,000 and above Helen Zell

CLARK $50,000 - $124,999 CLYBOURN $20,000 - $49,999

Paul M. Angell Family Foundation Richard H. Driehaus Foundation DePaul Art Museum National Endowment for the Arts

ELSTON $10,000 - $19,999

Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation Irving Harris Foundation

HIGGINS $5,000 - $9,999

Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation New Music USA The Augusta Read Thomas and Bernard Rands Trust

KINGSBURY $2,500 - $4,999

Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Loretta Julian

OVERVIEW

LINCOLN $1,000 - $2,499

John Bierbusse The CliffDwellers Arts Foundation Jane Heron Illinois Arts Council Agency Gregory Nigosian, in memory of Richard Nigosian

MILWAUKEE $500 - $999

Anonymous, to honor the many artists and administrators who struggled through the last year. May this festival mark a reawakening for each of them and for Chicago’s music community. Bruce Oltman and Bonnie McGrath Mike and Mary Woolever Timothy J. Lyman, in honor of composer Amos Gillespie

RUSH $1 - $99

Aaron and Naomi Alter Mary Jo Barton Jon Butcher Eliza Brown Mini Bhattacharya Cheryl Flinn Christopher Jones Katinka Kleijn Patricia Leshuk Don Macica Cate Mascari Erica Miller Gregory O’Drobinak Sarah Plum Vanessa Reed Wilson Smith Veljko Trkulja Chris Wild Ryan Zerna

OGDEN $100 - $499

Reba and Bob Cafarelli, In honor of the Ear Taxi Festival 2021 Leadership Team Xavier Beteta Robert Dillon Joan Mazzonelli, In memory of Lawrence Klevan Amy Iwano Philip & Patricia Morehead Marjorie Stinespring 11

STAFF LEADERSHIP TEAM

VOLUNTEERS

Jennie Oh Brown

Ear Taxi Festival could not happen without the amazing support of our volunteers and staff. This list reflects those who have volunteered as of September 1, 2021.

Executive and Artistic Director

Beth Koehler

Production Assistant

Michael Lewanski Curatorial Director

Justin Peters

Production Manager

LaRob K. Rafael

Director of Community Engagement

Jessica Wolfe

Managing Director

Phoebe Wu

Operations Assistant

TEAM Aphorism Studios

recording engineers & videographers

Xavier Beteta Executive Team

Bucklesweet Media

Public Relations and Marketing

Deidre Huckabay Grant Writer

Amy Iwano

Executive Team and Advisor

Forrestt Strong LaFave Photographer

Marianne Parker Executive Team

Ana María Bermúdez, Studio ibid. Graphic Design

Amy Wurtz

Executive Team

INTERNS Kayla Bradley Amy Gadd Hannah Kim Madeleine Wilmsen Raffi Wright

OVERVIEW

Xavier Beteta Kayla Bradley Stephen Burns Shi-An Costello Michael Fogarty Amy Gadd Avi Goldstein Romy Goldstein Jennifer Harazin Andrew Harlan Deirdre Harrison Olive Haugh Eugenia Jeong Rick Lightburn Marc Mellits Marianne Parker Nick Photinos Eva Skye Jennifer Smart Madeleine Wilmsen Amy Wurtz Ben Zucker

WELCOME LETTER FROM LORI LIGHTFOOT, MAYOR OF CHICAGO

OVERVIEW

Now in its second decade of supporting and advancing our city’s vital contemporary music culture, New Music Chicago is proud to present Ear Taxi Festival 2021. NEW MUSIC CHICAGO (NMC) advocates for the importance of a vital, vibrant music scene in our city and its geographical region. We are a member organization that supports a passionate community through online and in-person services, including a calendar, bi-monthly e-newsletters, social media presence, networking opportunities, professional development, and performances, serving emerging and established artists alike. In 2020, NMC served 100 members, comprising individual artists, student members, organizations, and ensembles. Founded in 2005, NMC has a significant history of presenting and facilitating festivals, series, and programs featuring members’ work. In 2006, NMC organized Sonic Impact, a two-day festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2011, NMC ensembles collaborated to present Terry Riley’s In C in Millennium Park, followed the next summer by a collaborative performance of John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, and a collaborative 10th Anniversary Celebration in 2015. In 2016, NMC served as the partner and fiscal sponsor for the Ear Taxi Festival, which united 350+ musicians to offer 54 world premieres over six days of concerts, as well as lectures and sound installations. In 2018 and 2019, NMC sponsored Impromptu Fest, an eight-concert downtown series featuring members and launched the ongoing free, monthly NMC Presents series at the Chicago Cultural Center. In 2020, NMC celebrated its 15th anniversary at Epiphany Center for the Arts and this year supports Ear Taxi Festival 2021, which elevates Chicago as an internationally recognized center for extraordinary musical and cultural innovation. Now well into its second decade of service, New Music Chicago stands as a unique resource in the U.S., fostering the essential, positive, and cooperative spirit of contemporary classical and experimental music in Chicago. Enjoy the Festival, and learn more and support us at newmusicchicago.org.

NEW MUSIC CHICAGO BOARD OF DIRECTORS Amy Wurtz, President Marianne Parker, Vice President Xavier Beteta, Secretary Marc Mellits, Membership Chair Jennie Oh Brown, Director Michael Lewanski, Director

Tricia Park, Director Shi-An Costello, Director Eugenia Jeong, Director Nick Photinos, Director Ben Zucker, Director 15

GREETINGS FRIENDS! New Music Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival 2021 is a point of arrival for all of us, following a journey unlike any we’ve lived through before. As stages closed around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic inadvertently created a period of incubation for artists, many of whom now emerge with renewed creativity, re-awakened energy, and re-imagined paradigms for bringing art to the stage. Ear Taxi Festival celebrates Chicago’s world-class community of contemporary classical musicians, composers, sound experimentalists, improvisers, creative musicians, and more. The 6-pointed star at the center of our logo (designed by Studio Ibid) represents a point of connection for all and an intersection of ideas, inspiration, cultural histories, and work. It is also derived from the 6-pointed stars of the Chicago flag as well as from those diagonal Chicago streets that diverge from Chicago’s rectangular grid system. These “off-grid,” 6-cornered intersections often yield some of the city’s most prominent and unique architecture and memorialize Chicago’s tumultuous history. Most importantly, the Ear Taxi logo represents a point of artistic connection that joins Chicago’s many distinct and sometimes disparate new music practices and traditions. It is our sincere hope that Ear Taxi Festival can fuel our evolving conversations towards greater equity and inclusion in our field. To that end, we crafted the Ear Taxi Festival Mission Statement that we hope will stay with all of us well beyond the 2021 festival:

The Ear Taxi Festival theme HEAR CHICAGO is a call to engage with the vast multiplicity of styles and traditions that constitutes Chicago’s expansive musical identity in the 21st century. It expresses our firm belief in the vitality of Chicago’s musicians of color, and especially the contributions of Black musicians, as a significant part of the city’s complex history. As our society takes steps to heal from the multiple tragedies it is currently experiencing, as well as its centuries-long legacy of injustice, inequity, colonialism, and violence, it is most importantly an invitation to challenge, collaborate, and change together as artists and listeners. We remain committed to doing the steadfast work necessary to progress towards a just society. 17

Artistic and Executive Director Jennie Oh Brown oversaw all aspects of the festival’s planning, from venues to fundraising to organizational partnerships to grant writing to marketing/PR, as well as being responsible for the building and management of the leadership and executive teams, all in addition to serving as liaison to New Music Chicago’s Board of Directors. Though performing artists on Ear Taxi Festival created their own programs (and therefore the festival as a whole is a group curatorial effort), Curatorial Director Michael Lewanski oversaw the curatorial aims of the festival, pursuing a balanced, representative, and broad range of Chicago artists, while seeking to situate Ear Taxi Festival as a progressive force in US music discourses. Managing Director Jessica Wolfe was tasked with overseeing the vastly complex logistics, responsible for artist and vendor contracts, managing a complex series of events in a wide variety of very different spaces, as well as managing communications between the teams, the venues and vendors, and the nearly 600 artists represented on the festival. Director of Community Engagement LaRob K. Rafael pursues the mission in terms of the festival’s relationships with a series of Chicago communities that are extremely diverse, have access to widely differing resources and privileges, but which intersect. Production Manager Justin Peters serves as the engine of Ear Taxi Festival, providing on-the-ground support that includes organizing technical details, logistics, and managing various support teams. The Ear Taxi Festival Executive Team (former New Music Chicago president Amy Iwano and NMC board members Amy Wurtz, Marianne Parker, and Xavier Beteta) has provided its advice, perspective, and counsel in bi-weekly meetings along the way. We’re thrilled to walk alongside our Ear Taxi Festival 2021 community of nearly 600 artists, composers, writers, and speakers, and thousands of audience members globally as we all HEAR CHICAGO. Our leadership team remains immensely grateful for this opportunity to serve our city, and we look optimistically to the future of Chicago music and hopefully many more New Music Chicago Ear Taxi Festivals to come!

Kindest regards, LEADERSHIP TEAM

EXECUTIVE TEAM

Jennie Oh Brown, Executive and Artistic Director Michael Lewanski , Curatorial Director Jessica Wolfe, Managing Director LaRob K. Rafael, Director of Community Engagement Justin Peters, Production Manager

Amy Iwano Amy Wurtz Marianne Parker Xavier Beteta

OVERVIEW

Photo Credit: Michael Hall (2018)

OVERVIEW

OFF-SITE MAINSTAGE EVENTS

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

7:30 PM Elastic Arts 3429 W Diversey Ave $15 general

CELEBRATING LGBTQ MUSICIANS IN CHICAGO ALEX TEMPLE: MICROPHAGES LJ WHITE: LOOK AFTER YOU CLAY METTENS: PASSACAGLIA ALEJANDRO ACIERTO: HERE, WHERE WE CONTINUALLY ARRIVE RANDALL WEST: NEW WORK ANDREW MCMANUS: QUIET DOWN Robin Meiksins, flute Phil Pierick, saxophones Alejandro Acierto, bass clarinet Ammie Brod, viola Daniel Baer, piano The works on our program represent a wide variety of LGBTQ voices. alejandro acierto’s work develops in real time from responses to a set of prerecorded viola samples activated from the frequency of #LGBTQ on Twitter. Alex Temple’s Microphages is a set of 10-second miniature piano pieces. Quiet down, a new work by Andrew McManus, draws on a recording of activist Silvia Rivera’s iconic speech at a New York rally in 1973. Clay Mettens’ Passacaglia is a set of colorful variations on saxophone multiphonics and hollow, muted piano sounds and their resonance. The program also features works by LJ White and Randall West. 21

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

11:00 AM Chicago State University Breakey Theatre 9501 S King Drive Free

MAVerick ENSEMBLE MAVerick Ensemble presents a performance of William Jason Raynovich’s newest work composed for Ear Taxi Festival 2021 for newly made instruments and computers. Alona Alexander, voice Przemysław Bosak, percussion Steve Butters, percussion William Jason Raynovich, cello/instrument builder Rebecca Reineke, keyboards/instrument builder Natalie Szabo, clarinet David Brooke Wetzel, bass clarinet

OFFSITE-MAINSTAGE EVENTS

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

7:00 PM Rebuilding Exchange 1740 W Webster Ave $10 and up

BEYOND THIS POINT

*This performance is part of a larger fundraising event for Rebuilding Exchange

Beyond This Point: John Corkill, Rebecca McDaniel, Adam Rosenblatt Arxduo: Garrett Arney, Mari Yoshinaga Nonoka Mizukami

MICHAEL GORDON: RECLAIMED TIMBER

Reclaimed Timber reframes Michael Gordon’s monumental percussion sextet Timber as an exploration of housing and homelessness in Chicago. The instruments (six slats of wood) are sourced directly from abandoned and vacant houses found in Chicago, creating a sound world that is directly linked to the city’s housing challenges and history. A light installation comprising more than 5000 LEDs and more than 200 paper lantern “houses” reactively responds to the sounds of the wood, reflecting the undulating structure of the music as waves of light filling the performance space.

OFFSITE-MAINSTAGE EVENTS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

5:00 PM Outdoor Concert Rockefeller Memorial Chapel 5850 S Woodlawn Ave Free

SINGING BRONZE AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: RIPPLE EFFECTS (2018) DARELENE CASTRO ORTIZ: UN VIOLENTO CHIAROSCURO BARROCO (2021, WORLD PREMIERE) CHARLES WUORINEN: THE BELLS (1966) ASHKAN BEHZADI: BLUE HAREBELL (2021, WORLD PREMIERE) JOEY BRINK: DANCE BENEATH THE MOON (2019, CHICAGO PREMIERE) HUNTER BROWN: SLOWMUSIC (2021, WORLD PREMIERE) Joey Brink, carillon Kaitlin Foley, soprano Joseph Min, carillon Joey Brink (carillon) teams up with Kaitlin Foley (soprano) and Joseph Min (carillon) to present new music for bells, electronics, and voice on the 100-ton Rockefeller carillon. Featuring three world premiers by Hunter Brown, Ashkan Behzadi, and Darlene Castro, as well as works by Joey Brink, Augusta Read Thomas, and a rediscovered work by Charles Wuorinen. Bring a picnic and blanket or chairs to the east lawn of Rockefeller Chapel (weather permitting), or walk the University of Chicago campus as the sounds descend from the tower for all to hear.

OFFSITE-MAINSTAGE EVENTS

WEDNESDAY

SEPTEMBER 29

Supported by the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, presented as a part of the DCASE Professional Development Series. 26

DePaul Art Museum 935 W Fullerton Ave Free 11:00 AM–12:00 PM

GRANT WRITING AND A DREAM FOR FUTURE PHILANTHROPY This workshop is a space for encouragement, advice, and perspective on the process of proposal writing. It is also an opportunity to understand and discuss the nature of contemporary philanthropy and collectively envision a utopian future in the culture industry. Attendees will walk away from the workshop with some useful writing, editing, budgeting, and research skills as well as a broader perspective on the role grants play in upholding White supremacy, capitalism, and other systems of oppression. Together, we will discuss existing alternative approaches to philanthropy and spend time together envisioning a utopian future for wealth and art. Deidre Huckabay is a fundraising professional with eight years’ experience in proposal writing in arts and culture. Her current and recent clients have included Chicago arts organizations Eighth Blackbird, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, and Lookingglass Theatre Company as well as New Music Chicago and Ear Taxi Festival. She is an artist and musician, co-owner of Parlour Tapes+, and one of eleven Artistic Directors at Mocrep.

12:15–1:15 PM

FORGING A NEW PATH In the words of former Chicago Tribune classical music critic John von Rhein, Access Contemporary Music is “a utopian vision of contemporary music for everyone.” From the beginning ACM’s mission was to bring new music to new audiences, break dependency on academia, foster the creation of music at all levels and create earned revenue programs that reduce dependency on grant cycles and funding trends. Today ACM employs twenty-five people, produces events in multiple cities and has an annual budget of $800,000. ACM founder Seth Boustead will detail the journey from startup to present with a talk sure to inspire budding arts entrepreneurs at all levels.

1:45–2:45 PM

CHOREOGRAPHY/MUSIC COLLABORATION This panel welcomes inventive and accomplished artists of Chicago’s contemporary dance community who have collaborated with musicians in their roles as choreographers, dancers, and organization leaders. Together, we’ll discuss the variety of forms this collaborative work can take, reflect on what established practices of either discipline are challenged through collaboration, and explore ways to strengthen the bridges between Chicago’s music and dance communities. Panelists: Jessica Tong (Hubbard Street Dance Chicago) and Julia Rae Antonick (Khecari). Moderator: Peter Ferry.

3:00–4:00 PM

CULTIVATING CREATIVE COMMUNITIES For the last 16 years, Fifth House Ensemble has placed the collaborative spirit at the center of its mission and work, which spans adventurous cross-media performances, arts-integrated educational programs in schools and social service settings, civic practice projects with non-arts-focused community partners, and emerging artist training. Drawing on stories from the ensemble’s early days to the present, Founder Melissa Ngan shares the ensemble’s path of listening, learning, and co-creation.

4:30–6:00 PM

WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF A THRIVING ECOSYSTEM FOR NEW MUSIC? Hear representatives of Chicago’s arts community discuss what it takes to co-create a music city which can elevate and connect all voices. How can presenters, artists and funders work across genres, communities, neighborhoods and generations to increase opportunities for all? How can we break down barriers between “institutions” and the city’s independent scenes? These are just a few of the questions we’ll explore as we consider strategies for an inclusive music future. Panelists: David Skidmore (Third Coast Percussion), Olivia Junell (Experimental Sound Studio), Renee Baker (composer/artist), and Erin R. Harkey (City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events). Moderator: Aja Burrell Wood (Managing Director, Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and Trustee of New Music USA). Presented in collaboration with New Music US.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

LETTER FROM JILL DEGROOT

DEAR READER, Yes, you. Friend, stranger, Ear Taxi listener, stoic historian parsing this ancient relic thousands of years in the future, I’m writing to tell you about Chicago, and its vibrant, ever-expanding music scenes, in the year 2020. First, you should understand who I am. I am a musician, journalist, and audio producer who has lived in Chicago for roughly seven years, the last few of which I’ve spent trying to pay more careful attention to the many interconnected sonic ecosystems in the experimental, DIY, improvisatory, and new music spheres that have thrived like loveable little bacteria in our protein-rich city for decades. As someone who thinks and writes about these worlds fairly often, I feel it is my responsibility to think long and hard about the past year and to share my thoughts with you, to the best of my ability, in a heartfelt letter. March 2020 threw all of our lives into unprecedented uncertainty. I remember vividly the first few days of COVID-19’s descent on our city. As I quarantined with my roommates, a multifaceted group of musicians and artists, we spent the first few weeks Lysoling door knobs, watching the news, creating face masks out of old t-shirts, and drinking away the fear that someone we love may be next to fall ill. Reality set in as venues across Chicago shuttered their doors, gigs became cancelled, collaborations postponed, and many of our livelihoods were thrown into ever-increasing peril. Reader, it would be a profound understatement to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the Chicago arts and music scenes. Outside of responsible mask-wearing and social distancing, most of the pandemic was (and continues to be) out of individual control. But I want to reassure you that something good will ultimately be born from this. I have to believe that as a community we can reflect, think critically, and use what we discover to move forward together, more creative and more thoughtful than before. 30

LETTER FROM JILL DEGROOT

Do you remember, Reader, how in the early months of the pandemic music escaped from the confines of concert halls and performance spaces and wandered within our communities to parks and front lawns, balconies and porches? Masked listeners, six feet apart in lawn chairs and atop picnic blankets, took comfort in shared sound and song on summer evenings. Babywearing parents, the stinky family dog, and sidewalk-chalk-wielding children all flocked at safe distances to hear something new—an unthinkable sight within the four walls of Chicago’s beloved Symphony Center. What an opportunity to reimagine! Oddly enough the pandemic’s restrictions created an incubator of sorts for re-strategization and atypical collaboration within the various Chicago music scenes. Chicago venues and galleries stepped up to support our arts and music scenes, providing creators with live-streaming resources, and clean and socially distanced places to safely perform. Friends from across the city invented new ways of creating together, challenged by the task of keeping one another safe. Performers of all types went virtual, skipping IRL all together and streaming straight into the Air Pods and living quarters of listeners across the country. When we stopped deeming live-streamed and other online events as second-best alternatives, ingenuity took hold. Zoom, Facebook Live, Youtube, TikTok—we harnessed these tools and our imaginations to share our art far and wide. Humor me for a moment, Reader—I can’t help but think it’s finally time to ditch the either-or mindset when it comes to in-person and online art experiences. Who said we can’t have both? We are so often looking to expand our reach and deepen connection with our audiences, and what better way than by creating a variety of art and listening experiences that are accessible to a variety of people in a variety of formats? It may seem strange of me to wish that this virtual hallmark of the pandemic sticks around post-COVID-19, but I’m only being honest with you, Reader. Have you ever curled up on a cold Chicago winter night, with a purring cat in your lap, listening, with eyes closed, to Chicago’s finest musicians pouring their souls out live from your living room speakers? Simply divine.

LETTER FROM JILL DEGROOT

It would be naive of me to only tell you about the bright spots in the dark. Death, grief, illness, and burnout have gripped all of us, boring their holes deep inside of our lives. The consequences of these mental and emotional stressors will ripple like rough water through Chicago art and music for years to come. 2020 was also a major reckoning for inequality and injustice, police brutality, and our troubling political landscape. In March 2020 Breonna Taylor was murdered in her home by plainclothes police who busted down her door and sprayed bullets blindly into her apartment. In May 2020 George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who knelt on his neck for an agonizing 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Chicago citizens, along with people in cities across the country, took to the streets in protest and mourning. Palpable rage and sorrow swept the city as cries of “No justice, no peace!” resounded, block by block. The cruel and long-standing racial inequalities that this country was built on run bone deep. Our music and art scenes, big or small, new or old, do not exist outside of white supremacy; they are complicit in upholding it. I’m going to share with you a piece of advice I received as a young adult. These words came at a time when I was just starting to explore the weird and wonderful new music scenes Chicago has to offer: “Yes, you are a musician, but you are a person first.” Reader, take these words to heart: above all else you are a person first. What is music and art without our humanity? We simply cannot separate ourselves from social injustice and the civil unrest unfolding around us. If 2020 has taught our insular music communities anything, it’s that we must center our artistic endeavors in forthright, intentional anti-racist practices. We must work proactively to dismantle white supremacy. We must center marginalized voices and become actively engaged in the social issues of our time. We must put in the work to ensure equity in the way we build our programming, educational structures, and economies. We must be people first.

LETTER FROM JILL DEGROOT

As I’m nearing my word count Reader, I want to remind you that I am just one person, with my limited set of individual experiences. Even now I am struggling to acknowledge and understand the last year’s impact on our scenes in its totality. Now more than ever we desperately need more arts, music, and culture writers in Chicago. It’s my earnest belief that the more we share our thoughts and ideas, the better and more thoughtful we become as a community. It has been a little over one year since the beginning of the pandemic. Many in the Windy City are vaccinated, but unfortunately we’re not out of the woods just yet. I’ll leave you with this, Reader: on the days when I feel lonely, or angry, or sad, or hopeless, I like to daydream that an emergence from the throes of this pandemic will bring with it a renaissance bursting with collaboration and an invigorated sense of creativity. After all, what rings more resonant and true than art and sound newly sprung from resilience? With hopeful anticipation, Jill DeGroot

LETTER FROM JILL DEGROOT

THURSDAY

SEPTEMBER 30

Kehrein Center for the Arts 5628 W Washington Blvd Free 12:00–12:45 PM

PICOSA RAVEN CHACON: BILAGÁANA ÁDIN (DEAD WHITE MEN) XAVIER BETETA: FRAGMENTS OF A DISTANT DREAM

FRAGMENTS OF A DISTANT DREAM I FRAGMENTS OF A DISTANT DREAM II FRAGMENTS OF A DISTANT DREAM III

JONATHON KIRK: METEORE D’INVERNO (WINTER METEORS) SHULAMIT RAN: MIRAGE Jennie Oh Brown, flute/alto/piccolo Andrea R. DiOrio, clarinet Elizabeth Brausa Brathwaite, violin Paula Kosower, cello Kuang-Hao Huang, piano Jonathon Kirk, electronics & composer-in-residence

RAVEN CHACON: BILAGÁANA ÁDIN (DEAD WHITE MEN)

Xavier Beteta, conductor Jocelyn Zelasko, soprano Nathalie Colas, soprano Kaitlin Foley, soprano Chelsea Lyons, mezzo-soprano Ryan Strand, tenor John Orduña, bass

The score for Bilagáana ádin (Diné: “dead white men”) is a flute solo presented in proportional Western notation, against a rhythm of “beats” of variably-accented events from dual ensembles. The flautist may play at any dynamic level she wishes as she moves between the ensembles, either away from or toward an audience.

XAVIER BETETA: FRAGMENTS OF A DISTANT DREAM

Fragments of a Distant Dream was composed in 2012 to join the centennial celebration of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and thus, is written for the same combination of instruments. This piece consists of three movements using texts by Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). Pessoa published his sonnets in English and hence a translation was not necessary. However, the text seems to show that the author was not a native English speaker and the roughness of the text was what attracted me in the first place. For this work, I only used fragments of the verses. The piece is built with musical gestures of different types: for example, short notes, long notes, short to long note, long to short note, two short notes to a long note and vice-versa, fast figurations, arpeggios, clusters, static prolonged sonorities, repeated notes, glissandi, chordal textures, etc. During the three movements some ideas are recurrent, sometimes as reminiscences and other times as premonitions. As in a dream, the linearity and coherence of ideas is confused, some ideas are abruptly interrupted, others are tacitly implied or just quickly replaced by new ones. The three sonnets pose questions about the impossibility of grasping each other’s souls, the meaning of reality, and whether we will ever comprehend the mystery outside ourselves. The piece should convey this preoccupation with the unknown and to some extent, it should present the drama involved with these questions. It is only in that atmosphere of dramatic search and contemplation of mystery that the piece can fully convey its meaning. Maybe our life is that distant dream which one day we will only remember as fragments.

SHULAMIT RAN: MIRAGE

Written for the 20th anniversary of the Da Capo Chamber Players, Mirage is the fourth work written on commission by Da Capo and was premiered in December of 1990. Ran writes about this work that, “because the other three involved only clarinet and cello, as solos and duo, I chose for this latest work, dedicated to the group, to include all five members, assigning the principal “tune” this time to an amplified alto flute.” Ran stresses that the amplification is not necessarily about the balance of volume, but rather that it adds to the works unique coloring.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

This work has become one of the most important works within Picosa’s repertoire–its dream-like imagery and unpredictable structure always allowing itself to be re-interpreted and performed. Ran’s descriptive analysis of the work allows for the listener to hear things on multiple levels: “In one movement, Mirage’s eleven minutes are shaped into an asymmetrical, loosely structured five-part arch form. Throughout, I aimed for a free flowing, yet intense, at times incantational gamut from polyphonic to heterophonic to one pivotal unison phrase occurring about four fifths of the way through the work—a phrase emblematic of the entire composition. Harmonically and melodically the work reminds one, I think, of modes associated with Middle Eastern music. These become chromatically saturated in areas, especially in the dense, central section of the arch form.”

–Jonathon Kirk

JONATHON KIRK: METEORE D’INVERNO

Meteore D’Inverno (Winter Meteors) is a short vocal chamber work setting of a poem by the Italian writer Margherita Guidacci from her collection In the eastern sky. Guidacci’s late work, from which this poem is taken, is known for combining abstract religious symbolism with naturalistic observation. At its heart Winter Meteors is a meditation on love, loss, and death, and it uses a simplified literary style to describe the inner and outer experiences of looking into the nighttime sky. There is a subtle evocation of Guidacci’s experience of the Quadrantids; a January meteor shower that is emphasized by its brief but radiant fire traces. My aim for the musical setting was to create a shifting languid tempo, which would present the poem’s text in relative slow moving motion. Hearing the text stretched out allows for Guidacci’s rich use of imagery, sound, and text rhythm to amplify a rich layering of meanings: “il simultaneo affetto, fella sci della stella, ci intrigue in un abbraccio immateriale.” Irish writer Catherine O’Brien translated this final line as “the love we feel, in the trail of the stars binds us in an incorporeal embrace.”

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

12:45–1:15 PM

CLARE LONGENDYKE, PIANO FLORENCE PRICE: FANTASIE NÈGRE NO. 4 IN B MINOR ALISON YUN-FEI JIANG: ISLES

I. AS BIRDS BRINGS FORTH THE SUN II. SALT III. UNDERCURRENT

SHAWN OKPEBHOLO: MI SUEÑO: AFRO FLAMENCO IRVING BERLIN/AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: LOVE TWITTERS

FLORENCE PRICE: FANTASIE NÈGRE NO. 4 IN B MINOR

First composed in 1932, the Fantasie Nègre No. 4 in B minor is Price’s last surviving essay in its genre for piano solo, and in some ways the most extraordinary. The world premiere was given in 1937 by Marion Hall (19102012) in a Composers Forum concert of the Federal Music Project in Chicago. The Fantasie Nègre No. 4 juxtaposes African-American idioms with those of the tradition-laden genre of the European piano fantasy, ultimately subsuming stereotypically White idioms into Black ones in the context of a densely interwoven thematic structure that becomes telescopically more compact as the piece progresses. The main theme evokes an authentic African-American folksong or spiritual but is newly composed, and the second subject recalls the classic blues style of Bessie Smith; between these is a cadenza-like arpeggiated transitional passage redolent of the piano music of Robert or Clara Schumann. Most extraordinary is the last minute of music—a combined reprise and coda that displays the pianist’s virtuosity and Price’s harmonic technique as well as compressing the ideas that constituted the previous 131 bars into just thirty-four bars. What triumphs in this compressed apotheosis is the African American heritage—the titular nègre—rather than the White European idioms that, symbolically and societally,

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

were conventionally afforded predominance. More than any of its predecessors, Price’s final fantasie nègre for piano solo celebrates the inherent beauty of a Black musical imagination that was typically segregated out from its White counterparts. — John Michael Cooper

ALISON YUN-FEI JIANG: ISLES

Isles resulted from my reading of The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, a collection of short stories by the Canadian novelist Alistair MacLeod. Drawing inspiration from the writer’s hauntingly beautiful depiction of the Canadian maritime landscapes, this piece displays three musical “isles” in three movements set in contrasting landscapes and moods: shimmering and light, resoundingly violent, and silently turbulent.

SHAWN OKPEBHOLO: MI SUEÑO: AFRO-FLAMENCO

mi sueño: afro-flamenco is a work for solo piano commissioned by pianist Clare Longendyke as a part of a series of commissions inspired by Maurice Ravel’s five-movement piano suite, Miroirs. My work is a musical response to Alborada del gracioso, the dynamic, virtuosic, Spanish-inspired fourth movement of Miroirs—qualities I reimagined in mi sueño: afro-flamenco. I composed this work during the 2020/2021 global pandemic, a challenging time for our world. The title means “my dream: afro-flamenco” which references my own pre-pandemic nostalgia and my post-pandemic dreams. It represents my longing to visit Africa again and experience my Nigerian musical heritage, to travel to Spain and once again savor the boundless artistry of flamenco performers, and to experience new places, cultures, and music. This piece is a musical dreamscape that infuses my musical language with African and African-American-inspired rhythms and sonorities and flamenco musical styles. If you are familiar with Alborada del gracioso, you will recognize my nod to the quick castanet-like repeated notes, and the dyadic glissandi.

IRVING BERLIN/AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: LOVE TWITTERS

When Nicola Melville asked me to compose a piece for solo piano, musically recognizable as an American-style work, the result was my Love Twitters, which uses Irving Berlin’s “They Say it’s Wonderful” as its basis, and was premiered by Nicola Melville at Carleton College on September 28, 2007. Love Twitters is a jittery, twittering, energized, fun-spirited work. The pianist is asked to accentuate the jittery rhythms throughout, making a clear difference between different rhythmic blocks (2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, etc.). The fermatas are meant to add to the “stop/start” changeable moods; likewise, the grace notes are meant to throw the beat off, making the pulse less stable. It is a happy 50th birthday gift for Alan Fletcher.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

1:45–2:30 PM

FONEMA CONSORT KELLEY SHEEHAN: EYES ON MATTHEW ARRELLIN: UMBRA II LUIS FERNANDO AMAYA: STUDIES FOR BESTIARIO: SEIS Nina Dante, soprano Dalia Chin, flute Emily Beisel, clarinet Jesse Langen, guitars John Corkill, percussion Pablo Chin, electronics

KELLEY SHEEHAN: EYES ON

Within Eyes On, the trio is asked to be staged closely to each other and within close proximity to a variety of small electronics to become, as I think of it, an interconnected “machine.” In this “machine” each performer engages with each other in new and compelling ways. By blending sound from electronics with instruments, use of mimicry, tape playback, and purposeful obfuscation, the impression of one cohesive unit rather than three individual performers arises. Yet, importantly, each performer keeps their individual identity, often giving agency to improvise and make decisions regarding the overall soundscape. This, to me, forms an environment that is at once mechanical but avoids the methodic and encroaches on wonder. Overall, this “machine” merges lo-fi technology with acoustic instruments to form new sound worlds, controlled unpredictability, and specifically, a tape cassette that, by the double bar, will be entirely warped and brand new. Due to the nature and fragility of the feedback and lo-fi electronics incorporated in this work, the entire performance hinges on acoustics, prescribed proximity, discovery, and connection. With these aspects at play, each action and sound of the trio can be predicted but not assured.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

MATTHEW ARRELLIN: UMBRA II

In Umbra II, like its predecessor, the piece explores the acoustic properties of phonemes related to words such as “darkness” and “shadows,” and my goal was to explore the various densities of shadows through variations of register and orchestration, sometimes all-consuming, other times pierced by light. I tried to orchestrate every sound around a vocal utterance, where every instrument is an extension of the voice, like a surreal hybrid. Each performer was given a vocal part that complemented their instrumental role in the piece. This served as a constant reminder of the voice and its abstraction through translation into acoustic matter. While the words have been distorted beyond semantic recognition the majority of the time, their expressivity was preserved, living on as pure, visceral emotion.

LUIS FERNANDO AMAYA: STUDIES FOR BESTIARIO: SEIS

Bestiario (“Bestiary”) is a collection of pieces in which the performers are asked to embody an imaginary animal through sound. This animal participates in the composition process as it gradually reveals itself in its sonic qualities which help dictate the work’s discourse (form, techniques, contrasts, gestures, etc.) This means that this imaginary animal has agency in the work, which leads me to make decisions that I would not have otherwise made.

bestiary (noun) bes·ti·ar·y | \ ˈbes-chēˌer-ē, -ˌe-rē, ˈ besh-, ˈbēs-, ˈbēsh-\ plural bestiaries Definition of bestiary 1 : a medieval allegorical or moralizing work on the appearance and habits of real or imaginary animals 2a : a collection of descriptions or representations of real or imaginary animals b : an array of real humans or literary characters often having symbolic significance

In this sixth piece of the Bestiario cycle, I took a slightly different approach and used a non-imaginary animal as a collaborator. The musical qualities of this being serve as a sonic model for every aspect of the work. These Studies on Bestiario: seis serve as an initial exploration for a longer piece written for and dedicated to Fonema Consort. This piece is also dedicated to Eugui Roy Martínez Pérez, environmental activist, who, in May of 2020, was murdered in Oaxaca (México) for defending the natural habitat of amphibians and reptiles. The attractiveness of somewhat unfocused images in photography served as the inspiration for this piece.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

2:30–3:15 PM

LISA GOETHE-MCGINN, FLUTIST AND COMPOSER KYONG MEE CHOI: SLIGHT UNCERTAINTY IS VERY ATTRACTIVE LISA GOETHE-MCGINN: TO EACH HER OWN… REGINA HARRIS BAIOCCHI: AUTUMN NIGHT JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL: SOMETIMES THE CITY IS SILENT AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: ANGEL SHADOWS

KYONG MEE CHOI: SLIGHT UNCERTAINTY IS VERY ATTRACTIVE

The flute and electronics are blended in such a way that it is not always clear which is sounding. Pitch bends, airy sounds, whistle tones, and other extended techniques are used to enhance this “fuzzy” effect.

LISA GOETHE-MCGINN: TO EACH HER OWN…

Improvising on each of my flutes inspired this piece. This piece is in four movements, one movement per flute. A theme is established and then expanded using various extended techniques; percussion, whistle tones, aeolian sounds, multiphonics, and jet whistles, etc.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

REGINA HARRIS BAIOCCHI: AUTUMN NIGHT

The original form of Autumn Night was a poem, then grew into a jazz quintet with voice, then morphed into a solo for alto flute. The version for alto flute is inspired by the composer’s original song lyric: Spend a Friday night here/ I’ll work while you cheer We can scat where no one understands but us: Me, You, Us, We, One/ This autumn night Can you spend a little time/ Can you spare one night? In one night, we can write a 12-bar Blues Can you spend a little time/ Can you spare one night? One night, one night/ Playing Jazz is real good news We can scat where no one understands but us: Me, You, Us, We, One/ This autumn night

Sometimes the City is Silent for solo flute was comJANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL: SOMETIMES THE CITY IS SILENT missioned by the National Flute Association. The piece

is based on a series of poetic and musical sketches I made in the fall of 2000 while I was teaching at NYU and living in Greenwich Village on the 25th floor of a hi-rise. When looking at the view at night I would sometimes try to read the outlines of lights and shapes on rooftops as a kind of graphic notation; I would improvise flute lines based on these images. On nights when the windows were open I could hear the sounds of the traffic and people on Houston Street below; I sometimes improvised with these sounds, recorded them and also wrote short poems about them. On rare occasions there were times, usually for only a few moments, when the city was silent. This piece is about all of the above; it is dedicated to the spirit of the people of New York City. Angel Shadows is an elegant and evocative piece for alto flute written for flutist Laurel Ann Maurer in 1993.

AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: ANGEL SHADOWS

Augusta has since withdrawn this piece from her catalog, and she doesn’t even have the score any longer! A little back story: I found this piece in the library of the National Flute Association back in the late 1990s when I was looking for pieces to perform for a program I was doing at the University of Chicago of composers living in Chicago. This year, I wanted to include a piece by Augusta on Ear Taxi 2021 and brought up Angel Shadows from 1993 to her. She informed me that she had withdrawn the piece many years ago but agreed to consider it after seeing the score again, which I needed to send to her. She is graciously allowing the resurrection of it for this program. I’m in gratitude to Augusta for allowing this performance. — Lisa Goethe-McGinn

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

3:45–4:15 PM

QUINCE ENSEMBLE MEARA O’REILLY: HOCKETS I-II DAVID REMINICK: SHOSHANA LJ WHITE: SPACE LJ WHITE: LABOR DAY MEARA O’REILLY: HOCKETS III-IV ADRIÁN MONTÚFAR: TOUCH KARI WATSON: INTONATIONS I (WORLD PREMIERE) BETHANY YOUNGE: HER DISAPPEARANCE Liz Pearse, soprano Kayleigh Butcher, mezzo soprano

MEARA O’REILLY: HOCKETS FOR TWO VOICES

Hocketing refers to the practice of splitting a melody across multiple parts, often in very surprising ways. While the form dates back to the vocal music of medieval Europe, it’s also found in indigenous folk practices from all over the world. Hockets for Two Voicesconsists of seven movements, each less than two minutes long. At times, each voice alone can be an off-kilter sequence of leaps in pitch and rhythm; clarity only comes when that voice joins its counterpart. The result, referred to in music cognition as pseudo-polyphony, is the perception that there are more voices at play than in reality. In writing these pieces, O’Reilly drew inspiration from psychoacoustic researcher Albert Bregman, who demonstrated how the limits of our perceptual processes can actively shape our experience of music.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

DAVID REMINICK: SHOSHANA

I. Spina Needle flesh, so that none may nibble Without knowing the pain of warmth. Desert-deserted, left looking, longing For that wet navel that rests amongst four. Fear and loneliness, companions mine Sharp points borne out of a sandy eye Sky without cloud, through fragrance swirls Invite soft maiden fingers-plucking me home. II. Petalo Roza-oh! Caressing your china bone cheek Slowly rolls a hot thing, splashing amidst love’s Sanguine lessons. Layered, folding deep And dank-let ten and three part As maiden blush and flowing sea Revealing one canvas, sand skin cheek Coyly calling, through fragrant sighs When smelt, brings the soul to paradise

LJ WHITE: SPACE

all around this house, these many white walls. Out back the gray swingset fit for a child of no size, and at the edge of the far front yard the highway carries its occasional traffic The sky is on every side of everything. The horizon is the shuddering of train track, the shuddering of a line that in the middle of the night feels all too close – but in the day it shows us how far we are from anything.

I often set poetry by my friends; the text of Space is by David Ebenbach, a writer living in Washington D.C. I love the physical space present in the poem—short words and phrases, frequent line breaks, concise ideas— conveying as well as describing isolation. I used remote outposts of piano and vocal register, fragmented text setting, and reverberation to support this acute sense of loneliness.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

LJ WHITE: LABOR DAY

The way we sleep together is locational, seasonal – the way you can buy useful things off the roadside here in summer passing through: peaches, heirloom tomatoes, squash, sweet corn, bait, antiques, rugs, tie-dye, fireworks, guns – your hand around the back of my neck in the dark above the covers the way you’d hold a beer can, near empty, out on the porch before tossing it.

ADRIÁN MONTÚFAR: TOUCH

I am thinking about touch: physically, but also emotionally and intellectually. Touching and being touched. The meaning and the force that touch carries. I am also working with a text. Not a lyric to be sung, but trying different ways of feeling, of touching and being touched by words, by a work of literature. Touch not as an abstraction but rather touch as feeling one’s way through the work of (in this case) making music.

KARI WATSON: INTONATIONS I

Intonations I is the first in a series of my works for voice+ that engage concepts of intimacy and affect. The voice’s embodied locale allows it to uniquely engage listeners, and in doing so, communicate not just through musical syntax and text, but also through tone, intonation, and through other tools in our non-linguistic vocal repertoire. This miniature juxtaposes intimate and percussive mouth sounds with more traditional vocalizations and sung material, dancing between them and creating a counterpoint of intimacy that is then emphasized with choreographed amplification. This work was written for and is dedicated to Liz Pearse with gratitude and admiration.

World premiere

BETHANY YOUNGE: HER DISAPPEARANCE

she demanded silence so I gave her none when she tried to speak I robbed her of her voice once I ran out of breath she soon disappeared

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

4:15 PM–4:30 PM

BLUE VIOLET DUO AMOS GILLESPIE: SPIN-OFF

I. CALM, EFFORTLESS, II. PERPETUAL, INSISTENT, III. A LITTLE FREE, RESTFUL, IV. ENERGETIC, PASSIONATE AND A LITTLE AGGRESSIVE

Kate Carter, violin Louise Chan, piano

AMOS GILLESPIE: SPIN-OFF

In August of 2018 I heard Kurt Elling, the renowned Chicago jazz singer, perform his album “The Questions” at the Pritzker Pavilion in Grant Park. I was really moved by the performance, his voice, the heartfelt yet sophisticated sound of the ensemble. It inspired me to start writing analbum length jazz piece of my own, titled Unstructured Time, about capturing childhood focus, creativity and peace through unstructured time. In June of 2019, I interrupted this process to work on a new piece for the Blue Violet violin and piano duo and willingly infused much of thesounds from my jazz work and what I loved from Kurt Elling’s sound into this new piece. I titled it Spin-off since it is a literal spinoff from the other work. I like recognizing in Spin-off how musicians use a process of cross-pollination to create, a reminder that what we create in the world is rarely exclusively our own, but rather a culmination of experiences and inspiration from others.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

5:00–5:30PM

CANCELLED: CHICAGO ARTS AND MUSIC PROJECT/ DEPAUL SCHOOL OF MUSIC STUDENTS Following a residency at the DePaul School of Music, Chicago Arts and Music Project (CAMP) and DePaul University music education and performance students present an entirely new composition as part of the 2021 Ear Taxi Festival. In preparation for the performance, CAMP students have traveled to the DePaul School of Music and participated in side-by-side rehearsals with DePaul students, team-building exercises, and activities encouraging students to improvise and create wholly new musical ideas. The culminating work includes participatory elements to engage the audience in the music-making process. Due to a nationwide shortage of bus drivers, we have been forced to cancel this performance, as transporting the CAMP students from East Garfield Park to the DePaul School of Music and to the Kehrein Center is not feasible.

6:00– 7:30 PM

PANEL DISCUSSION DISSOLVING PARADIGMS: ASPIRING TOWARDS A FREE AND INCLUSIVE FLOW OF IDEAS, INFLUENCES, AND INNOVATION IN THE ARTS Ear Taxi Festival 2021’s mission HEAR CHICAGO is an invitation to challenge, collaborate, and change together as artists and listeners. Join us as industry leaders discuss breaking down the silos of genres, traditions, and cultural barriers to bring greater voice for all and equity through the arts. Moderator: LaRob K. Rafael, Ear Taxi Festival Director of Community Engagement Panelists: Angel Bat Dawid (Composer, Improviser, Mutli-instrumentalist, and Educator), Aja Burrell Wood (Managing Director, Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and Trustee of New Music USA), and Adam Zanolini (Executive Director of Elastic Arts, Multi-instrumentalist, Ethnomusicologist, and Arts Organizer).

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

8:00–8:45 PM

MICHAEL HALL, MICHAEL DELFIN, AND MEGAN IHNEN TRIO STACY GARROP: KRAKATOA ERIC MALMQUIST: SONG OF THE RATTLING PIPES EVAN WILLIAMS: THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY OSNAT NETZER: CONTRAPOSE Michael Hall, viola Michael Delfín, piano Megan Ihnen, mezzo-soprano

STACY GARROP: KRAKATOA

On May 20, 1883, a cloud of ash rose six miles high above Krakatoa, a volcano nestled on an island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. On August 26, Krakatoa turned deadly with an enormous blast that spewed pyroclastic flows and pumice and commenced a series of eruptions. On the next day, the volcano produced four enormous eruptions over four and a half hours. These eruptions were so loud (particularly the fourth) that they could be heard 3,000 miles away and so devastating that two-thirds of the island sank back under the sea. The effects of Krakatoa’s eruptions were staggering: they sent shock waves into the atmosphere that circled the globe at least seven times; they triggered numerous tsunamis, the highest nearly 120 feet tall, which flooded and destroyed 165 coastal villages along with their inhabitants; and they propelled tons of ash roughly fifty miles up into the atmosphere. This ash blotted out the sun in Indonesia for days; it also lowered global temperatures for several years afterwards, and produced a wide range of atmospheric colors and phenomena. At least 36,000 people tragically lost their lives that fateful day. Krakatoa, for viola and piano, follows the path of the volcano’s four main eruptions. In the first movement, Imminent, the violist uneasily plays as the piano (representing the volcano) shows ever-increasing signs

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

of awakening. The piano bursts forth into the second movement, Eruption, where it proceeds through four eruptions that get progressively more cataclysmic. After the final and most violent eruption, the violist plays a cadenza that eases the volcano into the third movement, Dormant. In this final movement, the volcano slumbers, soothed by musical traits that I borrowed from traditional Javanese gamelan music: a cyclical, repetitive structure in which the largest gong is heard at the end of each cycle, and a musical scale loosely based on the Javanese pelog tuning system. The movement ends peacefully with an array of string harmonics, representing the intense and brilliantly colored sunsets generated by Krakatoa’s ash in the earth’s atmosphere. Michael Hall gave the world premiere of the concerto version of Krakatoa in 2018 with the Bandung Philharmonic in Indonesia.

ERIC MALMQUIST: SONG OF THE RATTLING PIPES Chicago premiere Text by Rebecca Morgan Frank

I’ve been a fan of Rebecca Morgan Frank’s poetry for a long time, and I’ve been lucky to collaborate with her for years. Her works are replete with detail and power, and Song of the Rattling Pipes practically begs to be set to music. Using wonderfully evocative imagery, Morgan conjures up a sound world that is both charming and menacing. This work is my own attempt at bringing that world to life, where creativity can commune with or be a shelter from our daily lives.

Sometimes the house around her sings back, oil heat clanking against the steel in low industrial tones- a workers’ march, a miners’ rag, muffled mutinies. She answers, words drumming their way into the plumbing of her body, her veins a vessel for song, blood-coursed vowels, consonance carrying her up out of her body, as if she were not pinned beneath another’s weight. Steam whistles and spouts the melody of her chorus: A apocalyptic, B bayou, C cerebellum, D detritusshe falls into the alphabet of possibilities- F fallacy, G Galapagos, H hoveringletters an incantation, a portal from her body, rhythm lifting her up in a circle of sound: Z zinnias, A arabesque, B braille, until the house falls into silence, the lull where the sun waits for the sleeping world.

“Song of the Rattling Pipes” by Rebecca Morgan Frank from Little Murders Everywhere. Commissioned by Megan Ihnen.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

EVAN WILLIAMS: THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY World premiere

The Devil in the Belfry is a musical tableau based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. In the story, the narrator visits the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss, where they hold to three axioms: “That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things,” “That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss,” and “That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages.” The narrator describes a town so steeped in conformity that every house and occupant are indistinguishable from the next, and where adherence to the time is so important, that at every hour, all citizens of the town face toward a seven-faced clock tower in the center of town to count the tolling of the bell and confirm the hour. One day, a small devil is seen running toward the clock with a fiddle five times his own size. The devil beats the belfry-man with his fiddle and commandeers the clock tower. No one in the town is able to stop this assault, as they must adhere to their hourly ritual of counting the tolling bell. The devil tolls the bell twelve times, to the townspeople’s relief, but then tolls it a thirteenth time. The tolling of Thirteen o’clock sends the town into utter chaos: the clocks dance as if bewitched. All the while, the devil revels in the chaos playing the Irish jigs. The narrator leaves the town in disgust, but begs his readers to band together to eject the devil from Vondervotteimittiss, and return it to its former order. The Devil in the Belfry was commissioned by violist Michael Hall.

OSNAT NETZER: CONTRAPOSE World premiere

Contrapose is part of a series of pieces that deal with my kinetic approach to music, drawing from metaphors of inertia, energy accumulation, energy potential, transference and discharge and similar schemas. What sets this piece apart is that it is deeply inspired by body work, namely a school of yoga called Vijnana yoga. In Vijnana there are two concepts that spoke to me a great deal: rooting and connecting. “As the roots of a tree deepen and widen into the earth, so the branches above expand into the sky...always be conscious of two opposite directions that are connected to each other. To go up, go down. To go forwards, shift into the back. Wishing for the left side, steady yourself on the right. Wishing to expand, comes from the core. The first direction is the arrow, the second direction is the bow; the thread which binds them is connecting.” (Vijñāna Yoga Practice Manual, Orit Sen-Gupta). For every gesture in the piece, viola and piano join together to balance forces of rooting down and reaching out. Written for Michael Hall.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

8:45–9:30 PM

KAIA STRING QUARTET SHULAMIT RAN: STRING QUARTET NO. 3, “GLITTER, DOOM, SHARDS, MEMORY” I. THAT WHICH HAPPENED II. MENACE III. “IF I MUST PERISH, DON’T LET MY PAINTINGS DIE” FELIX NUSSBAUM (1904-1944) IV. SHARDS, MEMORY GUSTAVO LEONE: STRING QUARTET NO. 3 I. ALLEGRO GIUSTO - FUGA II. ANDANTE – ADAGIO MISTERIOSO - ANDANTE III. Q = 60 – Q = 68 Victoria Moreira, violin Naomi Culp, violin Amanda Grimm, viola Hope DeCelle, cello

SHULAMIT RAN: STRING QUARTET NO. 3, “GLITTER, DOOM, SHARDS, MEMORY”

That which happened (das was geschah) is how the poet Paul Celan referred to the Shoah—the Holocaust. These simple words served for me, in the first movement, as a metaphor for the way in which an “ordinary” life, with its daily flow and its sense of sweet normalcy, was shockingly, inhumanely, inexplicitly shattered. Menace is a shorter movement, mimicking a scherzo. It is also machine-like, incessant, with an occasional, recurring, waltz-like little tune—perhaps the chilling grimace we recognize from the executioner’s guillotine mask. Like the death machine it alludes to, it gathers momentum as it goes and is unstoppable.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

“If I perish, do not let my paintings die.” These words are by Felix Nussbaum who, knowing what lay ahead, nonetheless continued painting until his death in Auschwitz in 1944. If the heart of the first movement is the shuddering interruption of life as we know it, the third movement tries to capture something of what I can only imagine to be the conflicting states of mind that would have made it possible, and essential, to continue to live and practice one’s art: bearing witness to the events. Shards, Memory is a direct reference to my quartet’s title. Only shards are left. And memory. The memory is of things large and small, of unspeakable tragedy, but also of the song and the dance, the smile, the hopes. All things human.

GUSTAVO LEONE: STRING QUARTET NO. 3

My third string quartet was written in 2015 and it is dedicated to Cuarteto Q-Arte, an ensemble from Colombia. This work is in three movements and has a duration of eighteen minutes. The first movement is in two sections and opens with a prelude that hesitantly leads to the first theme of the movement. This theme erupts as a series of melodic waves that cross over from one instrument to the others in the ensemble. A pizzicato motive gradually establishes itself and prepares the next section, a fugue. The second section of the first movement is a four-part fugue with three episodes and a coda. The second movement is a threepart, A-B-A form. The A section is rhythmically asymmetrical and has the character of a dance. The second section is slow and makes use of static harmonies. Music from the first section of the movement reappears in a disjointed manner over these harmonies. A series of sound effects leads to a varied recapitulation of the A section ending the second movement. The third movement has two sections, one calm and meditative, the other nervous and repetitive. The third movement begins with a slow meditative chant-like melody that progressively reaches a climax, to then be followed by a transition. The next section, and the last of the work, is based on a four-beat asymmetrical motive and its development into a series of variations increasingly more complex until almost the end. The work ends with the same motive continuously repeating and dissolving into silence.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

DePaul Art Museum 935 W Fullerton Ave Free 11:30 AM–12:15 PM

SARAH PLUM, WITH NICK PHOTINOS:

PARAMETERS OF SOUND: WORKS BY 4 INTERNATIONAL COMPOSERS ASSOCIATED WITH CHICAGO OSNAT NETZER: OLIVE COTTON TONIA KO: MOVES AND REMAINS SIDNEY CORBETT: ABSCONDITUS KYONG MEE CHOI: FLOWERING DANDELION Sarah Plum, violin and viola Nick Photinos, cello

OSNAT NETZER: OLIVE COTTON

Olive Cotton for cello solo was written during a year I spent living in Berlin (2009-2010). Longings back to the United States led me to incorporate some echoes of bluegrass music. Echoes are motivic in the piece also as it zigzags between materials, yet constantly obscures the memory of past materials. It is a short story with some emotional peaks, some dropping off a ledge, and some ghostly echoes.

TONIA KO: MOVES AND REMAINS

Commissioned by Young Concert Artists for Benjamin Baker

“White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and Remains.” This line from Virginia Woolf’s short story “Monday or Tuesday” (1921) has been on my mind since I used some of the text in a choral setting. Moves and Remains joins 55

an unofficial series of compositions that mediate on the notion of an expansive space and the act of remaining—a certain will to linger despite movement all around. The piece begins with strumming, a blurry memory of the Hawaiian music I heard in my childhood. This musical kernel immediately departs from this context and undergoes several transformations, eventually opening up into rolling arpeggios. A simple melody that is carefully embedded and implied through the work is what remains at the very end. The piece also makes use of a widened sonic palette—harmonics are an important part of the musical vocabulary here, as are the hollow sounds in the strings below the bridge. The lowest string is further lowered by a whole-step to reveal an evocative harmony that colors the rest of the music. These subtle extensions of the violin expressive range aim to highlight states of being that are unstable and fleeting.

SIDNEY CORBETT: ABSCONDITUS

Absconditus for violin and cello was written for Sarah Plum’s eponymous CD, a portrait CD of Sidney Corbett’s work in 2011. Corbett described the piece as such: “As a composer every so often it becomes necessary to reject one’s usual methods and style in order to try something new. This duo is evidence of that process. I think of this piece as fragile music in which I am seeking the sounds behind the sounds.” Neue Zeitung fur Musik describes this piece as “in a strange way ascetic yet at the same time sensual and combining constructive logic with atmospheric magic.”

KYONG MEE CHOI: FLOWERING DANDELION

Flowering Dandelion for violin and electronics paraphrases an intriguing part of J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata in B minor for violin and harpsichord BWV 1014 and showcases the evolution of musical expression incorporating timbral and textural evolution. The gestures of musical ideas portray the image of a flowering dandelion. This piece was commissioned by Sarah Plum.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

12:15–1:00 PM

OGNI SUONO DAVID REMINICK: WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT CHRIS-FISHER LOCHHEAD: CHROMA EMILY KOH: /tele/path Noa Even & Phil Pierick, saxophones

DAVID REMINICK: WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Walking After Midnight is Part 2 of the cycle and deals with the unsettling and mysterious phenomenon of somnambulism, or sleepwalking, as it’s commonly known. The text for the piece’s two movements comes from a pair of autobiographical stories by a friend of mine. For the past year or so, nearly everything I’ve written has been part of a massive evening-length cycle of pieces about sleep called Sleep Cycle. Each work in the cycle deals with a different sleep-related topic (sleep-talking, sleepwalking, dreams, lullabies, and lucid dreaming) and each is for a different instrumentation (singing flutist, singing saxophone duo, vocal quartet, singing string octet, and a sixteen-piece ensemble made up of all of the above musicians plus a percussionist). The first story is about my friend’s childhood experiences of sleepwalking. In the absence of caregivers he could count on throughout a traumatic childhood, there emerged from within a support figure in the form of his own ghost—a floating Doppelgänger whose radiant smile provided him comfort and reassurance through it all. In the second story, my friend—now an adult—is the one in the supporting role, soothing and protecting his young son through his recurrent night terrors. The stories are a testament to my friend’s resilience and courage, and I feel honored and grateful for his trust, his generosity, and most of all, for his continued friendship.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

CHRIS-FISHER LOCHHEAD: CHROMA

Chroma explores a series of questions relating to color and time: is color an intensive or an extensive phenomenon? Is our experience of color an instantaneous apperception or does it unfold temporally? At what temporal level do rational durational relationships create the experience of implied rhythmic striae? When does harmony become color and color become harmony?

EMILY KOH: /tele/path

/tele/path, for tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone, is dedicated to Ogni Suono on the occasion of their 10th anniversary. Telepath, made from the Greek roots tele meaning “distance,” and pathos meaning “feeling, perception, passion, affliction, or experience,” describes the duo’s pandemic situation, and the circumstance of this collaboration—working together over a distance. The general form of the work echoes the trajectory of Ogni Suono’s becoming—in the beginning, both saxophones are together and play strictly in time together, but as the piece progresses, the saxophonists move further apart on stage, each playing more freely and soloistically, but still with the ebb and understanding of an established duo.

1:15–1:35 PM

JILLIAN DEGROOT: LECTURE ON SILENCE FOR CHICAGO

Lecture On Silence for Chicago is one iterative culmination of Jillian DeGroot’s several-years-long journey toward and with silence. Starting in 2019, she began traveling across the United States trying to get as close to the absence of sound as possible—learning, stretching, growing, and, many times, failing. Inspired by John Cage’s infamous Lecture On Nothing, here she presents a lecture-performance on silence for Chicago. 58

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

1:45–2:30 PM

5TH WAVE COLLECTIVE SHULAMIT RAN: BACH-SHARDS AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: PILGRIM SOUL OSNAT NETZER: RECAPSIZE CLARICE ASSAD: SYNCHRONOUS Ashley Ertz, oboe Carmen Abelson, violin Alexandria Hill, violin Roslyn Green, viola Allie Chambers, cello

SHULAMIT RAN: BACH-SHARDS

While composing Bach-Shards I found myself gravitating, intuitively and gradually, toward a dual goal. First, though the tension and dissonance inherent in certain moments of Bach’s own maze-like contrapuntal structures could quite easily and naturally lead one into a pungent contemporary terrain, I opted not to stray outside the realm of Bach-like materials and harmonic language. Instead, it was my hope to alter their relationships and context in ways that add up to something that’s slightly different than the anticipated sum of the parts. A mildly deconstructed Bach, if you will. The other important challenge I set for myself was building up the latter, toccata-like portion of BachShards in a way that would make the entry point of the fugue which it precede, Contrapunctus X, seem thoroughly natural. It was my intent to have the first fugal entrance feel like a huge and much welcome release of the energy created by my Prelude’s penultimate stretch, with its bravura figurations elaborating on an insistent dominant pedal point. Owing to Bach-Shards’ style, decisions on articulation and bowings are left to the discretion of the performers.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: PILGRIM SOUL

Pilgrim Soul was commissioned by Matthew Kuhn as a surprise fiftieth birthday gift for his wife Alyssa Kuhn and it was premiered on her exact fiftieth birthday: 10 February, 2011 at Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall by Matthew Kuhn, English Horn; Alyssa Kuhn, Violin; and Julieta Mihai, Violin. Pilgrim Soul was inspired by this beautiful and heartfelt poem by William Butler Yeats: WHEN YOU ARE OLD When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

OSNAT NETZER: RECAPSIZE

I wrote String Quartet № 2 while I was a student of John Heiss at New England Conservatory. It was composed in Cambridge, Massachusetts and completed in October of 2007. I revised the work in the summer of 2010.

CLARICE ASSAD: SYNCHRONOUS FOR OBOE AND STRING QUARTET

Synchronous is in two movements. The two movements are in five minutes and each is supposed to be happening at the same time. Movement one, “Sunrise Reverie,” is in one location, where an overwhelmingly beautiful sunrise takes place. Movement two, “News Feed,” is that same amount of time, passing by as different events taking place in other parts of the world, disconnected imageries that one finds in a social media website stream.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

DePaul University School of Music Holtschneider Performance Center Mary Patricia Gannon Hall 2330 N Halsted St Free 3:00–3:15 PM

DEPAUL WIND ENSEMBLE ERICA NEIDLINGER, CONDUCTOR GEORGE LEWIS: BIG SHOULDERS, SHARP ELBOWS (U.S. PREMIERE)

GEORGE LEWIS: BIG SHOULDERS, SHARP ELBOWS U.S. premiere For wind band

This work is written for the DePaul University Wind Ensemble and SFMK. The “big shoulders” reference is to the city of Chicago, as envisioned by the American poet Carl Sandburg in 1914: Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders

The reference to “sharp elbows” might reference any large American urban area, in which people risk brawling in their desperation to win space in what appears to be an utterly stochastic cultural environment. Musically, the piece deploys a sonic strategy of depiction, a common characteristic of American music from Amy Beach’s “Gaelic” Symphony to Charles Ives, Duke Ellington, and John Zorn. The fanfare-like opening of the work may be heard as a depiction of this line from the poem, socelebratory of my home town: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

3:15–4:00 PM

NICK PHOTINOS: EVERYTHING IN BLOOM NATHALIE JOACHIM: DAM MWEN YO KYONG MEE CHOI: INNER SPACE NICK PHOTINOS: UNTITLED TED HEARNE: DAVZ23BZMH0 SUSANNA HANCOCK: EVERYTHING IN BLOOM Nick Photinos, cello

NATHALIE JOACHIM: DAM MWEN YO

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Dam mwen yo in Haitian Creole simply translates to “they are my ladies.” In Haiti, the cultural image of women is one of strength. They are pillars of their homes and communities and are both fearless and loving, all while carrying the weight of their families and children on their backs. As a first generation Haitian-American, these women—my mother, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, cousins—were central to my upbringing and my understanding of what it means to be a woman. In Dantan, Haiti-Sud, where my family is from, it is rare to walk down the countryside roads without hearing the voices of women—in the fields, cooking for their loved ones, gathering water at the wells with their babies. This piece and the voices within it are representative of these ladies—my ladies. And the cello sings their song—one of strength, beauty, pain and simplicity in a familiar landscape.

KYONG MEE CHOI: INNER SPACE

Inner Space describes a state that can only be accessed through calmness and quietness of mind. The lyrical lines and the circular motion of the sound are intended to create a somewhat hollow aural sensation, which represents the Inner Space of our mind. Cello and electronics interact as if they draw the outer lines of the imaginary but yet profound space we all carry within. This piece was commissioned by Craig Hultgren.

NICK PHOTINOS: UNTITLED

This new work was composed during the spring and summer of 2021.

TED HEARNE: DAVZ23BZMH0

DAVZ23BZMH0 is a meditation on reverb and muzak. The cellist triggers samples repurposed from a 90s-era commercial I found on YouTube. The title of the piece refers to its embed code. It is one piece from Ash, a 45-minute suite for solo cello written for Ashley Bathgate by the six composers of Sleeping Giant.

SUSANNA HANCOCK: EVERYTHING IN BLOOM

EVERYTHING IN BLOOM was commissioned by Bang on a Can and Gordon Nicol and written for Nick Photinos. We don’t always see or understand the sacrifices our parents make for us until much later, especially those of our immigrant parents. After Nick proposed writing a piece exploring motherhood, I was quite eager because I feel like the true weight of what my mom has done so that I can achieve my dreams has finally come into focus. EVERYTHING IN BLOOM is dedicated to my mama: an immigrant, a chef, a boss, an entrepreneur, a community leader, and so much more. This is the first piece I’ve written for her—to honor her and her story—and it won’t be the last. In an effort to distill my thoughts and shape the music, I wrote a poem. The result: a piece that finds beauty in the chaos and tension, with the cello rising above the electronics to bloom brighter and grow taller. An excerpt: i remember the first spring the first true spring with so many blossoms i stood in awe of your work - your power and I asked, “are these for me?” … come sit, mama look at everything in bloom

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

4:30–5:15 PM

FAT PIGEON, WITH DANIEL ROBLES LIZANO COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION Emily Beisel, bass clarinet Bill Harris, percussion Craig Davis Pinson, electric guitar Daniel Robles Lizano, visual artist

FAT PIGEON, WITH DANIEL ROBLES LIZANO: COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Fat Pigeon collaborates with Mexican visual artist Daniel Robles Lizano to create an audio-visual experience in which artificial appendages, devised by Robles for this performance, will be incorporated into the group’s improvisational dynamic. The materials, worn by the members of Fat Pigeon, will both open new physical and sonic possibilities and provide certain constraints and limitations. As the improvisers interact through Robles’s wearable sculptures they will be forced to find creative means of sound production and new types of interactions. This collaboration between Fat Pigeon and Robles offers the audience a striking performance that is both visual and acousmatic.

5:15–6:00 PM

FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC PROJECT STEPHEN BURNS, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Latinx Musix, in partnership with the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago DARLENE CASTRO: DESMORONAMIENTO RICARDO LORENZ: JAROMILUNA LUPITA DIAZ-DONATO: NUBES (WORLD PREMIERE) CLARICE ASSAD: BOOK OF SPELLS

CHAPTER 1: LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS: THE SIREN’S SEDUCTION CHAPTER 2: WEALTH AND PROSPERITY: SPELL OF SUMMON GREED CHAPTER 3: HEALTH AND WELL-BEING: A SPELL FOR GLOBAL HEALING

Dalia Chin, flute Ricardo Casteneda, oboe Wagner Campos, clarinets Alison Attar, harp Rika Seko, violin Claudia Lasareff-Mironoff, viola Stephen Burns, conductor

DARLENE CASTRO: DESMORONAMIENTO

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Desmoronamiento (noun, Spanish) 2017/21 1. (coming down) a. collapse b. crumbling 2. (decline) a. collapse 3. (mental collapse) a. breakdown

RICARDO LORENZ: JAROMILUNA

The title of the work comes from a fictitious character, native to the Caribbean, who awakens at every full moon. Jaromiluna is personified by the violin; the harp plays the part of the moon. The sight of the moon reflected over the sea, as it begins its path across the dark sky, is irresistible to Jaromiluna. As the dance begins, it is difficult to tell who is seducing whom, as both are absorbed in the game. Finally, they are exhausted. Jaromiluna tries to capture the last ray of light shining from the moon as it dissolves into the horizon.

LUPITA DIAZ-DONATO: NUBES

Nubes translates to clouds in Spanish. For this composition, I attempt to share my experience and feelings from previous visits to the Peruvian Andes. It is one of my favorite places because of its peacefulness, magical landscapes, and depths.The clarinet’s lyrical and warm voice allowed me to create musical images of clouds spreading through steep green mountains, high altitudes, and clean thin air. I used a set of extended techniques and a meditative approach to generate these musical impressions of my memories in the Andes.

World premiere

CLARICE ASSAD: BOOK OF SPELLS

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

I have long been intrigued by anything unexplained logically. Occult themes, witchcraft, and the fantasy world have long been companions of my imagination. Book of Spells is a three-movement composition inspired by rituals dealing with magic in service of a particular goal—righteous or wicked. Each movement explores a rite and follows a reasoning. Chapter One deals with matters of the heart (Love and Relationship); Chapter Two is about wealth and prosperity. Chapter Three is about Health and Well-being. Within each chapter, hundreds of spells teach the practitioner how to prepare and perform the rites, each for a particular purpose.

6:30–7:15 PM

SONATA FOR AN EMPTY ROOM WITH ANGEL BAT DAWID, DR. CHARLES JONES SMITH, AND DR. ADAM ZANOLINI ANGEL BAT DAWID: SONATA FOR AN EMPTY ROOM Dr. Charles Joseph Smith, piano Dr. Adam Zanolini, tenor Sax, alto sax, soprano sax, flute, bass, percussion Angel Bat Dawid, B flat clarinet, G clarinet, E flat clarinet, bass clarinet, sacral instruments

ANGEL BAT DAWID: SONATA FOR AN EMPTY ROOM

I chose to compose a Sonata because the form in so many ways is a reflection of the current times that we live in. The first part of a Sonata is the Exposition which is two different groups in contrasting keys. These two groups are connected with a transition theme and then oftentimes repeated. To me this reflects how there’s so much conflict of ideas occurring right now in our time. The second part of a Sonata is the Development section. This section is where ideas and themes are broken down and rebuilt. This to me reflects the chaos and instability of things; this state of contrition we have been in since the pandemic that has greatly affected how I do performances. The next part of the Sonata is the Recapitulation. Much like the exposition it is group 1 transitioning to group 2, except this time group 2 transitions to the same key as group 1. Where is our true home humanity… how do we get back to that? We can be different and contrasting and we don’t have to agree, but I think we all agree for the most part that we are human beings and that earth is our home. The last part of the Coda ending the piece in the home key. After everything we’ve been through, I do believe we will eventually come back home.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

7:15–8:00 PM

DEPAUL ENSEMBLE 20+, WITH ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE THURMAN BARKER: PANDEMIC FEVER: URGENT (WORLD PREMIERE) RENÉE BAKER: WUNDERKAMMER 3097: BLACKED IMAGINATION DePaul Ensemble 20+ Ensemble Dal Niente Thurman Barker, drum set Michael Lewanski, conductor Renée Baker, conductor

PERCUSSION Sam Vrooman-Johnson Kyle Flens (Ensemble Dal Niente) Tobey Ferguson Tomas Leivestad

FLUTE Emma Hospelhorn (Ensemble Dal Niente)

PIANO Boris Krivoshein Keyboard Mabel Kwan (Ensemble Dal Niente)

OBOE Matt Sampey CLARINET Max Reese BASS CLARINET Emily Hancock HORN Luke Berkley TRUMPET Jack Jones TROMBONES Dane Magruder Carter Woosley

HARP Ben Melsky (Ensemble Dal Niente) VIOLINS Hannah Christiansen Tara Lynn Ramsey (Ensemble Dal Niente) Grace Walker VIOLA Georges Mefleh CELLOS Ari Hunter Scott Todd Humphrey Chris Wild (Ensemble Dal Niente) BASS Ryan Williams

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

THURMAN BARKER: PANDEMIC FEVER: URGENT World premiere

Pandemic Fever portrays the confusion surrounding the first reports of COVID-19 and the beginning of quarantine. There were conflicting reports between our commander-in-chief and scientists. Who were we to trust? Governors started creating their own policies and hospitals found themselves competing for the limited supply of gowns, ventilators, and masks. I, like millions around the world, found myself working remotely through the computer. All the while the death toll was climbing higher every day. There was a feeling of urgency, but to do what? All of this was unsettling and unpredictable, everyone’s future was unknown. In Pandemic Fever this is represented by the main theme, comprised of a minor second and major third. That theme represents the people around the world crying for help. Trap drums are used instead of timpani to set up a groove and dramatic effect, signifying people continuing to work through it. The high pitch of the xylophone and snare drum are used to create urgency. This crisis has shown us we were ill-equipped to handle a pandemic. At the end of the piece, every voice comes together, celebrating our health care workers for risking their lives to fight this pandemic. The time is NOW! This performance is dedicated to Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams.

RENÉE BAKER: WUNDERKAMMER 3097: BLACKed IMAGINATION

The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. WUNDERKAMMER 3097 expresses the possibilities of future dreams, existences and justice. Composer Renée Baker categorizes the objects included as belonging/not belonging real/ unreal, imagined/ tactile objects, fervently expressing history, activism, ethnography, archaeology, religious relics, altars of healing and prayer and works of art. These tactile, classic cabinets of curiosities represent and express memories of our past, present and the elusive domain of afrofuturism.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

9:15–10:30 PM

ERNEST DAWKINS BLACK STAR LINE THE CHICAGO OUTET PROJECT TOTALLY SPONTANEOUS COMPOSED IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE. Ernest Dawkins, saxes and electronics Hamid Drake, percussion Junius Paul, basses Jim Baker, piano and synthesizer Jonathan Woods, improvised visuals

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

DePaul University School of Music Holtschneider Performance Center Murray and Michele Allen Recital Hall 2330 N Halsted St Free 3:30–4:15 PM

BACH + BEETHOVEN EXPERIENCE RONNIE KULLER: SELECTIONS FROM BLOOMINGDALE TRAIL

I. BLOOMINGDALE PRELUDE II. BLOOMINGDALE TANGO III. BLOOMINGDALE ANDANTE

AMOS GILLESPIE: THREE SONGS

I. SOLEDAD II. LA NOCHE III. COMO EL MAR

HEIDI JOOSTEN: YES. Kiyoe Matsuura, baroque violin Leighann Daihl Ragusa, baroque flute Patrick O’Malley, recorder David Schrader, harpsichord Kate Shuldiner, viola da gamba

RONNIE KULLER: SELECTIONS FROM BLOOMINGDALE TRAIL

Paul Von Hoff, sackbut/ Baroque trombone Bill Baxtresser, cornetto Thomas Alaan, voice Felicia Patton, voice

Ronnie Kuller chose to write a piece about the Bloomingdale Trail because from the window of her Kimball Arts Center office & studio space, she observed its evolution from overgrown postindustrial ruin to the gorgeously landscaped, community-linking greenway it is today—a transformation from one kind of beauty into another. The Prelude draws on the trail’s long history as a railroad, built in 1873 and elevated in the 1910’s. The Bloomingdale Line transported telephone cabinets, pinball machines, bicycles, typewriter desks, and countless other goods from their place of manufacture along the Bloomingdale Avenue industrial corridor to the rest of the world. According to official sources the last train ran on the line in 2001.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Tango: The abandoned tracks waited patiently as the seasons changed and changed again, and the weeds and wildflowers took over. Occasional intrepid citizens would clamber up for a walk, or—thinking no one could see them—a dance in this accidental prairie. Andante: Follow a winding path up out of this flat and car-filled place, and another world opens up… suddenly you’re walking a meandering path that rises and falls, surrounded by quaking aspen and juneberries, floating above the city. As part of the greenway conversion, the formerly level railroad track was gently contoured to create hills and valleys. But other changes followed: housing costs rose as developers and speculators exploited this highly desirable new geographical feature, and the communities connected by the trail have altered as people are displaced due to a lack of affordable housing.

AMOS GILLESPIE: THREE SONGS

Three Songs are the culmination of Amos’ shared history with the Alvarez Brothers and their Latin Jazz Big Band Orchestra. Having played saxophone in their ensemble for the last twelve years, Amos has witnessed first hand a rich cultural and musical heritage struggling to stay alive in Pilsen. The Alvarez Brothers have a deep sense of pride in both reviving and preserving their heritage. Jamie Alvarez eloquently said, “Music is an expression of the soul. It liberates us. Musica de Las Americas, our music, links us to our past and to our predecessors—tipica y tradicional.” After researching and discovering the collection of poems by Rosario Castellanos titled The Wailing Wall, Amos saw relevance to the Alvarez Brothers’ mission. Rosario was a Mexican poet and author who was one of Mexico’s most important literary voices in the last century. Throughout her life, she wrote about cultural and gender oppression issues, and her work has influenced Mexican feminist theory and cultural studies. In recognition of her contribution to Mexican literature, Castellanos was appointed ambassador to Israel in 1971. During this time, she wrote a collection of poems about the Western Wall in Israel, specifically a small segment by the ancient and holy temple site in old Jerusalem nicknamed the “Wailing Wall.” Amos selected three poems from this collection because they spoke to the sanctity of tradition, legacy, and heritage. A legacy and heritage the Alvarez Brothers similarly hold onto in their respective art form.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

HEIDI JOOSTEN: YES.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Wanting to write about women in power, Heidi Joosten found many common themes between the women she interviewed for her works. The women in power work in fields where their progress has (or has had) the opportunity to be stalled by a current administration who doesn’t see eye to eye on the issues of poor people, people of color, and immigrants. Although they were both celebrated for their accomplishments, both women gave their credit to their team and consistently lauded their team’s work. Yes. embraces the ensemble the way a leader would embrace a boardroom of peers. The instruments interact with each other, often trying to talk over each other in three different “situations.” The vocalist serves as the leader/conductor of the ensemble, listening for the best idea and guiding the group toward cohesion. At some point, the ensemble cannot reach a consensus and finds themselves in a 12-pitch “stall.” At that point, the leader pauses, regroups, recalibrates, and then brings the ensemble back to success for the end. The title Yes. comes from these women giving themselves permission to make the right decision in a given situation, rather than waiting for someone to decide for them. They were trusted with this leadership, and therefore they trust their intuition to act accordingly in those situations.

4:15–5:00 PM

CHICAGO WIND PROJECT AARON HOLLOWAY-NAHUM: EZRA’S NURSERY

POP! GOES THE WEASEL WHAT ARE LITTLE BOYS MADE OF? TOM, TOM, THE PIPER’S SON LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN NURSE’S SONG

PIERCE GRADONE: SIGNS AND WONDERS

I. CALL II. SHOUT III. INTERCESSION IV. VAMP

TANIA LEÓN: DE MEMORIAS Constance Volk, flutes Andrew Nogal, oboe and English horn Zachary Good, clarinets Ben Roidl-Ward, bassoon Matt Oliphant, horn

AARON HOLLOWAY-NAHUM: EZRA’S NURSERY

These pieces are a set of Nursery songs for my son, Ezra. I taught children piano for many years before having Ezra, but having him has shown me even more clearly how deeply raucous, cacophonous, and joyful noise is a part of who we are. This piece is filled with that joy (and noisy-ness)!

PIERCE GRADONE: SIGNS AND WONDERS

Signs and Wonders is inspired by my childhood experience in the pentecostal church, in which music was and continues to be a vital aspect of the worship service. The music in these services tended to be loud, fast, and full of energy, with the congregation responding in kind — dancing, clapping, shouting and running were not uncommon. The four movements correspond to different musical and spiritual practices: the first, Call, represents the call to worship, as the congregants

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

slowly gather and begin to join together in song. The second movement, Shout, refers to shouting music, in which a fast tempo is accompanied by the shouting and hollering of the congregants. The third movement, Intercession, is inspired by the intense moments of prayer toward the end of a service. These moments are often quiet but may be interrupted by a loud interruption of wailing or speaking in tongues. The last movement, Vamp, is based on the idea of a recurring idea, in this case an ever-ascending bassoon line, that gradually grows in volume and intensity.

TANIA LEÓN: DE MEMORIAS

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Dedicated to my teacher, Cuban composer Alfredo Diez Nieto, De Memorias has the sensation of days gone by, of my own memories, so familiar that I know them “by memory.” The internal movement of the piece contrasts sounds framed within a rhythmic atmosphere; and opposite them, an atmosphere that is completely free, giving the sensation of a dialogue between capricious imaginary resonances. The work is marked by the use of insistent accents, over which are woven contrasting, lyrical fragments. The use of various methods of tone production contributes to the creation of a special, unified atmosphere. Contrasting elements in the work exist between parallel movements and other materials of an apparently opposing nature. Brief ostinati throughout the piece impart a definite structural cohesiveness as do glissandi, a discrete use of microtones and a few specific dialogues between pairs of instruments.

5:30-6:15 PM

ZAFA COLLECTIVE LIZA SOBEL: FIVE SCENES FOR STRING QUARTET ELIZA BROWN: FIGURE TO GROUND MARIA KAOUTZANI: JAUNE DORÉ GEORGE LEWIS: SIGNIFYING RIFTS: UNISON Alexandra Switala and Hannah Christiansen, violins Teddy Schenkman, viola Kelly Quesada, cello Josh Graham, percussion

LIZA SOBEL: FIVE SCENES FOR STRING QUARTET

I composed a series of five short vignettes. Each vignette (or scene, as I title them) evokes a particular mood and explores a different timbre. The first movement, Prelude, introduces nearly all the different timbres expanded upon throughout the entire work, and they are developed further in the successive scenes. Towards the middle of the prelude, a fast and rhythmic motive is introduced. This dance-like motive connects nearly every other scene, either through its harmonies, rhythm or melody.

ELIZA BROWN: FIGURE TO GROUND

Figure to Ground is a musical response to Poem from Hölderlin by Susan Stewart. As images do in the poem, musical ideas move quickly between foreground to background in non-linear cycles of growth and decay. This piece was commissioned by Network for New Music as part of their “Poetry through Music” program. Six new pieces written specifically for that program each responded to Stewart’s poem, which was itself commissioned for the event.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Poem from Hölderlin contains vivid depictions of repetitive, cyclic motion, from leaves fluttering in the breeze to an ant crawling over ridged tree bark to the broadening cycles of seasons, lives, and generations. As these descriptions shift in temporal and physical scale, objects move between foreground and background, as though a zoom lens were constantly adjusting its focus. Sometimes the leaf is foreground, seen in abundant detail, and sometimes it recedes into the natural backdrop—the ground—on which other images are painted. Life, as found in this poem, moves in patterns and cycles and waves, whether we look at the smallest, most delicate things or at the largest cycles of intergenerational time. And of course, our own lives must follow the same cycle: we all move from figure to—in the sense of the grave, this time—ground.

MARIA KAOUTZANI: JAUNE DORÉ

jaune doré (2016-17) was inspired by the poem collection Poèmes saturniens (Poems under Saturn, 1867) by Paul Verlaine (France, 1844-96). The collection was written by Verlaine when he was still in his youth and going through a series of personal tragedies, and its main themes are the inevitability of fate, life’s unpredictability, the notion of luck, and the lack of control over one’s destiny. The poet uses the planet Saturn as a central element, a planet that in ancient times was associated with darkness and death. The piece’s title refers to the planet’s color. There are repetitive movements and bursts of intensity, in a musical environment that is very mobile but rarely offers a sense of direction; these elements reflect Verlaine’s poetic ideas and his writing. Words from an early part of the collection, “Les sages d’autrefois” (trans. ‘The ancient Sages’) are heard in the original french version in the last section of the piece: Imagination, restless and feeble... So must these Saturnians suffer, and so must die,—admitting that we are Mortal,—their life’s plan sketched out line for line.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

6:15-7:00 PM

F-PLUS JESSIE MONTGOMERY: TRIO FOR CLARINET, VIOLIN, AND PERCUSSION LIZA SOBEL: TRIO FOR VIOLIN, CLARINETS, AND PERCUSSION AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN QUIVER (ATTACCA) IRON LUNG MINUET STRUT

JAMES BUDINICH: FRACTURED MATTER Joy Vucekovich, violin Juan Gabriel Olivares, clarinets Josh Graham, percussion

JESSIE MONTGOMERY: TRIO FOR CLARINET, VIOLIN, AND PERCUSSION World premiere

LIZA SOBEL: TRIO FOR VIOLIN, CLARINETS, AND PERCUSSION

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Percussion was written in 2020 for F-PLUS. The commission was made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, with generous funding provided by the Andrew M. Mellon Foundation. While composing for F-Plus’ unusual instrumentation, my piece organically evolved into a “traditional” symphonic structure of movements: fast, slow, fast minuet in the third movement, and a fast final fourth movement. In addition, an overarching concept throughout the piece is creating unity between three such distinct musical timbres. As the first movement’s title suggests, again, again, again, sounds as if the ensemble is trying and failing to achieve a musical goal. However, the beauty is in the failure. In the second movement, quiver, the first movement’s opening motive of an alternating half step is completely transformed through a dramatically slower tempo and hushed stillness quality. While composing the third movement, I crystallized the concept of mapping a symphonic structure onto a trio. I play with the traditional minuet and trio form by beginning the minuet with hushed breath sounds. Pitch is gradually introduced throughout the minuet, but ultimately the movement unravels as the tem-

po reaches a breakneck speed. The fourth movement strut is a play on a march. The percussion and violin play a steady groove over which the clarinet plays with a sinewy and somewhat sinister chromatic descent. Several motives from previous movements are also restated and altered.

JAMES BUDINICH: FRACTURED MATTER

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Fractured Matter is divided between two contrasting materials, each embracing different colors from the percussion instruments. The faster moments use two wood planks, connecting and amplifying the ascending lines in the clarinet and violin, while the more introspective music is triggered by the opera gong, and embraced by the almglocken. In the stoic final moments, the repeated almglocken notes become almost spiritual, reminiscent of Christian church bells and Tibetan singing bowls used in Buddhist meditations.

7:30–7:45 PM

FLORIAN HOLLERWEGER & CHRISTINE SCHERZER STIMMEN, A FIVE-CHANNEL ELECTROACOUSTIC COMPOSITION (2019) Florian Hollerweger, electroacoustic composition Christine Scherzer, voice

FLORIAN HOLLERWEGER AND CHRISTINE SCHERZER: STIMMEN

The five-channel electroacoustic composition Stimmen is a celebration of the human voice, of orality as a medium of communication that—precisely by stretching the securities of asserted meaning—reveals its truth to those who keep listening in the absence of words. Berlin-based vocalist and performance artist Christine Scherzer has given the piece its voice. Sound artist Florian Hollerweger has assembled the resulting recordings into the final composition. The piece was premiered in October 2019 at Chicago’s Rare Nest Gallery, with the kind support of Keith Bringe. This project is partially supported by a Faculty Development Grant from Columbia College Chicago.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

7:45–8:15 PM

JENNIE OH BROWN, FLUTE GEORGE LEWIS: EMERGENT Jennie Oh Brown, flute

GEORGE LEWIS: EMERGENT

This work, written for Claire Chase’s Density 2036 project, addresses Edgard Varèse’s avowed preference for sound-producing machines over sound-reproducing ones by productively conflating the two. The combination of relatively long digital delays, interactive digital spatialization, and timbre transformation transforms the fully scored flute material into a virtual, quasi-improvisative orchestral space, creating a dance among multiple flutists following diverse yet intersecting trajectories in which nonlinearity is invoked and uncertainty is assured. Rather than presenting the redundant truism of a composer “working with time,” this work is created in dialogue with my deliberate misprision of Varèse’s stated intention for his 1958 Poème électronique to introduce “a fourth [dimension], that of sound projection” to music. Varèse’s statement seems to obliquely invoke the notion of spacetime, an interpretation supported by a 1968 account of one of the composer’s dreams that suggests the related notion of quantum teleportation as well as the sound of my piece: “He was in a telephone booth talking to his wife, who was at the time in Paris. His body became so light, so immaterial, so evanescent that suddenly, limb by limb, he disintegrated and flew away toward Paris, where he was reconstructed, as though all his being had become spirit.” — George Lewis

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

8:15–9:00 PM

DEIDRE HUCKABAY WITH JESSICA ANNE, MABEL KWAN, AND JASMINE LUPE MENDOZA: WORDS FOR WORDS FROM DEIDRE HUCKABAY JESSICA ANNE MABEL KWAN JASMINE LUPE MENDOZA

DEIDRE HUCKABAY AND COLLABORATORS: WORDS FOR WORDS FROM

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1

Words For Words From is a ritual transmission to and from the world of spirits and lost loved ones. This 35-minute, collaboratively devised performance blares the musicians’ chosen words to those who are no longer living in a tender blend of text, light, and movement. The group and the audience listen together for return messages. Deidre Huckabay is a musician and artist making contemplative sounds and performative rituals. In Words For Words From, they gather together a quartet of Chicago musicians, poets, and artists to create a real life funeral rite, a moment of musical mediumship, a fragile point of contact with an eternal world.

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

INTRODUCTION I think the term new music is difficult, first of all because for most people, new music means the latest popular music. It’s also slippery because its definition is changing, but also I think because the term new music has less of a definition and more of a history. It’s a result of an historical periodization of Western art music something like this: first came early music (medieval, renaissance), then the common practice period (baroque, classical, romantic) and now new music (20th, and 21st century). In practice, people who use the term know what it means. It’s like classical music, and you listen to it in the same way, but it’s a bit weird: it has atonality, sparse textures, strange meters or no meters or electronics. Sometimes the composers are women! It can be slightly abstract or extremely abstract. It’s music like modern or contemporary art. The problem of course is that from a global perspective, to use the term new music in this way implies a Eurocentric paradigm in which the only music worth even considering is Western art music. It specifically excludes new vernacular music, new African music, new indigenous music, Latin music, hip hop... The diametric opposition between the common use of the term and its use among musicologists and practitioners of Western art music magnifies its Eurocentricity. It is thus unfortunately laden with an arrogance, xenophobia, and elitism so unselfreflective as to be comical if it weren’t so tragic, if it didn’t exclude so much wonderful music, a great number of masterful composers and musicians, and if it were not also laced with the insane legacy of slavery, colonialism, and racism– a white existential terror that motivates the maintenance of a Jim Crow musical fortress among many other such conceptual systems of racial subjugation and containment. Black folks in the U.S. have been forced to devise all kinds of new cultural adaptations in response to the reality of being violently disconnected from old cul-

tural traditions, and then continually subject to ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

bizarre and challenging social conditions that are deviously designed to defeat our efforts to attain equality. We have been making new forms and new concepts of music on this continent for over 200 years. Europeans and Euro-americans have been devouring and appropriating it while systematically excluding it from their fortress for just as long. Today, we find ourselves in a strange moment in history, and there is a sudden realization (again) among white folks that Black folks have been human all the while. It has taken horrific videos of violence against us to help others to recognize our humanity, and eventually to accept the inevitable conclusion that ignoring or excluding Black innovation in music is both evil and stupid, that is to say, both immoral and also self-defeating. People who run some new music institutions are beginning to recognize that there’s no legitimate (non-racist) way to continue to exclude major musical innovations that have been in dynamic conversation with the Western art music tradition for more than two centuries. There’s emerging a will to take steps toward a desegregation of new music, and one that goes beyond just allowing some people of color into the fortress if they do work that sounds something like what a European might do. Some guardians of the fortress seem willing, at least for now, to recognize that Black and brown folks are doing, and have been doing, new musical things that are every bit as interesting, valuable, and serious as what Europeans and Euro-Americans have been doing, even if they’re rooted in jazz or cumbia or Carnatic music more than in classical music. So it’s in that context that I’ve been asked to write a brief history of some of the more adventurous innovators in Great Black music in Chicago, starting with Sun Ra, for this new music festival program book. I love jazz, and especially the kind of jazz that’s a bit weird, with strange meters, no meters, sparse or extremely dense textures, and unusual instruments—often, we don’t bother to call it jazz at all—so I suppose I make a suitable ambassador to the new music community.

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

AFROCENTRIC SPIRITUAL JAZZ IN CHICAGO First of all Chicago: My teacher, Kelan Phil Cohran (more below about his work) said it bluntly that Chicago is the Mecca of Blackness. Its importance as a center of Black American culture cannot be overstated, equalling and even exceeding New York in some respects. Historically, Chicago was the most important center in the country for Black business, Black banking, Black journalism... Musically, African American liturgical music developed from spirituals to gospel in Chicago. The blues took on new urban complexity and connected with wider audiences in Chicago. House music incorporated the great Black music traditions of Chicago’s rich history and used new electronic instruments and devices to make old materials new again. And of course, jazz grew deep roots in Chicago and led to great innovations here. That’s what I know most about. While a considerable number of musical innovations in and radical approaches to jazz happened in Chicago earlier, we might trace what we can recognize as the Chicago sound and a jazz avant-garde back to Sun Ra’s work in the 1950s. “Sonny” Herman Poole Blount came from Birmingham to Chicago around 1946. He played with Fletcher Henderson and other jazz luminaries for a few years before starting to work on his own. He went through several versions of his name, including Le Sony’r Ra, before becoming Sun Ra. Even more than a bandleader, composer, arranger, and instrumentalist, Sun Ra was a spiritual philosopher, and his band functioned something like a commune. It was remarkable that he was able to hold it together for decades, and even today, Marshall Allen (at age 96!) continues touring with the Sun Ra Arkestra, performing Sun Ra’s numerous compositions. (Lock 2004) Sun Ra was a visionary musician, whose ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

extensive body of music, writings, and drawings along with his mythic persona were largely about crafting a vision of a positive future for Black people. A number of books have been written about Sun Ra’s life and work. Chief among them is John Szwed’s book Space is the Place. (Szwed 1997) Perhaps the newest is William Sites’ Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City. (Sites 2020) Sun Ra’s influence was widespread. Although he left the city in 1960, the musicians he influenced went on to establish not only a tradition of Afrocentric spiritual jazz, but also some enduring institutions. One of the most prolific of his students was Kelan Phil Cohran. Born in Oxford, Mississippi, May 8, 1927, Cohran grew up in St. Louis. He moved to Chicago in 1953. Cohran started as a trumpet player and then branched out into other instruments: the harp, French horn, and especially his adaptation of the lamellophone (African thumb piano) which he electrified and named the Frankiphone (after his mother). In 1959 John Gilmore introduced Cohran to Sun Ra, beginning a short but crucial collaboration that began a new level of discipline for Cohran, by which he benefited greatly. The collaboration ended when Cohran decided not to follow Sun Ra’s Arkestra to New York in 1960. Instead Cohran began to redefine music for himself, becoming a leader in his own right. In 1965, Cohran was one of the co-founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) along with Jodie Christian, Steve McCall and Muhal Richard Abrams. However, Cohran left the organization relatively quickly when a difference of philosophy developed between him and the rest of the members. In the mid-1960s, he worked on an educational program with Oscar Brown, Jr., setting Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry to music. The work in Chicago’s schools led to a grant to construct the music component of a larger arts program at the 63rd Street Beach House. The music became the most popular part of that program, and soon it grew into a major event every week attended by thousands, and it is memorialized by his album On the Beach.

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

Phil Cohran opened the Affro-Arts Theater on December 2, 1967. They expanded on what had taken place at the 63rd Street beach training people in music, history; offering free music and language lessons. After an appearance by Stokely Carmichael at the Affro Arts Theater, the group of people who led the theater was infiltrated by operatives of the FBI’s COINTELPRO counterintelligence program, who sewed dissent among them. It led Cohran to leave his band, the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, and the theater by the end of 1968, and the theater soon closed permanently. Members of Cohran’s Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to form the Afrocentric funk group the Pharaohs, and former members formed Earth Wind and Fire. Cohran went on to teach at Malcolm X College and at Northeastern Illinois University. He was an early teacher of Chaka Khan. From 1975 to 1977, Cohran operated Transitions East at 6236 S. Cottage Grove Avenue, a music venue that was also devoted to healthy diet and nutrition. Cohran raised a very large family with 21 children, eight of whom formed the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. He died in 2017 with 36 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. Cohran’s legacy lives on not only in his extensive family, in his rich body of work, and in the work of his many students (including myself) but also in the institution that was conceived in his living room, the AACM. The Black musicians collective, dedicated to the support of Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future, has supported hundreds of creative composers and improvisers including the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Nicole Mitchell, Douglas Ewart, Tomeka Reid, Ernest Dawkins, Adegoke Steve Colson, Iqua Colson and many others. For an extensive history of the AACM, read George Lewis’s A Power Stronger Than Itself (2008).

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

Ernest Dawkins, a longtime AACM member and recent former chairman of the organization, is a towering figure in Chicago jazz. Besides his work with the AACM, as a bandleader and composer, Ernest is also the visionary behind the Englewood Jazz Festival and runs a nonprofit called Live the Spirit Residency that teaches music to young people and seniors in Englewood. Dawkins also serves as an active bridge between Chicago and South Africa. Nicole Mitchell was the AACM’s first female President. One of her early projects Samana was the first all-women group in the AACM and also included one of Phil Cohran’s wives, Maia, along with Shanta Nurulla and Coco Elysses (the current AACM President). Nicole Mitchell’s work follows in the legacy of Sun Ra’s visionary approach. She attempts to embody and envision a positive future for Black people, often working with Afrofuturist themes and materials such as the work of Octavia Butler. As a flute player, encountering Mitchell was one of my earliest exposures to the AACM, and I’ve learned a great deal from her not only as a performer, but also as a leader and visionary. Although she left Chicago for California, and now Pittsburgh, in order to teach, her influence on Chicago’s jazz and creative music is lasting. Afrocentric Spiritual jazz/ creative innovation is not, however, limited to the members of the AACM. The spirit emanates from the organization to a wider field of musicians and composers. In the 1970s, Baba Atu a.k.a. Black Harold, who had also performed with Sun Ra, organized a group of drummers called the Sun Drummer. Among them were (now Sir) Kahil El Zabar, former AACM member Sura Dupart, Derf Reklaw of the Pharaohs, Enoch Williamson, and others who have gone on to carry the tradition of drumming and drum making forward, teaching others, and some travelling the world. David Boykin is a saxophonist, composer and bandleader who has been working in a visionary creative, Black futurist direction since the 1990s. Boykin became interested in freer, more original jazz at Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge, an iconic and seminal home for jazz and creative music. (Majer 2005) Boykin made his own opportunities, especially when 88

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

Fred Anderson initially declined to present his music. Some of his early gigs were at Geri’s Palm Tavern with Nicole Mitchell, bassist Karl E.H. Siegfried, drummer Isaiah Spencer, bassist Josh Abrahams, and keyboardist Jim Baker around 2001 when he had a regular Wednesday set there. From there, Boykin has continued to develop as a composer of complex music and a band leader. One of his more recent projects, with an ensemble he calls the Sebau, is an avant-garde jazz hip-hOpera entitled “The Lynching of (Insert the Name of Any White Killer of an Unarmed Black Here).” Boykin works as an educator, teaching at the DuSable Leadership Academy. For decades, Boykin has been the leader of an important jam session/participatory spiritual music gathering called the Sonic Healing Ministries. Some others who are currently expanding Chicago’s strong tradition of Afrocentric spiritual jazz include Eliel Sherman Storey, a spirit jazz saxophonist who also supports the Black creative music community by maintaining a performance space and recording studio called Transition East on 83rd St. Dorothy “Mama Sunshine” Lyles has been extending the marriage of spiritual exploration and jazz through practice and mentorship. Elder and master poet G’Ra George Hines carries on the relationship between performance poetry and spiritual jazz. Ben Lamar Gay continues the tradition of complex composition and the exploration of new forms within the AACM. Ben combines traditional composition with electronic instruments, electronic sampling/layering, and conduction to create radically new sonic experiences. Angel Bat Dawid explodes categories of jazz and classical music, composition and improvisation, song and sound through her Black holy awakening music. Young master Isaiah Collier is working fiercely to bridge the generation gap and also to bridge between straight ahead jazz and the spiritual side of the music. I want to write the names of some luminaries who were taken from us too soon but whose legacy is that in remembrance of their spirit, we continue to struggle for Black liberation and the liberation of all people from the diseases of greed and inhumanity towards each other. ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

Light Henry Huff was a saxophonist and member of Kahil El Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble and leader of his own group called Breath that included vocalist Dee Alexander, drummer Avreeayl Ra, and bassist Yosef Ben Israel. He also worked heavily with pianist Soji Adebayo, drummer and artist Sura Dupart, and others in the 1980s and 90s. Ann Ward was a marvelous vocalist and pianist, and also the dean of the AACM school for many years. Saalik Ziyad was a talented composer, explorer, and musician, exemplifying the compassion of a people who know the transformative power of empathy. Saalik left the planet at just 40 years old in 2019. In January 2021, we lost Soji Adebayo, whose Infinite Spirit Music taught us to “Live without Fear.” Evod Magek was a spirit warrior who gave me the strongest imperative of my life, when he screamed at me: “LOVE! DON’T BULLSHIT! LOVE!” There are too many more to list, and much more to be said about those listed. But these are some of the figures in Great Black Music history in Chicago that have touched me most directly, and whom I know to exemplify the spirit of Afrocentric spiritual jazz, musical exploration, innovation, and the defiance of the kinds of categories that would contain us. One of the wonders that has emerged in Black Chicago is a music freed from jazz yet still strengthened by it, a music suffused with the widely various African inventions now native to this land, and one which is made for higher purposes. Avreeayl Ra says most eloquently that the music is more for inner attainment than for entertainment. Alive in our midst is a music of devotion, empathy, and stimulating excellence, and it’s thanks to these and other practitioners that we have these cultural treasures to help us heal from this last year of tragedy. I am deeply grateful to them, and I hope that my writing can bring their work to the attention of people who may benefit from it.

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

BIBLIOGRAPHY Baraka, Amiri. 1968. Black Music. New York: William Morrow. Black, Timuel. 2003. Bridges of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Black Migration. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Cohran, Philip. 1965. “The Spiritual Musician,” Change Magazine. Reprinted 1994 in Traveling the Spaceways: Sun-Ra: The Astro Black and Other Solar Myths edited by John Corbett, Anthony Elms, and Terri Kapsalis. Chicago: WhiteWalls. Corbett, John. 2007. Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn and Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-68. Chicago: WhiteWalls. Jones, LeRoi. (1964) 1999. Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: William Morrow. Lewis, George. 2008. A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM And American Experimental Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Litweiler, John. 1989. The Freedom Principle: Jazz after 1958. New York: Da Capo. Lock, Graham. 2004. Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton. Durham: Duke University Press. Majer, Gerald. 2005. The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz. New York: Columbia University Press Neal, Larry. 1968 “The Black Arts Movement.” The Drama Review v. 12, no. 4, pp. 29-39. Rpt. in The Black Aesthetic. Addison Gayle, ed. Garden City, NY: Double Day. 1971. pp. 272-290. Sites, William. 2020. Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Steinbeck, Paul. 2017. A Message to Our Folks: The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sun Ra. 2006. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra’s Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, Translated Compiled and introduced by John Corbett. Chicago: WhiteWalls. Szwed, John. 1997. Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra. New York: Pantheon. Wolf, James L. and Hartmut Geerken, eds. 2005. Sun Ra: The Immeasurable Equation: The Collected Poetry and Prose. Stuttgart: Waitawhile.

ESSAY BY ADAM ZANOLINI

SATURDAY OCTOBER 2

Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Penthouse (9th Floor) 915 E 60th Street Free 11:30 AM–12:00 PM

GARRETT MENDELOW, SOLO PERCUSSION/VOICE RODRIGO BUSSAD: ATLAS VOCALIS I

RODRIGO BUSSAD: ATLAS VOCALIS I

Atlas Vocalis I by Rodrigo Bussad was a recent commission by Garrett Mendelow for his solo album, “singing to his craft…” The text material of the piece was inspired by the book Pauliceia Desvairada from the Brazilian writer Mario de Andrade. This collection of short poems takes the reader into a sort of delusional and carnivalesque state, with the city of São Paulo as its protagonist. The vocal and theatrical parts in the piece capture this mental and emotional state. The word “São” implies several meanings, such as “saint” (more specifically to reference Saint Paul, who is the protector of the city of São Paulo), or to be “sane.” The word “Anhagabau” (Anyagabauh), is a Native South American word that means “filthy river.” It was also the name of a river in São Paulo city that was covered up, and as a result, gave birth to one of the most iconic neighborhoods of the state capital. Below is a complete chart of texts used in the composition: WORDS

TRANSLATION

SÃO MÃO CORAÇÃO NA MÃO MÃO NO CORAÇÃO VIRA VOZ VIRA REI MEU PAI FOI REI FOI, NÃO FOI MEU PAI FOR A BURGUES PAULISTAMENTE O REI MENTE REI PAULISTA ANHAGABAU** ES REI! OLHA O REI NU! O ANHAGABAU ERA RIO UM RIO PROFUNDO RIO IMUNDO MUNDO DLOROM*** VIRA SOM O REDONDO SOM DLOROM INSPIRAÇÃO O REI FOR A CORAÇÃO APLAUSOS! OLHA!

SÃO HAND THE HEART IN THE HAND THE HAND IN THE HEART TURN INTO VOICE TURN INTO KING MY FATHER WAS KING WAS, WAS NOT MY FATHER WAS BOURGEOIS IN THE SÃO PAULO FASHION THE KING LIES THE PAULISTANIAN KING ANHAGABAU* WAS KING! LOOK AT THE NAKED KING! THE ANHAGABAU WAS RIVER A DEEP RIVER FILTHY RIVER WORLD DLOROM** TURN INTO SOUND THE ROUND SOUND DLOROM INHALE/INSPIRATION*** THE KING WAS HEART APPLAUSES! LOOK!

12:15–1:00 PM

SUSAN MERDINGER, STEINWAY ARTIST AARON ALTER: PIANO SONATA ELBIO BARILARI: SAXON VARIATIONS ILYA LEVINSON: SHTETL SCENES

AARON ALTER: PIANO SONATA

My New Beginning - Part I (Sonata) is a compelling blend of musical tradition with the new. The work was inspired by the first movement of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata, Op. 53. You might hear many influences in the work, from classical piano all the way to jazz and rock. The composition is written in a big, orchestral style and projects the full range and sound of the piano. The Sonata is dedicated to Susan Merdinger who premiered this work in November 2018, as well as Solar Rays for Piano Trio in 2017. www.aaronalter.com

ELBIO BARILARI: SAXON VARIATIONS

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

ILYA LEVINSON: SHTETL SCENES

Forgotten Dreams: Shtetl is a small Jewish village in pre-World War II Eastern Europe. After the Second World War the Shtetl is gone, its population perished in gas chambers of the concentration camps. I used to dream about Shtetl, but now I am forgetting even the dreams. Freylakh: It’s a lively dance, fulI of rhythm and joy. The piece starts slowly and suddenly its pace accelerates to a very fast tempo. Lullaby and Nigun: Piano In a Shtetl women were raising children and doing housekeeping, the men were praying. The sounds of lullaby could be heard over Nigun, a melody that would carry the prayer to the highest realms of human spirit. Sometimes they clash, sometimes they answer each other ... Introspection: Do I do enough to be a rightful person? What’s in my soul? Is the God listening to me or not? Am I lost? These are the questions every Jew asks constantly. Chosidl: It’s a slow dance full of energy; its steady rhythm entrances you. The opening phrase of Forgotten Dreams returns at the end of the dance. www.ilyalevinsonmusic.com

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

1:00–1:15 PM

PATRICIA MOREHEAD, OBOE/OBOE D’AMORE PATRICIA MOREHEAD: SOUNDS AND SIGHS FOR JOHN

PATRICIA MOREHEAD: SOUNDS AND SIGHS FOR JOHN

Sounds and Sighs for John tries to capture many facets of John’s creativity, such as his joyful and loving spirit. A tribute to John Eaton, one of America’s foremost composers of opera with his command of vocal and instrumental musical language, was at the forefront of contemporary techniques and compositional invention. As my composition teacher at the University of Chicago, he was enthusiastic and supportive of one’s personal vision of what it means to be a composer. He was able to identify what each student needed to explore and expand our personal language. I miss him each day as I continue my journey as a composer.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

2:00–2:45 PM

GAUDETE BRASS Who are the composers in your neighborhood? Gaudete Brass takes a trip around Chicago as they perform seven world premieres by Chicago composers: AMOS GILLESPIE: PEOPLE IN THE PARK RONNIE KULLER: LABAGH WOODS HEIDI JOOSTEN: WATER’S EDGE REGINA HARRIS BAIOCCHI: PASTICHE ERIC MALMQUIST: BOUNDARY LINES DEVIN CLARA FANSLOW: FAWN EPHRAIM CHAMPION: SOUTH SHORE, CHICAGO Bill Baxtresser, trumpets Charles Russell Roberts, trumpets Natalie Douglass, horn Paul Von Hoff, trombone Scott Tegge, tuba

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

3:00–3:45 PM

TRI-AGAIN ADKINS, HANNAU, LEITCH: COMBINATORIAL OPTIMIZATION Laura Adkins, oboe, etc. Jonathan Hannau, piano, etc. Riley Leitch, trombone, etc.

ADKINS, HANNAU, LEITCH: COMBINATORIAL OPTIMIZATION

The relationship between composer and performer is a constantly-shifting, often-ambiguous construct. Tri-Again, a trio of composers, improvisers, and performers, explores this relationship with an eclectic set of individually composed musical structures. Prior to the performance, each member of the trio will only see the structures they composed. Thus each performance becomes a unique combination of part improvisation, part collaborative composition, and part discovery. Do you choose to engage, ignore, or alter what’s in front of you in the midst of spontaneous creation? The choice is yours.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

4:15–5:00 PM

AVONDALE TRIO RALPH SHAPEY: PIANO TRIO NO. 1 TIM EDWARDS: THE CONJECTURE ILYA LEVINSON: THE POLYPHONY OF TREES

II. BRUNCHES

Kenichi Kiyama, violin Kelsee Vandevall, cello Shi-An Costello, piano

RALPH SHAPEY: PIANO TRIO NO. 1

Written in 1953-55 the Piano Trio is dedicated to Robert Adler. It consists of four movements: I Maestoso, II Allegro, III Andante, IV Andante. “... a solid work of real quality, the Piano Trio (1955) by Ralph Shapey. Shapey is very independent, and so is his powerfully cast music of which this is a striking example. His First Trio’s date of composition belies the contemporaneity of the sound of its bold, sharp-edged gestures, intense, dry dissonance, propulsive rhythm and taut interaction of the three instruments. ...It was stirring and exciting, the piece and the performance.” —Robert Commanday, San Francisco Chronicle

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

TIM EDWARDS: THE CONJECTURE

The Conjecture for violin, cello and piano is dedicated to the Lincoln Trio who premiered it in 2006. The piece explores numerous contrapuntal relationships between and among two subjects in a context of dynamic, gestural, and rhythmic contrasts. The tossing about of these subjects and the weighing of them in various musical contexts can be likened to a formal discourse investigating a logical proposition. First, the bold conjecture is asserted, but it is immediately followed by careful consideration and reflection in a similarly derived but calm second theme treated in various canonic combinations. This contrast of mood is eventually reconciled as the initial theme is once again taken up in fugal treatment.

ILYA LEVINSON: THE POLYPHONY OF TREES

Trees are one of the greatest miracles of nature. Their roots are hidden under the ground, they spread in all directions bringing water and minerals to the rest of the tree. Tree trunks and branches look emotionally different throughout the year. I am fascinated by the drama of trees in the winter when their branches are protruded towards the sky as the human hands with fists, imploring the sunlight not to leave them for so long. I see the polyphony in the branches of trees, the ever-changing flow of music cells, motives, and phrases. A lonely tree in the winter looks almost desperate in its cry for help, a group of trees intersperses their trunks and branches in a fascinating web of lines like in a fugue. The second movement of my cycle The Polyphony of Trees is inspired by a picture of winter trees.

100

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

6:00–6:45 PM

ZACHARY GOOD AND TONIA KO UP HIGH ZACHARY GOOD AND TONIA KO: UP HIGH (WORLD PREMIERE, EAR TAXI FESTIVAL COMMISSION) Tonia Ko, bubble wrap Zachary Good, clarinets/recorders Zach Moore, lights and sound Lia Kohl, costumes

ZACHARY GOOD & TONIA KO: UP HIGH World Premiere, Ear Taxi Festival Commission

Up High is an installation and concert-length work created and performed by clarinetist/ composer Zachary Good and bubble wrapper/composer Tonia Ko. Developed over a two-year long-distance collaboration, Tonia and Zach confront their mutual fear of heights by staging a physical and sonic cliff. The premiere takes place on the ninth floor penthouse of the Logan Center for the Arts, a somewhat monolithic tower in Hyde Park. The two perform on top of large isolated pedestals wearing bubble wrap jackets custom-made by Lia Kohl, juxtaposing the insecurity of height with the “protection” of air packaging. With sound, Tonia and Zach construct a steep terrain of extreme lows and highs—from the lowest note on the contrabass clarinet (a pedal B-flat) to the white noise of rubbed bubble wrap and whistle tones of a sopranino recorder. Instruments are close-mic’d and amplified against a scaffolding of heavy electronics and shifting light to create an immersive experience, assisted by lighting/sound engineer Zach Moore. Small objects gradually begin to fall, traversing this emotional and literal space. Accumulating drops become a brilliant and percussive downpour. What emerges is a meditation on the dichotomies of fear and acceptance, distance and closeness, dyads and unisons. Up High is a visceral dreamscape.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

101

Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry 929 E. 60th St Free 1:15–2:00 PM

THE ROPE DANCER ACCOMPANIES HERSELF WITH HER SHADOWS JAY ALAN YIM: THE ROPE DANCER ACCOMPANIES HERSELF WITH HER SHADOWS

Shanna Pranaitis, bass flute Jay Alan Yim, electronics

JAY ALAN YIM: THE ROPE DANCER ACCOMPANIES HERSELF WITH HER SHADOWS

102

The title of this new work is a reference to Man Ray’s painting “The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself With Her Shadows” (1916). This work sits at the intersection of sculptural sound installation and live performance. The bass flute plays the protagonist in a sonic 4D space (XYZ plus time) created in part by an electrophysical apparatus incorporating ten resonant tubes and contingently by their musical choices as they negotiate the available possibilities afforded by the notated score and the electronic terrain. During the performance, the audience will be free to walk around the perimeter of the work, changing their aural and visual perspective.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

5:00–5:45 PM

PRESENTATION BY TAALIB-DIN ZIYAD: THE OTHER SIDE OF PERFORMANCE What is the other side of performance, what does that mean? The other side of performance simply is going beyond the basic tools and concepts you utilize to perform your music. A few examples are proficient technique on your instrument, good tone quality, adequate background information on the music you are performing, and many other basic skills that help to achieve a good performance. The meaning of the concept of the other side of performance is transcending the performance action of the music and embodying the music, becoming one with the music. In this state the musician’s performance goes to a level beyond the notes and becomes artistry, a special experience for the audience and musician. This goal is something that many musicians work at achieving. However, it also does not happen every time one performs; it can be illusive. There are various techniques one can employ to attempt to obtain that special type of performance. I will share and demonstrate some of these techniques in my presentation along with further explanation of those concepts.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

103

Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts Performance Hall 915 E 60th Street $20 General Admission Students free with ID

7:30-9:30 PM

WET INK ENSEMBLE BEN LAMAR GAY: MUHAL MARIA KAOUTZANI: NEW WORK (WORLD PREMIERE) TED MOORE: NEW WORK (WORLD PREMIERE) ALEX MINCEK: GLOSSOLALIA Kate Soper, voice Erin Lesser, flutes Alex Mincek, tenor saxophone Eric Wubbels, piano Ian Antonio, percussion

Josh Modney, violin Mariel Roberts, cello Sam Pluta, electronics With special guest: Ben LaMar Gay on cornet

Presented by Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition in partnership with UChicago Presents. Please see CCCC’s program book for notes on the works on this concert.

104

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2

105

SUNDAY

106

Epiphany Center for the Arts 201 S Ashland Ave Free 11:00–11:45 AM

CITY BEAUTIFUL: FEATURING MARIANNE PARKER, MEGAN IHNEN, MICHAEL HALL PIERCE GRADONE: POWER BALLADE STEVEN SNOWDEN: TWENTY-FIVE MILLION CANDLES DENNIS TOBENSKI: GOOD BONES FRANCINE TRESTER: THE DANIEL BURNHAM SUITE REGINA HARRIS BAIOCCHI: LANDSCAPES Marianne Parker, piano Megan Ihnen, mezzo-soprano Michael Hall, viola

PIERCE GRADONE: POWER BALLADE

Power Ballade (2020) is a dual homage to Frederic Chopin’s four Ballades and a compilation CD released in the mid-90s called “Monster Ballads,” whose infomercial reminded viewers that “every bad boy has a soft side.” In other words, the piece blends the restrained energy of the power ballad and the dramatic, dancelike character of Chopin’s Ballades. With the aid of pre-recorded electronic cues triggered by the pianist throughout the performance, Power Ballade creates a kind of hyper-piano, an impossible physical instrument composed of all manner of prepared and altered pianos, from dampened strings to bizarre physical modelings and tunings. In fact, most of the electronic sounds heard in this piece are derived from an acoustic piano, and if you listen closely, you may even catch the refracted strains of Chopin’s first Ballade in G minor. Like those of Chopin, this Ballade fluctuates between tempos and moods, all tied together by a propulsive sense of groove. Power Ballade was commissioned by Marianne Parker with a grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. 107

STEVEN SNOWDEN: TWENTY-FIVE MILLION CANDLES

“The Wrigley Building’s most striking features, however, were the two hundred high-powered incandescent projectors mounted on adjacent buildings throwing over twenty-five million candlepower onto its facades and making the building visible—indeed, unavoidable—from the riverfront and Michigan Avenue.” — Thomas Leslie: Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871-1934.

How brash. How bold. How audacious. How... American. A self-made man accumulates millions of dollars from selling five-cent packs of chewing gum and builds a gargantuan, shining beacon in the center of the country’s architecture mecca. That wasn’t enough though. He wanted to shine two hundred flood lights onto it so that it could be seen from miles away even in the middle of the night. Not only did he want people to admire his accomplishment amongst its many other magnificent neighbors, he wanted to literally shine a spotlight on it. Every last corner and carving stood in stark relief, proudly inviting scrutiny and wonder from any passerby. With the exception of a few months during power shortages in the 1970’s, this tradition has continued every night for the past 100 years.

DENNIS TOBENSKI: GOOD BONES

In the summer of 2016, poet Maggie Smith experienced something that few poets ever do: her poem “Good Bones” went legitimately viral online. The poem was published online shortly after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, and it struck a chord with readers around the world. Over the coming months, it would come to be considered the “Official Poem of 2016” because of how deeply it resonated in the wake of what seemed like countless difficult and awful events that year. I had met Maggie as a fellow resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts a few years earlier, so I was overjoyed to watch Maggie’s success unfold in real time. In one of her earlier posts about the unexpected popularity of the poem, she included a link to “Good Bones,” and I immediately fell in love with it, as had so many others before me. I knew immediately that I needed to set her words to music. That August, when Megan Ihnen was a guest on my podcast, I immediately knew that I wanted to write a new piece for her, and “Good Bones” was the obvious choice for a text, and I hope I’ve lived up to Maggie’s words. I’ve aimed for an emotional simplicity in my setting of the poem. My own reading tends to be angry and cynical, but I’ve chosen to emphasize the aspect of the poem that has captured the hearts of the world: hope. This place could be beautiful, right?

108

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

FRANCINE TRESTER: THE DANIEL BURNHAM SUITE

In 2019, violist Michael Hall mentioned to me the idea of writing a composition inspired by architect Daniel Burnham and his Chicago Plan. Michael cited Burnham’s “main mantra: make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” This quote, Burnham’s story, and contributions captured my imagination. The quote divides into the three movements of this suite and serves as the basis for the three poems I wrote to accompany the music. The music and poem of the first movement, “make no little plans,” describe the driving force behind the desire to build, the will to defy “little plans” in an effort to achieve a greater vision. “They have no magic,” the second movement, references some musical ideas from the previous. It also introduces (initially through pizzicato), a sort of ticking – time keeping – an expression of both narrow, incremental passage and determined, quiet beating – two opposing forces referenced in the accompanying poem. The final movement, “to stir men’s blood,” while continuing to build on preceding material now introduces something of a neo-classic element, a reference to the aesthetic of Burnham’s glittering World’s Fair. Dance-like in nature, the music pays tribute to Burnham’s desire “to stir” the individual, to move, call to action and realize his idealized plan—his fairground —golden, distant and dreamed.

REGINA HARRIS BAIOCCHI: LANDSCAPES

Landscapes (A. SURVEY, B. PROMENADE, A1. REPRISE) was commissioned by Marianne Parker for Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival 2021. It calls for voice, viola, piano, and the composer’s found Fibonacci poem. Regina Harris Baiocchi deconstructed a redacted essay by landscape architect Frederick Olmstead to create the poem. This art song’s outer sections (A, C) use genteel music to encase a mysterious PROMENADE. Landscapes was written for the 3M Trio: Marianne Parker, piano, Megan Ihnen, mezzo, and Michael Hall, viola. © 2021 RHB, ASCAP.

landscapes* from opposite shores and aerial views visitors appear as liquid art. Mystery, lit by lamps reflecting from the water,

mingles with light, playing thru shade. character becomes poetry, and purpose is unity. [grandeur and skill alternate and come together to display bright flecks with glimmers of color breaking thru pansies, gladiolus, and sunflowers.] along the promenade, lush, deep greens obscure all things aimed at breaking attention from walkways and entries that stir our blood with possibilities and music. Our watchword is order and our beacon is beauty. Promenade (B-section musings): Strutting down the lane... Cobblestone tulips... Hands holding hands... Gardenias for a temple... Breezes raising hemlines... Sky keeping watch... Shadows in the gloaming... Fountains wishing for coins. *In Fibonacci poetry the word count per line is the sum of two previous lines: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc. The quotation in italics is from Daniel Burnham.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

109

11:45 AM–12:30 PM

DANIEL QUINN, TROMBONE AND JANNA WILLIAMSON, PIANO // DANIEL PESCA, PIANIST/COMPOSER AND HANNA HURWITZ, VIOLIN SHAWN E. OKPEBHOLO: EXCURSIONS FOR TROMBONE AND PIANO

1. AUTOMOTIVE 11. MARITIME 111. THE TRAV'LER

DANIEL PESCA: TAKING A LINE FOR A WALK (WORLD PREMIERE) Daniel Quinn, trombone Janna Williamson, piano Hanna Hurwitz, violin Daniel Pesca, piano

SHAWN E. OKPEBHOLO: EXCURSIONS FOR TROMBONE AND PIANO

110

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

Written in 2010 by Shawn E. Okpebholo, Excursions is a duo for trombone and piano—acollaborative effort— that challenges both performers in their technical and expressive capabilities. The work, commissioned and first recorded by trombonist Timothy Anderson, came about to highlight the trombone, an underused but worthy solo instrument. The trombone’s dynamic and versatile nature is on full display, featuring timbral sifts (brassy, sweet, mellow), its wide range, characteristic glissando, and more. Conceptually, the idea of

travel unifies the three-movement work. The first movement, Automotive, includes brash, disjunct melodies in both instruments, quasi-jazz sonorities, and a driving groove that could easily evoke images of commuters racing down Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. Maritime, which Okpebholo wrote during a cruise off the coast of Nova Scotia, offers a stark contrast to the first movement. The relaxed tempo and subdued dynamics offer the performers an opportunity to focus on subtle tone changes. Moments of imitation between the piano and trombone depicts the gentle ebb and flow of the North Atlantic sea. The final movement, The Trav’ler, is a re-imagination of the American spiritual Poor Wayfaring Stranger and was the musical inspiration for this entire work. This movement capitalizes on the trombone’s ability to emulate the human voice throughout the somber melody and brings the work to an introspective close.

DANIEL PESCA: TAKING A LINE FOR A WALK World premiere

Taking a Line for a Walk is a sonata for violin and piano written for and dedicated to my longtime friend and collaborator, Hanna Hurwitz. Named after Paul Klee’s adage about drawing, the piece follows a little melodic line—heard immediately at the beginning—as it moves through different environments: dreamy, playful, violent, lyrical. This journey is divided into eight parts that flow together without break: four longer parts, three little “trampoline” interludes and a final short coda. Each of the short parts either recalls or foreshadows one of the non-adjacent longer parts. Even the longer parts are fairly short, lending the flow of the piece a gnomic character, reminiscent of the constrained canvas size Klee favored. The first three larger parts are: • an opening “declaration,” which introduces the main ideas of the sonata in a freely rhetorical manner; • “in the mists,” in which plaintive violin melodies wander amid a drifting linear atmosphere in the piano; • “scherzo,” a nervous, ephemeral dance between the two instruments, always on the verge of falling apart. From this point on, the unfolding of the piece is more liquid and continuous, leading to an unexpected epilogue. Written in December 2019, the piece was written just before the pandemic year, with all its disquiet and anxiety. The way the piece moves from a confident, forthright beginning to an unstable ending now seems somewhat prescient.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

111

1:00–1:45 PM

a•pe•ri•od•ic CAROL GENETTI: TRACE3 BENJAMIN PATTERSON: POND EMMANUELLE WAECKERLE: O(HHH) NOMI EPSTEIN: COMMUNICATIONS (3): LANGUAGE Johanna Brock, viola, voice, auxiliary instruments Nomi Epstein, piano, voice, auxiliary instruments Kenn Kumpf, voice, auxiliary instruments Matthew Oliphant, french horn, voice, auxiliary instruments Robert Reinhart, bassoon, voice, auxiliary instruments Special guest composer/performer: Carol Genetti, voice, electronics, auxiliary instruments

CAROL GENETTI: TRACE3

Trace3 is an iteration of a larger project called Trace. Trace is a metamorphosing composition which changes each time it is performed. Trace is based on cognates, or words from different languages that have common linguistic origins. I’m interested in ideas related to cognates as a conceptual foundation for the work, including the complexities of communication and the way that forms and meanings of sounds replicate and/or change over time.

BENJAMIN PATTERSON: POND

With Pond, Patterson invokes game-playing and engages chance in the composition of music. Following a score devised by the artist, participants equipped with wind-up frog toys stand around a grid divided by intervals of time and phrasings of sound. The frogs are released and move across the grid according to a chance-based system; the performance evolves as a cacophony of sound as each participant’s frog lands and stops in various quadrants (from radicalpresency.org).

112

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

EMMANUELLE WAECKERLE: O(HHH)

The infamous erotic novel has been abridged to seven phrases, choosing those where O is subject (as opposed to passive object). These phrases are gradually stripped of words containing other vowels, until only O remains before being breathed away. The lines are read slowly, sometimes aloud, sometimes with eyes only, pausing in between each, blank spaces are silent and (breath) audible. Instrument (if any) releases O as a short or a long note played softly.

NOMI EPSTEIN: COMMUNICATIONS (3): LANGUAGE

communications (3): language was written for the Experimental Listening and Music Sessions (ELMS), as the third of the ‘communication’ series. Each piece deals with different conceptualizations of communication (or mis-communication), language, representation, and meaning.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

113

1:45–2:30 PM

THE DREAM SONGS PROJECT AND TED MOORE TED MOORE: FEATHERMUCKER Alyssa Anderson, mezzo-soprano Joseph Spoelstra, guitars Ted Moore, electronics and composition

TED MOORE: FEATHERMUCKER

114

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

FEATHERMUCKER sets Minneapolis poet Timothy Otte’s eponymous text which portrays a crumbled, postapocalyptic world as a setting for exploring rebirth, renewal, and forgiveness. Musically, FEATHERMUCKER is a combination of folk, experimental, and electronic music; cinematic sound fx; and sound art installation. The varied genres represented in FEATHERMUCKER mimic the varied tones and forms in the poetry. The musical and textual themes are constantly being recast in new contexts, inviting the listener to be constantly revising their understanding of the musical material and textual themes.

3:00–3:45 PM

FIRE THIEF DEVIN CLARA FANSLOW: AMERICAN GRILL WELL HUH DELVE WHERE THE ENDLESS STORM MEETS ITS END STARS FALLETH UPON STEEL AND STONE TRAINS AN INCORPOREAL ENTITY

Devin Clara Fanslow, mandolin, trumpet, voice Levi Clinton, guitar, voice Eric Heidbreder, bassoon, voice Akshat Jain, tuba, auxiliary percussion, voice Henry Smith, trumpet, voice

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

115

3:45-4:30 PM

CHAI COLLABORATIVE ENSEMBLE ERIC MALMQUIST: SONATA FOR CELLO AND PIANO STACY GARROP: MY DEAREST RUTH GEORGE FLYNN: SELECTED SONGS FROM CHICAGO POETS SING! SHULAMIT RAN: BIRKAT HADEREKH – BLESSING FOR THE ROAD Rebekah Dotzel, cello Talar Khosdeghian, piano Laura Perkett, soprano Caroline Rothstein, violin Daniel Williams, clarinet

ERIC MALMQUIST: SONATA FOR CELLO AND PIANO

In Eric Malquist’s words, Sonata for Cello and Piano is “an episodic journey in five short movements, exploring all that an alternate cello tuning has to offer. Features “scordatura,” with the C string tuned down a half-step.” In many of his works, Malmquist explores and juxtaposes old and new concepts, whether it’s writing new music for baroque instruments or incorporating historical styles like scordatura. CHAI Collaborative Ensemble first performed this work in January 2017, and they are happy to reprise it for Ear Taxi Festival 2021.

STACY GARROP: MY DEAREST RUTH

Stacy Garrop was commissioned to adapt and set to music the letter on which My Dearest Ruth was based by James and Jane Ginsburg, as an 80th birthday tribute to their mother, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In James Ginsburg’s words, “The letter on which My Dearest Ruth is based was my father’s last written statement. My parents celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary in my father’s room at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Wednesday,

116

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

June 23, 2010. The following day, my mother called to say Dad had taken a turn for the worse. I flew to Baltimore the next morning (Friday) and met Mom at Dad’s room. The doctors came in and told us there was nothing more they could do—the cancer had progressed too far. All this time, Dad kept repeating one word: “Home.” So we made arrangements to bring him back to our apartment in Washington, D.C. While collecting his belongings from the hospital room, Mom pulled open the drawer next to Dad’s bed and discovered a yellow legal pad on which Dad had written this a week earlier... I should note one factual error: my parents met 59 years before the date of this letter, not 56. Obviously, Dad had their 56th anniversary in mind. We chose to keep the number 56 in the song.”

GEORGE FLYNN: SELECTED SONGS FROM CHICAGO POETS SING!

George Flynn’s song cycle, Chicago Poets Sing! sets nine poems written by Sally Kitt Chappell, Nina Corwin, George Drury, Art Lange, Kathleen Lombardo, and D.H. Robinson. Some display snapshots of life in Chicago, and others are inspired by the art and other parts of life experienced by the poets. In this program, CHAI Collaborative Ensemble features the two poems written by Kathleen Lombardo. Her poems, “Modigliani’s Thought” and “Van Gogh Speaks to a Child”, are inspired by the paintings of Amedeo Modigliani and Vincent Van Gogh, artists whose works have been showcased at the Art Institute of Chicago.

SHULAMIT RAN: BIRKAT HADEREKH – BLESSING FOR THE ROAD

Shulamit Ran’s work Birkat Haderekh, is Hebrew for “a blessing for the road.” It opens with a pensive solo clarinet melody, which unfolds as the violin, cello, and piano gather around its wandering line. Midway through the piece, the clarinet assumes the solo line once again, and in a melodic twist the music takes on an imploring quality, almost like a form of prayer. For the ensemble, this work evokes the beginning of a long journey with its exact destination to be determined. While this piece is only six minutes in duration, it manages to encapsulate all the anticipation, uncertainty, and hope such a journey brings.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

117

Constellation Chicago 3111 N Western Ave Free 7:30–8:00 PM

JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL, RESISTANT NOISE (2020), FOR VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE, AND ELECTRONICS JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL: RESISTANT NOISE (WORLD PREMIERE) A.J. Keller, Conductor CHORUS Barbara Ann Martin, soprano Suzanne Hannau, soprano Joan Collaso, solo alto Chelsea Lyons, alto Carl Alexander, counter tenor, alto Paul Hunter, tenor Alfredo Jesus Jimenez, tenor Dominic German, bass Taalib-Din Ziyad, bass

118

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

INSTRUMENTALISTS Tim Munro, flute Edward Wilkerson, clarinet Mwata Bowden, bass clarinet Jeremy Ruthrauff, alto saxophone Ernie Adams, percussion Jeff Yang, violin Jason Raynovich, cello Christian Dillingham, double bass Petter Wahlback, electronics

JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL: RESISTANT NOISE (2020) World premiere

Resistant Noise, for vocal and instrumental ensemble and electronics, uses a text from Jacques Attali’s Bruits (Noise). His thesis is that noise (unwanted sound) represents people and forces in a society that are excluded from the mainstream culture, and that cultural change will be heralded by musical change. The text is as follows: With noise is born disorder and its opposite: the world With music is born power and its opposite: subversion In noise...the codes of life, les codes de la vie. Clameurs, Mélodie, Dissonance, Harmonie*

The piece has had two earlier versions—C lameurs, Mélodie, commissioned by the MAVerick Ensemble for the 2016 Ear Taxi Festival, and Clameurs des voix, an expansion of the earlier piece, performed on a 6Degrees Composers concert in 2017.

Resistant Noise is a musical representation of the conflicts and social forces in the US today. The text appears in various guises, from being a source for the transformation of words into sounds alone, to becoming a force for the dramatic involvement of the musicians themselves. The electronic soundtrack appears in two distinct places. The most sustained section develops from abstract vocal patterns that gradually combine with political chants and well-known voices, partially understood, in protest movements, mainstream media, and protests from the past. Many of the chants are from my recordings of protests I’ve attended since January 2017. The piece is dedicated to the memories of vocalist, pianist, composer and cherished member of our 6Degrees composers, Ann Ward; the brilliant baritone who could swing with the best and still soar in a Handel aria, Saalik Ziyad; and our son, filmmaker, artist and songwriter, Gabriel Mitchell, whose loud whistle honoring my performances still rings in our ears. — Janice Misurell-Mitchell *Used with permission

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

119

5:00–6:00 PM

D-COMPOSED Caitlin Edwards, violin Alexandria Hill, violin Yelley Taylor, viola Tahirah Whittington, cello

Program to be announced from stage

120

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

8:30–9:15 PM

~NOIS MATHEW ARRELLIN, METASOMATIC V ANNIKA SOCOLOFSKY: UNTITLED Julian Velasco, soprano and alto saxophones Hunter Bockes, alto saxophone Jordan Lulloff, alto and tenor saxophones János Csontos, alto and baritone saxophones Annika Socolofsky, voice

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

121

9:45–10:30 PM

WURTZ-BERGER DUO LAWRENCE AXELROD: IN WINTER MISCHA ZUPKO: LOVE OBSESSION AMY WURTZ: CHAMBERS SETH BOUSTEAD: HOT STREAK Amy Wurtz, piano Alyson Berger, cello Mindy Meyers, dancer Holly Durdel, lighting designer Deidre Corrigan, graphic design

LAWRENCE AXELROD: IN WINTER

Initially, the title of this work referred simply to the time of year it was written and my emotional state at the time. Then, I noticed that certain elements of the season had crept into the music: the fast sections have an introverted type of energy; climaxes are wiped away quickly by chilly sounds in the upper range of the piano or by extended techniques inside the instrument. In Winter is constructed of alternating fast and slow sections. First, basic contrasting motives are presented. Then, as they recur, they are expanded both in length and expression. This work was written for cellist Craig Hultgren.

MISCHA ZUPKO: LOVE OBSESSION

Love Obsession imagines the relentless pursuit of an object of desire, expressing inescapable primal passions and their slow shaping of the human heart. That drive is represented by that musical singularity, the eight-note arpeggio, which is itself an obsession. Unrelenting in its evolution, the expression is fiercely aggressive though subtly subject to a steady, rhythmic process that ultimately resolves in a smoldering, quiet passion. This transformation, jarring in its abrupt juxtaposition, is merely a recasting of that same eight-

122

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

note ideal, the musical image of love’s tendency to change and its possibility of ever deeper intimacy. Love Obsession was commissioned by and written for cellist Jeffrey Zeigler. The electronic tracks were originally recorded by cellists David Cunliffe, Nicholas Photinos, and Wendy Warner. Wendy Warner performs all of the tracks on this recording. Love Obsession is passionately dedicated to Minkyoo, the love of my life.

AMY WURTZ: CHAMBERS

Chambers was written as an exploration of the layers of personality and being that we all exist in. It is a journey through layered chambers of one’s self, with different emotions, attitudes, actions and reactions revealed along the way. The work progresses through multiple chambers, sometimes returning to the same place only to experience it from a different point of view. The version of Chambers you will hear tonight is an abridged version of the longer, complete piece, designed to fit within the schedule of Ear Taxi Festival. The complete work will be premiered at a future date.

SETH BOUSTEAD: HOT STREAK

The Urban Dictionary defines a hot streak as “winning tons of cash at a casino because you’re getting lucky as fuck and winning almost every hand you play.” This has never been my personal experience though I do see the appeal of unearned cash. I have stepped foot in a casino exactly once, in Louisville Kentucky way back in 1999, and I managed to lose what little money I had to the slot machines within minutes and then spent the next few hours hovering over my friends asking if it was time to leave yet. Aside from humiliation what stuck with me from the experience was the timelessness of the place and the image of dozens of people mesmerized by the eerie glow of the slot machines. My piece juxtaposes the popular idea of getting lucky at a casino with the surreal image of people mechanically feeding coins into a slot machine and pulling the lever for hours on end. Of course nobody wants to dwell on that so the piece returns to the lucky player just in

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

123

11:00–11:45 PM

feed: TED MOORE AND BEN ROIDL-WARD TED MOORE: it teaches us that it doesn't exist BEN ROIDL-WARD: for Dana TED MOORE AND BEN ROIDL-WARD: feed Ted Moore, cymbal, feedback, no-input mixer, laptop Ben Roidl-Ward, bassoon, feedback

time to win the big hand. I wrote Hot Streak as a showcase for the talents of Amy Wurtz and Alyson Berger with whom I have had the pleasure of working for many years and for whom I have the utmost respect. Who needs luck when you have two people like this playing your music? This program centers around feed, a structured improvisation that was collaboratively composed by Ted Moore and Ben Roidl-Ward in 2018. The piece features various modes of interaction between the two performers, incorporating live processing, DMX lights, no-input mixer, fixed media playback, and feedback generated within the resonant chamber of the bassoon. Each section of feed is designed to respond to the potentials for sonic, visual, and gestural interplay of its materials. The other two pieces on the program feature each performer in a solo role and involve techniques and ideas that are central to feed.

124

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH Ted Moore’s it teaches us that it doesn’t exist (2016) uses a microphone and a cymbal to generate and explore patterns of feedback. for Dana (2021) is a solo bassoon improvisation by Ben Roidl-Ward that responds to a performance by Dana Jessen in Oberlin, Ohio in 2013.

THE WALLS MUST COME DOWN.

They divide audiences, segregate genres, lionize some musical languages at the expense of others, and disturb the simple but profound pleasure of hearing and embracing sound. You already know where the walls stand: Between classical and jazz, highbrow and lowbrow, sophisticated and crude, elite and populist, white and Black, Asian and Latin, and more. Between rich and poor, concert hall and nightclub, composed and improvised, indoor and outdoor, young and old, acoustic and electronic, and on and on. We have lived our entire lives with these barriers, which stretch across the vast history of music in America. Over time the stratification has become worse. Marketers who once divided genres via bins in record stores (remember those?) now can splinter audiences ever more precisely by monitoring exactly how many clicks every single track receives online. In a 21st century America as bitterly and fiercely divided as ours, do we really need to create still more divisions in musical experience? Or can music bring people together as few other social forces can? I believe in the latter, and the proof was vividly apparent during several decades of covering the Chicago Jazz Festival in my past role as the Chicago

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

125

Tribune’s arts critic. With thousands convening at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park (and before that at the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park), I witnessed teenagers swaying to swing-era music they surely hadn’t encountered in school; white listeners encountering groundbreaking sounds from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which champions the motto “Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future”; Black listeners savoring the classically tinged compositions of Bix Beiderbecke; and diverse audiences reveling in the symphonic experiments of Orbert Davis and his Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. Though it’s doubtful that every listener savored each note they heard, most stayed for all of it. No one onstage proclaimed that their musical language was better than anyone else’s. Some musicians played multiple performances in ensembles of supposedly conflicting idioms, further underscoring the universality of musical expression. But such stylistically wide-ranging events remain outliers in the way music is presented, packaged and sold. More typically we’re offered mostly the European canon from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (which rarely delves into music by Black and women composers); hard-hitting jazz at tiny clubs such as the Green Mill and the Jazz Showcase; “new music” via rarefied chamber series in intimate spaces; alternative rock in gritty clubs such as the Empty Bottle and the Hideout; and so forth. Though music presenters clearly must appeal to their core audiences, they also need to push out of their silos—and help us do so. No city seems better positioned to transcend the stratification of musical performance than Chicago, in part because the city’s musical culture is rooted in inclusivity. I like to think of 1893 as a template for music-making here. That’s when the World’s Columbian Exposition presented more far-flung musical styles and instruments than perhaps ever had been gathered in one place before. Composer Antonin Dvořák and CSO founder Theodore Thomas led orchestral concerts. John Philip Sousa fronted his rousing band.

126

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

Irish uilleann bagpipers, Hawaiian folkloric instrumentalists, Guatemalan marimba players, Egyptian and Turkish orchestras, Indonesian gamelan music and more resonated throughout the World’s Fair. No less than ragtime visionary Scott Joplin is believed to have been there, taking it all in. That landmark event signaled to all the world that Chicago was where new ideas in music—many kinds of music—flourish. No wonder innovative musicians from New Orleans and elsewhere in the South began converging on the city in the Fair’s wake. Joplin lived in Chicago in 1907. Jelly Roll Morton arrived as early as 1910 and soon would become the first composer to prove that what was then simply called “New Orleans music” could be captured on paper (he copyrighted the first published jazz composition in 1915). Thomas A. Dorsey, known in his youth as blues pianist Georgia Tom, came north to Chicago in the 1910s and by the ’30s essentially had invented modern Black gospel music, nurturing it at Pilgrim Baptist Church, at 33d and Indiana. Dorsey trained the first generation of gospel stars, among them Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Roberta Martin and Sallie Martin, thereby planting gospel’s roots deep in Chicago’s consciousness. By the mid-20th century, a great wave of musicians from the Mississippi Delta and environs gravitated to Chicago, making the city a progenitor of electrified blues, thanks to the thundering contributions of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, Little Walter, David “Honeyboy” Edwards and uncounted others. And Frederick Stock, the second music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, made history in 1933 by conducting the world premiere of Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E minor, the first time a major American orchestra presented music by a Black woman composer—one who only now is being widely rediscovered. Chicago-style musical eclecticism blossomed anew in 1965, with the founding here of the AACM.

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

127

Though jazz clubs were folding as America embraced rock and roll, the AACM artists refused to go silent, instead rewriting the rules on how to create, present and record music. Musically, they embraced everything from New Orleans second-line tradition to cutting-edge collective improvisation; from African-inspired cultural rituals and soulful swing to freewheeling solos, novel instrumental techniques and self-invented instruments. They staged their own rehearsals and concerts wherever they could find available space. In effect, they blew down walls separating genres, techniques and modes of presentation. In the symphonic world, conductor Paul Freeman did likewise in 1987, when he founded the Chicago Sinfonietta as a way of opening the cloistered world of European symphonic music to people of color, who had been widely excluded from orchestral chairs, administrative jobs, repertoire choices and audience demographics—and still are. “Chicago does not yet have an ensemble comparable to what the Chicago Sinfonietta is going to be,” Freeman told me over lunch in the mid-’80s, as he laid out his plans for the ensemble he envisioned. “I’m not trying to rap any other groups, but Chicago does not have a midsize symphony with as big a season and as broad plans as we have for the Chicago Sinfonietta.” There was no doubt about what Freeman meant, coming as it did from the conductor who had made history with his monumental “Black Composers Series” boxed set of recordings in the 1970s. All of which is to say that for well over a century, Chicago has been home to iconoclastic musicians of multiple genres, many of which this city has defined for the rest of the world. So the problem isn’t a lack of wide-ranging musical artistry but a cultural hierarchy that gives some genres high prominence and financial support while others subsist on the margins—and on pennies. How do we fix—or at least improve—the situa-

128

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

tion? An ears-wide-open event such as the Ear Taxi Festival represents a significant effort, and forward-looking institutions such as Constellation and Elastic Arts have shown the vitality of celebrating multiple musical idioms. But Chicago’s most prominent cultural institutions also should step up. We need a far wider range of musical idioms at Symphony Center, the city’s most prestigious musical address (though its long-running jazz series has been a boon to Chicago listeners). Ditto the Auditorium Theatre and the Lyric Opera House. We need Chicago public radio station WBEZ-FM 91.5, which used to present jazz all through the night, to return to broadcasting made-in-Chicago music that’s virtually banished from commercial radio stations. We need WFMT-FM 98.7 to build on the precedent of programs such as Elbio Barilari’s “Fiesta Latin-American Music,” affording listeners in Chicago and around the world a broader definition of what “classical” music can mean. I know from my own experience how difficult it can be for entrenched institutions to think outside old, familiar patterns. From 1943, when the first Pulitzer Prize in music was awarded to William Schuman, to 1996, the honor went exclusively to European-inspired classical music. But in the mid1990s, the Pulitzer Prizes began subtly rewriting entry rules to attract other kinds of musical entries. When I served the first of four terms on the Pulitzer music jury, in 1997, my four fellow jurors and I seized that opportunity, unanimously recommending Wynton Marsalis’ jazz oratorio “Blood on the Fields,” which won that year—the first time a nonclassical composition took the prize. Resistance was sadly predictable. “I don’t think this is a good idea at all,” Pulitzer-winning composer Donald Martino told me in 2004, in reflecting on that historic breakthrough. “This has already happened that one piece has been

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

129

awarded that is not [fully] written out,” he added, referring to “Blood on the Fields.” “Let these people win DownBeat polls.” These people. The tide has been turning slowly but inexorably. To date, music Pulitzers have continued to push outside classical hegemony, with prizes going to Ornette Coleman (2007), Henry Threadgill (2016) and Kendrick Lamar (2018). One more way to break down walls: We need to transcend the language that keeps music, musicians and listeners divided. I’ve often complained to friends that “classical music” is an opaque and anachronistic term to describe everything from Gregorian chant to Shulamit Ran; that “jazz” is a woefully inadequate name for everything from Louis Armstrong to Ken Vandermark; that “blues” is so deeply entrenched in the meaning and subtext of American music as to be a practically useless term. Usually, when I raise these objections, I hear roughly the same response: “So what words would you use?” Simple: music.

Howard Reich is the author of six books and the Emmy-winning writer-producer of three documentary films, including the upcoming “For the Left Hand.” He holds two honorary doctorate degrees and served on the Pulitzer Prize music jury four times, including when the first jazz winner, Wynton Marsalis’ “Blood on the Fields,” won. Howard covered music for the Chicago Tribune from 1978 to 2021.

130

ESSAY BY HOWARD REICH

131

MONDAY

OCTOBER 4

132

Kehrein Center for the Arts 5628 W Washington Blvd Free 11:00–11:45 AM

ELENNA SINDLER AND HASCO DUO Elenna Sindler, voice Amanda DeBoer, voice and electronics Jesse Langen, guitar

Hasco Duo joins Elenna Sindler for a presentation of Elenna’s songs, where Elenna’s sophisticated pop sensibility and narrative vision is immersed in Hasco’s psychedelic and dreamy soundworld. Elenna’s songs are set and framed with elements of improvisation, new music, and traditional music.

133

11:45 AM–12:30 PM

CANCELLED: PETER FERRY, PERCUSSION MARC MELLITS: ZODIAC PARKLAND STICK

ZODIAC

Zodiac was composed in 2016 for a consortium of thirty percussionists. The work is divided into twelve movements, each corresponding to a single astrological sign. The result is twelve very short splashes of celestial sound, each introducing then exploring permutations of a small, short idea. The music weaves through rhythms, colors, and melodies, expanding and contracting like the universe itself. I wrote the majority of Zodiac on a beautiful Marimba One owned by Peter Ferry and was also able to workshop the piece with Peter, which proved to be an incredible experience into the world of what’s possible (and what’s not) on marimba. More importantly, however, I felt that the music emanated from the instrument, allowing me to not compose, as much as refine what the instrument wanted to sing.

PARKLAND

I composed Parkland directly on the marvelous vibraphone of my good friend, Peter Ferry: all of the music came from the instrument itself. The vibraphone is stunning to me in that it writes music almost by itself just by striking its resonant metallic bars. It provided the perfect tone for the music I wanted to create; I tried to capture the sound that the instrument was

134

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

instinctively showing me. I composed Parkland during the immediate aftermath of the February 14, 2018, school shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. As a parent, there is no subject that I feel more strongly about than gun control. A childhood friend of mine lives in the Parkland area and went through the horror of knowing that her son was in the school during the shooting, the nightmare that all parents in the United States fear. This tragic event had a lasting impact on not just the school, but the entire Parkland community, as well as the country and world. I wanted to write music that was a memorial to the victims of the Parkland community; my idea was to try to create something beautiful out of the horror of that day. It is music that is direct, largely quiet, and lives in a stretched-out moment of time that combines ethereal fear, solitude, sadness, patience, and resolve into a tribute to a community that was forced to bear a burden they should never have had to witness. Stick was composed in 2010 for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Modern Snare Drum Competition. Having never written for solo snare drum before, I borrowed an instrument and proceeded to strike it in as many different ways as I could. From that one drum, I discovered 18 different ways of producing sound that I wanted to incorporate into the piece. My approach was to combine these multiple timbres in a super-fast and blended rhythmic fashion. I discovered that I could create melodies from these different timbres and then structure the music much like I would any solo piece, using layers of sound as a base and playing with the expansion of rhythmic ideas. The interplay of changing from one technique to another is integrated into the melodic patterns, so they become one and the same. Stick is four and a half minutes of quick, virtuosic playing that pushes the performer to the limit.

STICK

Peter Ferry’s performance was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. Justin Peters performed an improvised solo vibraphone set during this time slot.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

135

1:00–1:45 PM

CROSSING BORDERS MUSIC SABRINA C D JEAN LOUIS: LA CITÉ I. II.

JEAN “RUDY” PERRAULT: BROTHER MALCOLM JEAN PAUL COFFY: FRATERNITAS! FRATERNITAS! DEI PATRIS NOMINE JEAN PAUL COFFY: NEW WORK Jean Paul Coffy, drums/vocals Marianne Parker, piano Jennifer Leckie, violin Rasa Mahmoudian, violin Seth Pae, viola Tom Clowes, cello

136

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

SABRINA C D JEAN LOUIS: LA CITÉ

La Cité was commissioned of Sabrina C D Jean Louis by Crossing Borders Music in partnership with the DuSable Heritage Association and is a musical tribute to Chicago’s first non-native resident, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. About the piece, Sabrina writes: With my music I want to represent my country the best that I can. My passion for composing music comes from my love for music. I have loved my traditional Haitian music from a very young age, and that defines my style as a composer. This piece, La Cité, wants to illustrate the legendary revolutionary blood that runs in Haitian veins. Haiti was the place where for the first time in human history the slaves took their independence from the oppressors. And the fingerprints of that revolution are everywhere even in Chicago, a city that was founded by a Haitian: Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable. I am honored to be one of the composers for this concert. I hope you enjoy the piece. Thank you.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was born in Haiti. After coming to the US, he married a Potowatomi woman, Kitiwaha, and they had two children. With his family in the 1770s, DuSable settled on the north bank of the Chicago river near its mouth, where Pioneer Court is now. DuSable was a very successful trader, eventually owning not just his house, which he filled with furniture and paintings, but two barns, a horsedrawn mill, a bakehouse, a poultry house, a dairy, and a smokehouse.

JEAN “RUDY” PERRAULT: BROTHER MALCOLM

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

About Brother Malcolm, composer Rudy Perrault writes, “The 2008 election ushered in a new era in American politics. A black man was elected President of the United States. What would MLK think? What would Malcolm X think? “Brother Malcolm...” is that fictional conversation between these two icons, on the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States. The piece, with its celestial setting, begins with the words ‘Brother Malcolm, have you heard the news?’ The conversation and harmonic language that follows identifies the two approaches and temperaments: the more peaceful (and more harmonious) MLK pointing to the progress made, and the more militant (and dissonant) Malcolm X warning that there would be retribution for this “audacity.” Buried through the piece is the African National Congress’ national anthem: Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica. The fallout that followed the two-term Obama is undeniable. How far did we really come? What would MLK and Malcolm X think now?” Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica, or God Bless Africa, has been used as a pan-African liberation hymn, and was the unofficial national anthem of those opposing apartheid in South Africa. Five different post-colonial governments selected it as their national anthem, and it’s now a part of the official national anthem of South Africa. 137

JEAN PAUL COFFY: FRATERNITAS! FRATERNITAS! DEI PATRIS NOMINE

Fraternitas! Fraternitas! Dei Patris Nomine is a musical tribute by Haitian-American composer Gifrants to Chicago’s first African-American mayor Harold Washington. The great-grandson of slaves, Harold Washington served in a segregated World War II unit before attending Roosevelt University, which accepted Black and Jewish students. Washington then became the only Black student in his class at Northwestern Law School. Elected mayor in 1983, he was known for his independence and civil rights advocacy, including anti-discrimination measures in housing, employment, and voting. He worked to increase transparency and reduce patronage hiring, supported neighborhood development, encouraged contracting of people from under-represented groups, and supported racially proportionate redistricting — all while balancing the city budget and improving its credit rating. Haitian-American composer Gifrants writes in a style he calls “Natif.” He writes, “Among the endemic elements of Natif music is the omission of the third degree of a chord; the addition of a sharp ninth to a major chord; the coexistence of both the fifth and its flat within a chord, the use of inversions and substitutions using different notes from the root, the third or the fifth on bass. Suffice to say that Natif music answers to a novel harmonic conceptualization. It is important to note that the vaksin [Haitian bamboo horn] which does not obey the traditional tuning scheme of Western music, actually provides the underpinning of the Natif concept...These conceptualizations have been essential in keeping with the intensity, tension, and most of all the mysterious and ethereal mood of our music.”

138

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

1:45–2:30 PM

UNSUPERVISED WITH CHICAGO COMPOSER’S CONSORTIUM LAURA SCHWENDINGER: CELESTIAL BODIES COMET DISTANT SPIRAL GALAXY OUMUAMUA MOONMOON PULSAR CELESTIAL SPHERES

KYONG MEE CHOI: MOMENT LAWRENCE AXELROD: OF WIND AND SKY ELIZABETH START: O, AEDICATIO; O, VITA MARTHA HORST: QUILTAGE

I. BARGELLO II. COIN QUILT III. SCRAP QUILT

Hannah Christiansen, violin Rebecca Boelzner, viola Juan José Horie Phoebus, cello Joe Bauer, bass Autumn Selover, harp

LAURA SCHWENDINGER: CELESTIAL BODIES

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

Suzanne Hannau, flute Erick Alvarez, clarinet Mark Haworth, trumpet Riley Leitch, trombone Rebecca McDaniel, percussion

This work, in six miniature movements, is a musical exploration of space. Comet with fast imitative lines, flashes across a musical opening. Distant Spiral Galaxy spins slowly with melodically turning lines. Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object detected passing through the solar system, moves musically with its strange, wobbly and mysterious movement. If a moon has a moon, it’s called a moonmoon. This musical moonmoon oscillates around the slow-moving melodious moon. Pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating compact star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles; likewise, this music moves in active intricate arpeggiated pulsating waves. 139

The Celestial Sphere is an abstract sphere that is concentric to Earth. All objects in the sky can be conceived as being projected upon the inner surface of the celestial sphere, which may be centered on Earth or the observer. In this short movement, melodic lines are punctuated by articulated projections upon the inner surface of long melodic lines, the centered “earth,” or material of this miniature musical portrait.

KYONG MEE CHOI: MOMENT

MOMENT depicts a sense of motion in any given moment. Even though at times we perceive a certain moment as a separate event, at the end, we realize everything is interconnected. The piece attempts to put each moment in a larger context and brings a sense of entirety.

LAWRENCE AXELROD: OF WIND AND SKY

This work was written as a part of the Composing in the Wilderness program in Alaska during July 2018. Participants drew lots to see which combination of instruments from the five possible they would write for. I drew the entire ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion. We spent five days in Denali National Park hiking and meeting experts in history, biology, environment, and sound. Each of these people provided a new layer of nuance and information with which to appreciate the magic and majesty of the park. During this time in the park and a few days after, we were tasked with translating our experience of the park into music in some way. What stuck with me were a couple of places with sweeping valley and mountain views—the feeling of openness, of experience unattached to any other part of my life, of the alchemy of the elements and the landscape. Through whispery sounds, simple textures and, in the end, upsurges of running notes, I tried to express these feelings, sights, and sensations.

ELIZABETH START: O, AEDICATIO; O, VITA

140

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

This two movement COVID-inspired work takes melodic source material from Hildegard’s setting of “O, edificatio summe bonitatis” in “O, Jerusalem.” In the first movement, fragments of the melody build a complex contrapuntal world, which comes to an immediate and unprepared stop, leaving us suspended. Attempts are made to invoke the former edifice of our world. Angst is built up and dispersed, returning to our suspended world. Rising lines, now perhaps exploring and appreciating the beauty of the world and becoming edified, join together in melodic meditations. Instruments approach each other, jumping to more appropriate distances. A short pause precedes a harsh sound in the strings ponticello with hammering chords and snap

pizzicato that give us the distant disturbing events of George Floyd’s struggle and murder. A motive intended to reflect the statement “I can’t breathe” begins. Attempts to recover the beauty of the earlier melodic lines are finally drowned out by the chanting. A final, slow, monolithic statement of the “edifice” melody is presented, permeated by the “I can’t breathe” motif in slashing chords, as we face the structures we have built and rail against them. The second movement looks at other aspects of our lives in 2020: remote music-making which moves from a sense of exploration, to growing resilience, and then to desperation; forming of pods; tentative expansions and contractions of activities with varying degrees of abruptness; exploring new things and getting lost in reflections, hopes, and uncertainties.

MARTHA HORST: QUILTAGE

The construction of the three movements of Quiltage are based on quilting techniques. I. Bargello II. Coin Quilt III. Scrap Quilt The bargello quilt pattern uses many tiny strips or squares of different colored fabric. These strips are sewn together and cut; the quilt maker then rotates the strips so that different colors appear first. I rotated musical material and expanded segments in a similar fashion in this movement. A coin quilt consists of rectangular pieces of fabric that are surrounded by a border or framing piece of fabric. The percussion solo in this movement forms border musical material to other material. A scrap quilt is a quilt sewn from scraps left over from other quilts. For this movement, I made blocks of five measure musical ideas and then combined them in a free form fashion in the manner of assembling a scrap quilt.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

141

3:00–3:30 PM

CSO MusicNOW JESSIE MONTGOMERY: LUNAR SONGS

I. LUNAR SONGS II. OH, LENNY III. OCEANIC

JESSIE MONTGOMERY: LUNAR SONGS

Lunar Songs was commissioned by ASCAP for the Leonard Bernstein Centennial in 2019. The text by poet and writer J. Mae Barizo pays tribute to Bernstein’s iconic persona, his love for New York City, and his desire for human progress. The music is inspired by German art song, polyrhythmic overlays, and tone painting. Lunar Songs by J. Mae Barizo (Memoriam and Yom Kippur are not part of the composition)

I. LUNAR SONGS

II. OH, LENNY

III. OCEANIC

Through the evening’s floating gold I am listening

Oh Lenny, the sea folds over me–– anti-nuclear, the trees are infrared, oh Lenny

Tell me one thing as we collide, tell me

There is a cold clock ticking in my mouth The moon doesn’t care Your light glows from the inside In the night a mad waltz, in the morning a cantata

In dreams, symphonies pour down the page, hear the subway trains slice thru the air, we are so near to Lincoln Square, the blue stripes on your socks, oh Lenny and all of this an opera almost paradox-

that your ghost will live in a tree or better yet a forest, blooming still in any era. That we will be water one day or air pressing down on earth’s plates lapping up life-blood with our pink and heaving tongues (Setting begins here)

Oceanic what was lost Ice cannot hold back the sea ical. Oh Lenny, we watch you in your sleep, the trees All empires end; we’re empire tonight, the sea which sleeps Now. New song: disturb the peace. To our children you will be both past and future: a seed.

142

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

4:15–5:45 PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY GEORGE LEWIS: NEW MUSIC DECOLONIZATION IN EIGHT DIFFICULT STEPS My brief collaboration in 2012 with the sound art collective Ultra-Red considered this question: What is the sound of freedom? I was reminded of this when I read an interesting interview in the German web publication Van-Outernational: “Wie klingt Kolonialismus?”--How does colonialism sound? But perhaps we already know what colonialism sounds like. We hear it at all too many contemporary music festivals around the world, as they participate in the continuous cycling of the stereotype of exclusive whiteness around classical music’s self-image. What we would like curators and institutions to help audiences discover is what decolonization sounds like. How could music curators start composing and improvising decolonization? What would a decolonized curatorial regime sound like? How can we counter the impoverishment and devolution of the field that has resulted from the consistent absences of the same ethnic, racial, and gendered voices from stages, media, music histories, and professional networks? –George Lewis

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

143

6:00–6:45 PM

HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PLAYERS JOHN DORHAUER: FUNCTIONS DRIPS BLUR TRAIN SPOTS HUH? THROB HAZE DRIFT

John Dorhauer, director/composer Natalie Lande, reeds Kelley Dorhauer, reeds Dan Burke, reeds Matt Beck, reeds James Baum, reeds Adam Roebuck, trumpets Jon Rarick, trumpets Bennett Heinz, trumpets

JOHN DORHAUER: FUNCTIONS

144

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

Emily Kuhn, trumpets Michael Nearass, trombones Joshua Torrey, trombones Andrew Meyer, trombones Dan DiCesare, trombones Chris Parsons, guitar Stuart Seale, piano Dan Parker, bass Jonathon Wenzel, drums

Functions is about aging. The music fuses elements of traditional big band music with erratic aleatory, nonpitched sounds, spectralism, postmodernism, and various extended techniques.

7:30–8:15 PM

THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE (CME) AND BIENEN CONTEMPORARY/EARLY VOCAL ENSEMBLE (BCE) OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MARCOS BALTER: meltDown UpShot AYANNA WOODS: SHIFT DAVID LANG: STATELESS Directed by Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter (CME), and Donald Nally (BCE)

MARCOS BALTER: meltDown UpShot

The first two movements of “meltDown UpShot” could be classified as ambient, but don’t mistake the word “ambient” for “boring.” The dreamy opening, “Credo,” spills seamlessly into “Parallel Spaces,” still floaty but with a tinge of sinister foreshadowing. “Ready,” with its frenetic Chick Corea-like jazziness, erratic meter and hazy lyrics (“I dream of sound in color / I dream of light in sounds”) is a sonic outlier in this piece and seems to represent the meltdown at its manic climax. A more organized mania comes in “True-False,” a fastpaced, string-plucking homage to Philip Glass-style repetition. The piece calms down again with “Home,” a delightfully indie take on João Gilberto’s Brazilian bossa nova. The last two movements take us back to the strange, dreamy vibes of the beginning. The sixth movement, “Cherubim,” is the clear highlight of the piece, somehow gathering all of Balter’s jazz, pop, rock and avant-garde influences together into three minutes of pure indie-rock bliss. With its driving percussion, earnest and unpolished vocals and wholly unique instrumentation, I have no doubt university radio hosts all over the country will be clamoring to get their hands on the single. –Jill Kimball

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

145

AYANNA WOODS: SHIFT

Inspired by the words of Black Civil Rights leaders, Ayanna Woods’ texts for SHIFT are deeply personal, yet universal, referencing progress and struggle in the United States: “wait for the video to be released,” “a monument we imagine and reimagine,” “a transformation we are bound right now.” Refrain opens the set in a taut musical world—placating, tense, on the verge; Shift responds with an anthem-like setting; words are flung at us, then disappear, unfinished. Finally, Bound opens as an elegy of honor to her ancestors; but the energy increases and shifts releasing the latent power of a movement; that shift is their legacy.

DAVID LANG: STATELESS

I got very happy at the thought of writing a piece that would premiere in Barcelona. Barcelona has always meant a lot to me—my mother was a child in Barcelona, which saved her life. My mother was born in Germany, in 1927. When Hitler came to power it was clear to many Jews that they would need to leave but there were few places they could go. In 1935 my mother and her parents managed to get to Barcelona and they stayed until 1939. My childhood was full of her stories—hiding from the civil war, hiding that they were Jews. As a refugee, my mother was stateless, and the loss of belonging to a place stayed with her for her entire life. But she loved Barcelona and she would remind us of the long history of Jews in the region. In fact, one of the most famous medieval Jewish scholars—Rabbi Moses ben Nachman—was from nearby Girona. Like my mother, he also became stateless, when he was exiled from Spain in 1267. The text for my piece ‘stateless’ is a paraphrase of a letter that Rabbi Moses ben Nachman wrote to his children in Girona, from his exile in Jerusalem, describing his new life, blessing them, and wishing them well.

146

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

8:30–9:15 PM

CHAD MCCULLOUGH CHAD MCCULLOUGH: OAK PARK GRACE AT THE GAVEL OR GRACE AT THE GALLOWS FOCAL POINT WATER TOWER SUNSET Chad McCullough, trumpet and flugelhorn Paul Bedal, piano Mike Pinto, guitar Matt Ulery, bass Jon Deitemyer, drums

OAK PARK

This piece was composed with some of the design elements in Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in mind. A simple ostinato pattern contrasts with a folk-like melody. As themes come and go they reappear in ways that are slightly changed from the original, yet still feel familiar. The form is through-composed and the contrasts use confinement and space in ways that hopefully bring light into the piece, give a feeling of prairies, and the celebration of the horizontal

GRACE AT THE GAVEL OR GRACE AT THE GALLOWS

This title comes from some imagery based on a lyric by Glen Hansard. In his song “Grace Beneath the Pines” he sings, Grace beneath the judge’s gavel, and I took it a step further. The tune has a simple Americana undertone, with alternating meter changes, and odd-length phrases that keep the melody from feeling truly settled until the end.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

147

FOCAL POINT

A short vacation with a vintage 120mm camera produced some wonderful memories with my family, and this piece was composed shortly after. The lighthearted nature of the melody captures the free-wheeling nature of the windy beaches with large intervals and open harmonic spaces for the musicians to explore.

WATER TOWER SUNSET

This piece uses a 30-beat rhythmic ostinato (7+7+7+9) with a harmonic movement rooted in the second mode of limited transposition from Oliver Messiean, working its way out from the center of the scale. As a composer, I enjoy starting with the complex and simplifying it to something I hope is organic and beautiful. The title of the piece comes from the Western views out of the kitchen in our Chicago apartment and the antique water tower that adorns a nearby rooftop.

148

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

149

BIOGRAPHIES 5TH WAVE COLLECTIVE

ALEJANDRO ACIERTO

5th Wave Collective is a Chicago-based

alejandro t. acierto is an artist, musi-

classical music ensemble dedicated to performing and promoting music by womxn and gender-nonconforming composers. Demonstrating their commitment to composers throughout classical music’s history, the Collective performs repertoire by composers such as Teresa Carreño, Clara Schumann, Florence Price, Augusta Read Thomas, and Aftab Darvishi. With a roster of over 110 musicians, 5th Wave curates concerts with configurations ranging from solo instruments to symphony orchestra, and performs in venues across Chicago. The Collective has performed works by 88 composers since its founding in 2018, and has gained recognition outside of Chicago with an invited performance at the Boulanger Initiative’s Women Composer’s Festival in 2019.

cian, and curator whose work is largely informed by legacies of colonialism found within human relationships to technology and material cultures. He has shown, performed, and screened work internationally and received degrees from DePaul University, Manhattan School of Music (MM), University Illinois at Chicago (MFA), and was an inaugural Artist in Residence for Critical Race Studies at Michigan State University. Previously he taught at SAIC, Vanderbilt University, and Truman College and is currently Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance at Arizona State University, New College.

a•pe•ri•od•ic Founded in 2010, a•pe•ri•od•ic is a Chicago-based ensemble specializing in notated, acoustic, experimental music. Hailed as the “city’s most stalwart advocate for post-John Cage experimental music” (Chicago Reader), the ensemble has a history of interpreting distinctive pieces using a collaborative rehearsal process and deriving meaning and intention from oblique prose scores with great sensitivity. Drawn to works of sparseness, contemplation, and quietude, a•pe•ri•od•ic‘s repertoire explores the indeterminacy of various musical elements including instrumentation, structure, pitch, and/or duration.

LAURA ADKINS Oboist and composer Laura Adkins recently gave a lecture for the International Double Reed Society Conference on teaching contemporary oboe techniques to intermediate students. In 2018, she and her duo partner, Jonathan Hannau, attended a composition residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, which resulted in a full-length, collaboratively-composed concert program. In 2016, Laura attended the Darmstadt New Music Festival, which included intensive study with Peter Veale. Laura completed both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at DePaul University in Chicago, and has done additional study with Christopher Redgate. MARIE ALATALO Dr. Marie Alatalo has appeared in concerts throughout the United States and Japan and in Chicago at venues including Mayne Stage, Pick-Staiger, Cliff Dwellers, Pianoforte, and WFMT. Her interest in contemporary music has gleaned performances of works by Bolcom, Rzewski, Hoiby, and more. Her performance of George Crumb’s Makrokosmos, Book 1 at the Music Institute of Chicago brought critical acclaim, describing Alatalo as having “a special sort of pianistic, and extra-pianistic, virtuosity.” Alatalo’s recordings can be heard on Spotify and iTunes. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music and is on the Artist Piano Faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago.

150

BIOGRAPHIES

AARON ALTER

MATHEW ARRELLIN

Aaron Alter received his Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University where he studied piano with Frances Larimer and Gui Mombaerts and composition with Lynden DeYoung and David Noon. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree from Princeton University where he studied with Milton Babbitt and James K. Randall. Aaron’s new music, which he refers to as his “New Beginning,” is an exploration of a new style and energy that defies categorization. Aaron has won several prizes for his “new” music, including a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards and Honorable Mention in Chamber Music from the American Prize competition.

Mathew Arrellin (pronounced: A-rre-yín) is a composer and cellist currently based in Chicago. He has written solo and chamber works, which have been performed by New Music New Mexico, ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, the Low Frequency Trio, the Fonema Consort, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Mivos Quartet, and himself, among others. His music has been performed in festivals such as the Valencia International Performance Academy (VIPA, 2016), June in Buffalo (2018), and the SCI National Conference (2019). Arrellin is currently a doctoral candidate in composition at Northwestern University where he has studied composition with Jay Alan Yim,Alex Mincek, and Hans Thomalla.

LUIS FERNANDO AMAYA Born in Aguascalientes, México, Amaya is a composer and percussionist. Topics such as collective memory, “flaw,” and the relationship between humans and non-human others (such as plants and animals, imaginary or not) are commonly present in his work. He studied composition at the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Musicales in México City. Currently, Amaya is pursuing a Ph.D. in composition at Northwestern University. His music has been performed in the Americas and in Europe by artists such as Arditti Quartet, Yuko Yoshikawa, CEPROMUSIC, among others. As a performer, Amaya is a member of the collective composition and free improvisation trio Fat Pigeon. His scores are published by BabelScores.

CLARICE ASSAD A powerful communicator renowned for her musical scope and versatility, Brazilian American Clarice Assad is a significant artistic voice in the classical, world music, pop, and jazz genres, renowned for her evocative colors, rich textures, and diverse stylistic range. A prolific Grammy nominated composer, with over 70 works to her credit, her work has been commissioned by internationally renowned organizations, festivals and artists, and are published in France (Editions Lemoine), Germany (Trekel), Criadores do Brasil (Brazil) and in the US by Virtual Artists Collective Publishing. Her music is represented on Cedille Records, SONY Masterworks, Nonesuch, Adventure Music, Edge, and CHANDOS.

JULIA RAE ANTONICK Julia Rae Antonick is a contemporary choreographer and dancer whose movement reflects a digestion of contemporary, modern, and classical dance forms from American, Indonesian, and European roots. Her choreography emphasizes the creation of worlds the audience can enter, disrupting ingrained patterns of attention and reawakening a viewer to a language of kinetics. Julia has been immersed in an ongoing collaboration with Jonathan Meyer and Joe St. Charles for over a decade. With Meyer, she has served as Artistic/Executive Director for Khecari since 2010. They are all in residence at Indian Boundary Cultural Center through the Arts Partners in Residence program.

BIOGRAPHIES

151

AVONDALE TRIO

REGINA HARRIS BAIOCCHI

The Avondale Trio comprises Kenichi Kiyama, Kelsee Vandervall, and Shi-An Costello. Kenichi Kiyama, violin, currently attends Roosevelt University where he is receiving his MM and Graduate Diploma under the direction of Almita Vamos. As a Chicago based freelancer, a typical day for this cellist ranges from recording sessions to orchestral performances. With education at Columbia College Chicago and the University of Michigan, Kelsee Vandervall has received training from world renowned faculty and opportunities to collaborate with many of today’s popular artists. Chicago-based composer and pianist Shi-An Costello has recorded two albums: Posthumous and Rounded Binary. Upcoming projects include an album of electronic music (water), commissioning/recording new works for the prepared piano (Prepared), and a project of structured improvisations around sonata form (Development).

Music written by composer, author, and poet Regina Harris Baiocchi has been performed by the Detroit Symphony and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, US Army Band, Lincoln Trio, American Guild of Organists; Chicago, Gaudete, and Milwaukee brass quintets. Regina wrote commissioned sonatas for most instruments, opera, concertos, ballet, choral, jazz, and gospel music. Writings by and about Regina are widely published and recorded. She founded 6Degrees Composers and Haiku Festival. Regina received awards from 3Arts, NEA, Lila Wallace, ASCAP, DCASE, IAC, and Robert Rauschenberg. She is an alumna of New York, DePaul, and Roosevelt universities. Regina studied with Hale Smith.

LAWRENCE AXELROD Described as a “composer whose fresh and distinctive music deserves to be more widely known” (Opera News), composer, pianist, and conductor Lawrence Axelrod’s musical activities have taken him around the United States, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In recent seasons, his music has been performed by ~Nois, the London Sylvan Ensemble, Clocks in Motion, and The Chicago Composers Orchestra, and his music for The Scroll of Morlok was included in the Sound of Silent Film Festival presented by Access Contemporary Music in 2018. Mr. Axelrod is a founder and current member of the Chicago Composers’ Consortium. He is also the creator of Opera Adventures. BACH + BEETHOVEN EXPERIENCE We’re not your grandma’s grandma’s granny’s Bach. We aim to shatter expectations of classical music concerts. Music should serve a story and be people-centric, so we try to build a personal connection between our audience and our artists through stories, music of all kinds (classical, folk, original music, and beyond), and an interactive experience. As a bonus, we rock the house with some pretty cool and unique instruments, too.

152

BIOGRAPHIES

JIM BAKER Jim Baker has been playing piano and synthesizer in&around Chicago and the world for a few decades now. He has appeared on about eighty commercially-released recordings, most of which could probably be included in the highly-marketable category of “improvised music, played by musicians whom most people have never heard of”. Perhaps more tangibly, he has been playing on a weekly basis with Extraordinary Popular Delusions for approximately fifteen years; they play almost every Monday evening (early) at Beat Kitchen (2100 W. Belmont in Chicago).

RENÉE BAKER

ELBIO BARILARI

Renée Baker is founding music director and conductor of the internationally acclaimed Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP), a polystylistic orchestral organization that grew from the plums of classical music as well as jazz.

Elbio Barilari was born in 1953 in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he studied at the Conservatório Universitario before continuing his education in Brazil at the Cursos Latinoamericanos de Música Contemporáne. Since settling in the United States in 1998, Barilari has lectured at the University of Chicago and the Instituto Cervantes. He is a professor of Jazz History and Latin American Music at UIC, hosts the internationally-syndicated Latin American music radio show “Fiesta,” on WFMT 98.7, and he is Co-Director of the Chicago Latino Music Festival. Elbio is also the Vice-President and Artistic Director of Delmark Records in Chicago.

A visual artist, film artist, composer and recontextualist, Ms. Baker is a true engineer of multidisciplines. Layering movement and film projections of real and imagined things, she creates exquisite film arenas of surrealistic activity within a sonic theatre. Her compositions are crafted of her many talents with carefully constructed environments that also allow indeterminacy, experimentalism, classicism, subjectivity, and objective interpretations to co-exist. Intense but rewarding for both performer and listener/viewer; all parties are cast into unknown roles upon encounter, to be radically inside a temporary environment of limitless inhabitation. Ms. Baker is a member of the world renowned collective Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Critical acclaim for her graphic score novels has come from performances in Berlin, Poland, London, Scotland, and as far reaching as Vietnam. MARCOS BALTER Praised by The Chicago Tribune as “minutely crafted” and “utterly lovely,” The New York Times as “whimsical” and “surreal,” and The Washington Post as “dark and deeply poetic,” the music of composer Marcos Balter (b.1974, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is at once emotionally visceral and intellectually complex, primarily rooted in experimental manipulations of timbre and hyper-dramatization of live performance. Having previously taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Northwestern, Lawrence University, Columbia University, and Columbia College Chicago, he is currently an Associate Professor of Music Composition at Montclair State University and a guest scholar at the University of Pennsylvania (Fall 2019).

BIOGRAPHIES

THURMAN BARKER Thurman Barker’s most notable musical experience has been with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an organization founded in the 1960s to promote innovative music and its players. A charter member of the group, Thurman first appeared in AACM productions with Joseph Jarman Pioneering ensemble. He then went on to play with many other members including Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Meyers, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell, and Henry Threadgill. In the 70s and 80s, after moving to New York, Barker worked with jazz giants Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers and Billy Bang, touring with their groups and recording numerous albums with them.

153

XAVIER BETETA

SETH BOUSTEAD

Born in Guatemala, Xavier studied piano at the National Conservatory and composition with Rodrigo Asturias. At age 18, he was awarded the first-prize at the Augusto Ardenois National Piano Competition and third-prize at the Rafael Alvarez Ovalle Composition Competition. In 2013 he won the Silver Medal at the fourth International Antonin Dvorak Composition Competition in Prague. He obtained his Ph.D. in composition at the University of California San Diego where he studied with Roger Reynolds, Philippe Manoury, and Chinary Ung. His compositions have been performed at Festival Musica in Strasbourg, Darmstadt, June in Buffalo, SICPP in Boston, and by ensembles such as Accroche Note, Ensemble Signal, UCSD Palimpsest, Mitvos Quartet. Fifth House Ensemble, the Guatemalan National Symphony, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players under Steven Schick.

Seth Boustead is a composer, broadcaster, writer, concert producer, in-demand speaker and visionary with the goal of revolutionizing how and where classical music is performed and how it is perceived by the general public. Seth is the host and creator of the award-winning podcast Relevant Tones and the founder and Executive Director of Access Contemporary Music for whom he has produced nearly two hundred events ranging from salon concerts to festivals and everything in between. More at sethboustead.com

BEYOND THIS POINT Beyond This Point (BTP) is rapidly emerging as a fresh, dynamic voice in the Chicago contemporary arts scene. The ensemble’s commitment to collaboration is key to its identity. BTP undertakes projects that directly connect music, theater, visual art, dance, installation, film, the environment, and social justice. Through these collaborations, the ensemble reaches beyond contemporary music fans to invite audiences with diverse aesthetic and social interests into accessible artistic spaces. BLUE VIOLET DUO Blue Violet Duo (Kate Carter, violin; Louise Chan, piano), formed in 2013, is dedicated to performing diverse and vibrant works by American composers, including a particular interest in works that incorporate elements of popular genres, such as jazz, rock, folk, and blues. They have had repeat engagements at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, and their critically acclaimed debut recording, American Souvenirs, released in September 2018, was featured as WFMT’s “new release of the day.”

154

BIOGRAPHIES

KAYLA BRADLEY Kayla Bradley is double majoring in flute performance and psychology, pursuing a BM at Elmhurst College studying with Dr. Jennie Brown. She has played flute and piccolo in Wheaton College’s Symphony Orchestra, the Ohio State Flute Troupe, Ohio State University’s Wind Symphony and Symphony Orchestra, and Elmhurst University’s Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra. She was selected by audition for the NFA 2019 Collegiate Flute Choir and has performed in masterclasses for Bonita Boyd, Mimi Tachouet, Aaron Goldman, Marianne Gedigian, and Alexa Still. She is excited to be an intern at Ear Taxi Festival to support diversity in chamber music programming. ELIZA BROWN The music of composer Eliza Brown, described as “delicate, haunting, [and] introspective” by Symphony Magazine, has been performed around the world by leading new music ensembles, including Ensemble Dal Niente, International Contemporary Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, and ensemble rechêrche. Eliza’s work is frequently intertextual, interdisciplinary, and marked by collaborations that distribute creative agency and authorship. She is currently Assistant Professor of Music at DePauw University. Elizabrown.net

JENNIE OH BROWN

DARLENE CASTRO

Jennie Oh Brown is a Chicago-based professional flutist who thrives in a visionary, diversified, entrepreneurial career. She serves as the Ear Taxi Festival 2021 Executive and Artistic Director, and prioritizes collaborative endeavors in her career, whether as a performer, administrator, or project developer. Her fourth commercially released album will be a solo flute tour de force featuring the music of preeminent Korean composers Isang Yun and Young Ja Lee and premieres by Korean-American composers Kay Rhie, Sungji Hong, and Chicago-based Kyoung Mee Choi. For more information, please visit: JennieBrownFlute.com

Darlene Castro Ortiz (b.1993) is a Mexican-American composer and guitarist based in Chicago. Raised in a bilingual family, her creativity lies in sonic representations of non-musical objects, often using electronics, noise, and extended techniques. Her music tries to ‘auralize’ processes or extra-musical objects in order to arrive at vivid, self-contained musical translations, often using visual art, poetry, and scientific processes as starting points. Ms. Ortiz is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, and her music has been performed and commissioned by Spektral Quartet, Runnin’ Fl’UTES’, Salty Cricket Composers Collective, PANTS (Wind Quintet), Nightingale Ensemble, and Plena Libre.

JAMES BUDINICH James Budinich’s minimalist compositions are inspired by Croatian folk traditions, American popular music, and the Danish New Simplicity movement. Writing acoustic and electronic music, James’s collaborators include Kate Dreyfuss (White Stone for violin and electronics), Pigeonwing Dance (Plexus: a work in knots for electronics with choreography by Gabrielle Lamb), and visual artist Mao Wei (Manual City, installation for music boxes and projected images). His work has been supported by the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Lois Roth Endowment, the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, and in spring 2021 James was a Fulbright Scholar to Denmark.

CELEBRATING LGBTQ MUSICIANS IN CHICAGO We are composers LJ White, Alex Temple, David “Clay” Mettens, Randall West, Andrew McManus, and performers alejandro t. acierto (clarinet, composer), Robin Meiksins (flute), Phil Pierick (saxophone), Ammie Brod (viola), and Daniel Baer (piano). We are a group of innovative composers, performers, artists, improvisers, curators, collaborators, and educators who are part of the amazing community of LGBTQ musicians making contemporary music in Chicago, and we’re presenting a program that celebrates the contributions of our community to our city.

RODRIGO BUSSAD Rodrigo Bussad (São Paulo, Brazil. b.1985) was awarded third place at the 2019 American Prize in Composition in the Professional Chamber Music Division with the work, Nimbi, and was the winner of the same competition (Student’s division) in 2014 with the work, Loin. Mr. Bussad is the winning composer of the 2017 Ukho Ensemble Workshop and the 2015 Valen-

RAVEN CHACON

cia International Performance Academy. His music has been performed across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, where he has worked with renowned orchestras and ensembles. He is currently working with conductor Luigi Gaggero on his debut with the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra.

of Sydney, and The Kennedy Center. He is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, and the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

BIOGRAPHIES

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. Chacon has exhibited or performed at Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, REDCAT, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, 18th Biennale

155

CHAI COLLABORATIVE ENSEMBLE

CHICAGO COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA

Hailed as “a truly unique and pioneering collective” (Vocal Arts Chicago), CHAI Collaborative Ensemble (CCE) is a flexible Chicago-based collective dedicated to programming mixed vocal and instrumental chamber music. Since the ensemble’s inception in 2015, CCE’s concerts have consistently brought both contemporary and historical yet underperformed works into conversation with the beloved classics of the chamber music canon. “CHAI” is a play on Chicago’s nickname, “Chi-town.” With good humor and unwavering respect for the repertoire, the ensemble continues to showcase a diverse array of compositional voices and create a space for camaraderie and courageous conversations.

Hailed as “…an energized, risk-taking orchestra that advocates for contemporary music in such a way as to make composers, performers, and listeners feel part of the same engaged community” (Chicago Tribune), the Chicago Composers Orchestra is one very few orchestras to be solely devoted to contemporary music. The orchestra’s mission is to present music by living composers and to extend the orchestral tradition to be open, vibrant, and diverse, and to speak to our lives today.

EPHRAIM CHAMPION Ephraim Champion is an active musician and composer in Chicago. He received his BM in Performance (Horn) from the University of Illinois at Chicago. At UIC, Ephraim was a recipient of the Joy and Bob Harnack Award and winner of the Conducting Apprenticeship for Orchestra. He also studied composition with Marc Mellits, where he had the opportunity to write for chamber groups such as The Back Pocket Duo and the electric guitar quartet Instruments of Happiness. Currently, Ephraim is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at Roosevelt University in addition to being a member of the 484th United States Army Reserve Band and currently maintains an active teaching, conducting, and arranging/composing role at the West Point School of Music. CHICAGO ARTS AND MUSIC PROJECT Chicago Arts and Music Project (CAMP) is a free, after-school El Sistema orchestra program in East Garfield Park, Chicago. Every CAMP student receives a free instrument, six hours of rehearsal each week, and weekly private lessons that take place at the Breakthrough FamilyPlex community center. CAMP is devoted to improving Chicago’s west side communities by eliminating barriers to instrumental music education, improving students’ musical skills, supporting the development of healthy social and emotional skills, and collaborating with other Chicago-area musical organizations to deepen students’ learning.

156

BIOGRAPHIES

CHICAGO FRINGE OPERA Chicago Fringe Opera is dedicated to presenting innovative vocal works with an emphasis on new and contemporary styles, engaging with the Chicago community through intimate and immersive performance experiences, and fostering and empowering local artists. CHICAGO WIND PROJECT The Chicago Wind Project (CWP) unites five intrepid instrumentalists active in their city’s flourishing contemporary music scene: Constance Volk (flutes), Andrew Nogal (oboe and English horn), Zachary Good (clarinets), Ben Roidl-Ward (bassoon), and Matt Oliphant (horn). Formed in 2019, CWP performs exceptional new repertoire for wind quintet, collaborates with composers in the creation of new work, and teaches contemporary performance practice at the highest level. KYONG MEE CHOI Kyong Mee Choi—composer, organist, painter, poet, and visual artist—is the recipient of several prestigious awards and grants including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award, and Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo, among others. Her music was published at Ablaze, CIMESP (São Paulo, Brazil), SCI, EMS, ERM media, SEAMUS, and Détonants Voyages (Studio Forum, France). She is the Head of Music Composition at Roosevelt University in Chicago where she teaches composition and electro-acoustic music. Samples of her works are available at www.kyongmeechoi.com.

CITY BEAUTIFUL: FEATURING MARIANNE PARKER, MEGAN IHNEN, MICHAEL HALL This trio is the creative coming together of three impassioned new music specialists—Marianne Parker (piano), Megan Ihnen (voice), and Michael Hall (viola). They each collaborate with one another in various combinations regularly, and have all come together to present a special program—including THREE world premieres— for Ear Taxi Festival 2021. JEAN PAUL COFFY Jean Paul Coffy, a.k.a. “Coffy”, was born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti and came to live in Chicago in September 2001. Coffy has been the lead teacher at La Grande Famille for ten years. Coffy received his degree from the Academy of Music in Haiti and early childhood degree in the Waldorf education system. Prior to his teaching career, Coffy traveled the world as the lead musician for the legendary folklore band Boukman Exsperyans. He speaks English, French, Haitian Creole, and the universal language of music. MAJEL CONNERY + SKY CREATURE Majel Connery is an artist, producer, and educator making work in multiple genres from electronic music to classical to art rock. An artist with a Ph.D., Connery moves fluidly between public and private spaces, mounting concerts, salons, and fully-staged operas on campuses like Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Oberlin, and professional venues like The Kitchen, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and WNYC/Radiolab. Her voice has been described as “superb” by the New York Times, and her compositions “thoroughly Schubertian” by the Wall Street Journal. She holds degrees from Princeton and the University of Chicago.

BIOGRAPHIES

SIDNEY CORBETT Sidney Corbett is a Chicago native who moved to Hamburg after doctoral studies at Yale to study with George Ligeti. His output includes nine operas, numerous orchestral compositions, vocal music, and instrumental chamber music. His works have earned him numerous national and international awards and prizes and have been performed and broadcast worldwide. Corbett has received commissions from the Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskappelle Berlin, MusikFabrik, West German Radio, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, among many others. Sidney Corbett is currently professor of composition at the University of the Performing Arts in Mannheim, Germany, where he resides with his wife and three children. CROSSING BORDERS MUSIC Founded in 2011, Crossing Borders Music has become a leading interpreter of chamber music by composers from under-represented cultures including the Chickasaw Nation, Colombia, Egypt, Haiti, India, Syria, and Uganda, and a pioneering, critically acclaimed presenter of music by graduates of the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education in Iran. The mission of Crossing Borders Music is to use music to promote the dignity of people from all cultures. CSO MUSICNOW MusicNOW is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary music series curated by current Mead-Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery. In this series, listeners enjoy performances of CSO commissions, world premieres, and other contemporary works by the members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and special guests. MusicNOW has been instrumental in making the city of Chicago a vibrant center for the performance of new music since 1998.

157

D-COMPOSED D-Composed is a Chicago-based chamber music experience that honors Black creativity and culture through the music of Black composers. Since 2017, we have created intimate, out-of-the-box experiences that celebrate a mix of genres and sounds of Black music through history. We take music out of the concert halls and share it in spaces like art galleries and cafes. We’re architects of creativity and merge various artistic mediums to properly honor the legacy and brilliance of Black composers. With our platform, we plan to change an entire field—and we’re doing it on our own terms.

ERNEST DAWKINS BLACK STAR LINE: THE CHICAGO OUTET PROJECT

Ernest Dawkins Black Star Line The Chicago Outet Project is comprised of Ernest Dawkins, Hamid Drake, Junius Paul, and Justin Dillard. The pieces conceived/composed by these four musicians reflect all phases of their erudite abilities, their singular as well as collective approaches to the music, both compositionally and improvisational, while specifically highlighting everyone’s virtuosity. The music crosses barriers displaying every conceivable aspect of the Great Black Music language with a spiritual zeal. JILLIAN DEGROOT

ANGEL BAT DAWID Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American composer, improviser, clarinetist, pianist, vocalist, educator & DJ. Her critically acclaimed album “The Oracle,” released by Chicago label International Anthem and recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, has been featured in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Guardian and many other publications. Angel composed and premiered “Requiem for Jazz” at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and “Peace: A Suite for Skylanding” commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago for Yoko Ono’s outdoor Skylanding Installation. She also tours internationally with her septet “Tha Brothahood,” releasing their album “LIVE” making NPR’s best of 2020 list. Angel leads the all-woman trio Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty with bassist Brooklynn Skye Scott and pianist Anaiet. As half of the duo group DAOUI, Angel & sound artist Oui Ennui produced, mixed, and self-released the album “Message from the DAOUI,’’ which was featured at Tusk Festival 2020. As an educator, Angel teaches her “Great Black Music” course at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center through Old Town School of Folk and is the clarinetist in Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble as well as hosts a monthly music show on NTS Radio. “Music is a language, you see, a universal language.” — Sun Ra

158

BIOGRAPHIES

Jillian DeGroot is a Chicago-based writer, editor, and musician. Her work takes the shape of audio journalism, documentary, writing, performance, improvisation, text/ graphic scores, and more. Jillian received her B.A. from DePaul University where she studied with Alyce Johnson and Stefán Höskuldsson, performing in master classes with Emmanuel Pahud, Tim Munro, Sonora Slocum, Jenny Shin, and Leela Breithaupt. As a New Artist Society Scholar, she received her M.A. in New Arts Journalism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently producing an audio documentary exploring the last remaining silence in the United States. DELMARK RECORDS PRESENTS...THE MUSIC OF JULIA A. MILLER & ELBIO BARILARI, WITH KAIA STRING QUARTET & TREVOR WATKIN Delmark Records is the oldest continuously operating Blues and jazz record label in the United States. Julia A. Miller is the President and CEO, Elbio Barilari is the Vice President and Artistic Director. Delmark was founded in 1953 by Robert G. Koester and sold to Delmark Records LLC in 2018. KAIA string quartet’s album collaboration with guitarist Fareed Haque (Delmark DE5029) was chosen by Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich as one of the top ten classical recordings of 2018. Trevor Patrick Watkin is the Director of Operations at Access Contemporary Music and is a professional flutist, composer & educator.

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ENSEMBLE 20+

JOHN DORHAUER

DePaul’s Ensemble 20+ plays living composers’ music and 20th century works. Comprising mostly of DePaul School of Music performance students, the group rehearses, performs, and studies a wide range of works. Ensemble 20+ collaborates with composers and performers of varying backgrounds: DePaul faculty and students, Chicago composers, and national and international artists. Ensemble 20+ seeks to engage with the ever-widening and changing set of 21st century compositional styles and performance practices. It fosters a sense of collaboration and mutual respect among performers, composers, and audience members; it contributes to a positive and creatively vital musical community.

John Dorhauer is a composer, educator, and performer from Chicago. Honors for John’s writing include first prizes in contests by International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, and Orion Ensemble. A six-time recipient of ASCAP Plus Awards, John’s music has been recorded/performed by Chicago Composers Orchestra, Latitude 49, Timothy Munro, the Elmhurst College Percussion Ensemble, and his own jazz band, Heisenberg Uncertainty Players (HUP). HUP released an album of John’s original music called Gradient in 2020, and recent projects include performances featuring John’s arrangements of The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, and Heart’s Dreamboat Annie albums.

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY WIND ENSEMBLE

TIMOTHY DWIGHT EDWARDS

The DePaul Wind Ensemble is composed of DePaul University’s best wind and percussion students (graduate and undergraduate). The ensemble is repertoire driven, and thus the ensemble size depends on the chosen program. It functions both as a smaller ensemble, performing Harmoniemusik, and as a larger wind ensemble. Recently, the ensemble has worked closely with Evelyn Glennie, John Corigliano, James Stephenson, and has commissioned a piece from George Lewis.

Described by the Chicago Sun Times as having “a sense of purposeful direction that kept us anxious to hear what would happen next,” the contrapuntal and often playful music of Timothy Dwight Edwards has been performed by numerous ensembles in the US and abroad. His teachers have included Ralph Shapey, Lewis Spratlan, John Eaton, Andrew Imbrie, Howard Sandroff, and Shulamit Ran. Recordings of his music can be found on the Naxos, Navona and Albany labels. Currently at Columbia College Chicago, Edwards has taught previously at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago.

LUPITA DIAZ-DONATO Lupita Diaz Donato (b.1992) is a Peruvian -Mexican American composer and violinist studying at Columbia College Chicago with Ilya Levinson and Kenn Kumpf. Inspired by themes in nature, Andean landscapes and anecdotes, her compositions explore her heritage in Peruvian music, with its African and Andean roots. She received the TUMI USA Award, advocating for Peruvian culture awareness and collaborations with the Peruvian Arts Society in Chicago. Through the Cicero Mexican Cultural Committee, Lupita taught community youth to enhance self-identity through music. Lupita has attended masterclasses with Kaija Saariaho, David Ludwig, and Amy Beth Kirsten at the highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy.

BIOGRAPHIES

ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE Ensemble Dal Niente performs new and experimental chamber music with dedication, virtuosity, and an exploratory spirit. Flexible and adaptable, Dal Niente’s roster of 23 musicians presents an uncommonly broad range of contemporary music, guiding listeners towards music that transforms existing ideas, subverts convention, and embraces 21st century audience culture. Audiences coming to Dal Niente shows can expect distinctive productions—from fully staged operas to multimedia spectacles to intimate solo performances—that are curated to pique curiosity and connect art, culture, and people. For more information, visit www.dalniente.com

159

NOMI EPSTEIN

DEVIN CLARA FANSLOW

Nomi Epstein’s music centers around her interest in sonic fragility. Her work invites both performer and listener to enter into her sound world through focused listening and concentration on the subtleties of each sound, and its placement, even if indeterminate, in sonic/temporal space. An active practitioner of experimental music, she is the founder/director of the critically acclaimed, experimental music ensemble a•pe•ri•od•ic, an independent curator of large-scale festivals, and a university lecturer. She continues to research, write, and lecture on notated, experimental music. Epstein has served on the faculties of Northwestern, Roosevelt, UIC, DePaul, and the University of Iowa.

Devin Clara is a composer, performer, and game developer based in Chicago. As a performer, her interests vary widely between genre and instrumentation, favoring unusual instrumentation such as with her tuba, bassoon, trumpet, clarinet, guitar, and mandolin group, Fire Thief. After completing a Masters degree at DePaul University in Jazz Composition, she has since made efforts to involve herself in mixed media disciplines. She has a love for storytelling, music, and interactivity in video games, and strives to extend these qualities into the realm of live performance. As a transgender woman in the arts, she hopes to help contribute to destroying notions that you must strictly conform to what is expected of you in both art and life.

ETERNAL UNITS OF BEAUTY FOR STRING QUINTET (COMPOSER RENÉE BAKER) Renée Baker is founder and director of Chicago Modern Orchestra Project and a composer of arenas of sound that allow indeterminacy, experimentalism, and objective interpretation to co-exist. Former Principal Violist of Chicago Sinfonietta, Ms. Baker champions music from classical to creative. F-PLUS F-PLUS is a violin/clarinets/percussion trio that is working to build a true repertoire for its unique instrumentation. The group has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and at universities across the country. Recent commissions have included George Tsontakis (funded by the Barlow Endowment), Jessie Montgomery (funded by Chamber Music America), and Perry Goldstein (funded by the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival).

160

BIOGRAPHIES

FAT PIGEON WITH DANIEL ROBLES LIZANO Based in Chicago, Fat Pigeon is an experimental music trio consisting of bass clarinetist Emily Beisel (Baltimore), percussionist Luis Fernando Amaya (Aguascalientes, Mexico), and guitarist Craig Davis Pinson (Mexico City). Fat Pigeon makes use of both score-based composition and visceral free improvisation, aiming to create gripping gestural music as a collective unit. The group’s debut album, FANG POET I, was released in 2020 by Gilded Records. Daniel Robles Lizano (Mexico City) is a sculptor, mixed media artist, and puppeteer. His bizarre and surreal creations draw inspiration from zoology, science fiction, Mayan mythology, and transhumanism. FEED: TED MOORE AND BEN ROIDL-WARD Ted Moore and Ben Roidl-Ward are two improvisers who began playing together in 2017. As a duo, their work explores different modes of interaction, complex sounds, feedback, and strategies of structured improvisation.

PETER FERRY

CHRIS FISHER-LOCHHEAD

Called “the ingenious percussionist Peter Ferry,” (Chicago Sun-Times) Peter Ferry is a young American percussion soloist deeply committed to contemporary repertoire. Following his concerto debut at eighteen, Ferry has championed the works of living composers, including Michael Daugherty who has praised Ferry as “one of the most promising and committed soloists of his generation.” In Chicago, Ferry has performed as a soloist with the Chicago Philharmonic in Harris Theater and with contemporary dance company Visceral Dance Chicago at Auditorium Theatre. In the months before the pandemic, Ferry’s performances spanned the globe from Santiago, Chile to arctic Canada.

Chris Fisher-Lochhead (b. 1984) is a composer, performer, and educator. As a composer, he has developed deep collaborative ties with some of the country’s most adventurous performers of new music, including Ensemble Dal Niente, the Spektral Quartet, the JACK Quartet, Quince Vocal Ensemble, and Ben Roidl-Ward. As a performer and improviser with the Grant Wallace Band, he has been featured by the Houston Grand Opera, Resonant Bodies Festival, New Amsterdam Records, and Fast Forward Austin. He currently lives in Vermont and is a member of the music faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

FIFTH HOUSE ENSEMBLE Praised by the New York Times for its “conviction, authority, and finesse,” the Chicago-based Fifth House Ensemble harnesses the collaborative spirit of chamber music to reach beyond the traditionally-perceived limits of classical music. The ensemble’s artistic, educational, and civic programs engage theater groups, video game designers, corporate innovators, and folk bands to share stories as diverse as the communities it serves. The ensemble has released two critically acclaimed albums on Cedille Records, and has produced fully interactive music and gaming experiences including Journey LIVE and Undertale LIVE.

GEORGE FLYNN Composer and pianist George Flynn has written over 150 works, and his music is performed internationally. After finishing his doctoral studies at Columbia University, Flynn taught at Columbia and performed new music in various New York City venues, before joining the DePaul University School of Music faculty in 1977. At DePaul, Flynn chaired Musicianship Studies and Composition until his retirement in 2001. He also started and directed the school’s professional new music performance series “New Music DePaul,” as well as Chicago’s “New Music at the Green Mill” series. Flynn lives in Chicago, and continues to write, perform, and be performed. FONEMA CONSORT

FIRE THIEF Fire Thief is a six core member ensemble of flexible instrumentation led by composer and instrumentalist, Devin Clara Fanslow. Dedicated to pop-contemporary classical crossover music, Fire Thief’s aesthetics draw from jazz, folk, progressive rock, and video game inspired chamber sounds. Especially concerning video game music, the ensemble is primed towards lending its sound to an ongoing game prototype, of which, an increasingly robust arsenal of small chamber pieces are added to its repertoire on a continuous basis.

BIOGRAPHIES

Consort: a group of instrumentalists and singers performing together. Fonema: (Spanish, phoneme) the smallest unit of speech, which distinguishes words according to their sonic quality. These concepts define the essence of Fonema Consort, as they commission, perform, and record new music that explores the possibilities of the human voice in an avant garde chamber setting. Known for their “enthusiastic embrace of daring new music” (Chicago Reader), Fonema Consort is driven by the fascination with pieces that foster rich interplay of voices and instruments.

161

FOURTH COAST ENSEMBLE

STACY GARROP

Fourth Coast Ensemble is a classical vocal quartet specializing in the unique style and repertoire of vocal chamber music. Celebrated for its “horizon-expanding programming,” (Chicago Classical Review), Fourth Coast Ensemble embraces a repertoire that spans the history of the genre, from Schubert and Brahms to composers of the present day. The ensemble has earned a reputation of excellence “built on the quality of its small roster of artists” (Vocal Arts Chicago) – soprano Sarah van der Ploeg, mezzo-soprano Bridget Skaggs, tenor Ace Gangoso, and bass-baritone David Govertsen.

Stacy Garrop is a freelance composer living in the Chicago area, and her prolific catalog covers a wide range. From 2018 to 2020, she served as the first Emerging Opera Composer of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Program, during which she composed The Transformation of Jane Doe and What Magic Reveals with librettist Jerre Dye. She previously held a three-year composer-in-residence position with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, funded by New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. Garrop is a Cedille Records artist with pieces currently on ten CDs; her works are also commercially available on ten additional labels.

FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC PROJECT, STEPHEN BURNS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Created in 1998 by conductor, composer and trumpet virtuoso Stephen Burns, the mission of Fulcrum Point New Music Project pushes the boundaries of the musical experience globally by supporting new compositions, creating and performing transformative new music experiences, and educating audiences of all ages and backgrounds to imagine the possibilities of music. Its programs are inspired and influenced by popular culture, including literature, film, dance, folk, rock, jazz, blues, Latin, and world music. Through multi-disciplinary concert performances and educational programs, Fulcrum Point seeks to encourage audiences to make cross-cultural connections between new music, art, technology, politics, spirituality, and literature, gaining greater insight into today’s diverse world. AMY GADD Amy Gadd is an Ohio native and is a 2015 graduate of Otterbein University where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree concentrating in Music Composition and Theory. She achieved her Masters degree in Vocal Performance at Chicago College of Performing Arts in May, 2021. Amy is a lyric coloratura soprano and enjoys singing anywhere from a grand opera, chamber music, to coffee shops. She loves to sing, compose, and listen to contemporary new music. She knew about Ear Taxi Festival while she lived in Ohio and is extremely excited to be in Chicago to be part of the 2021 festival!

162

BIOGRAPHIES

GAUDETE BRASS The Gaudete Brass is made up of five musicians who believe strongly in the communicative power of chamber music. Since 2004, Gaudete has engaged in creatively expanding the brass repertoire through enthusiastic commissioning and unique programming that has resonated with chamber music audiences all over the country. Gaudete has recorded four albums including two for Cedille Records, performed live on WFMT and WQXR, and presented educational programs at Juilliard and Eastman. Gaudete (gow-daytay) is a form of the Latin word for “joy.” We support the idea that chamber music can powerfully communicate both the poignant and the exuberant.

BEN LAMAR GAY

AMOS GILLESPIE

Ben LaMar Gay is a composer and cornetist who moves sound, color, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-acoustic collages. His unification of various styles is always in service of the narrative and never solely a display of technique. A Chicago native, Ben’s true technique is giving life to an idea while exploring and expanding on the term “Americana.”

Amos’ music has been heard on WFMT in Chicago, WQXR in New York City, and PBS. His music spans a wide range of genres including chamber and orchestra concert music, jazz, as well as music for film, theater and dance. His music has been commissioned and performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Third Millennium Ensemble, Attacca Woodwind Quintet, Barkada Saxophone Quartet, Kaia String Quartet, Access Contemporary Music (ACM) and the Chicago Composers Orchestra, among many others.

By being active in Chicago’s experimental music scene and having spent a threeyear residency in Brazil, Ben has collaborated with several influential figures in the world of music, including Joshua Abrams, the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Bixiga 70, Black Monks of Mississippi, Celso Fonseca, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Theo Parrish, Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Itibere Zwarg. CAROL GENETTI Carol Genetti is a Chicago-based vocalist whose work encompasses sound and visual art media. Her palette is primordial, existing in a space where “language” and “music” have yet to be formulated into familiar cultural patterns. Combining voice with devices, she “refracts and abrades her wordless vocals with electronics” (Bill Meyer, The Wire). She has collaborated with musicians such as Jack Wright, Eric Leonardson, Peter Maunu, Olivia Block, and many others. Most recent recordings include a duet with Claire Rousay “Live at Elastic Arts” (Astral Spirits) and a collaborative release with visual artist Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson “Chyme” (Suppedaneum).

LISA GOETHE-MCGINN According to the Chicago Sun Times, flutist Lisa Goethe-McGinn “presents a vast spectrum of color moving from raw to golden song.” Her career takes her from soloist to collaborative artist, improviser, teacher, clinician, to composer. She has performed with groups Cherchez la Femme, MAVerick Ensemble, and Ensemble Noamnesia. She regularly works with composers and has given numerous U.S. and world premieres. She is on the faculty of Columbia College Chicago, Old Town School South Loop, Chicago Center for Music Education, and has a home studio in the Chicago suburbs, where she lives with her family and two pugs. www.lisagoethemcginn.com

GIFRANTS With over thirty years of composing and performing experience, Gifrants has reached a new plateau in his unique and sultry genre of fused jazz and traditional pan-Caribbean music. This seasoned artist has entertained the East Coast with evocative rhythms and stories brought to life in live settings with an unrivaled passion. Performing in prestigious venues like New York’s, SOB’s, Neil’s, as well as South Beach’s Jazid and beyond, this dynamic entertainer has sold over 40,000 CD’s, all without major label backing. As a composer, Gifrants has developed a style heavily influenced by Haitian peasants’ music which he calls “Natif.” BIOGRAPHIES

163

ZACHARY GOOD

MICHAEL GORDON

Zachary Good is a Chicago-based instrumentalist (clarinets and Baroque recorders), improviser, performer, and creator. He approaches his instruments in familiar and unexpected ways while working in a variety of settings—experimental, classical, historical, and other. Zachary is clarinetist in the sextet Eighth Blackbird, a founding Co-Artistic Director of the performance collective Mocrep, and onethird of the clarinet/percussion/cello trio ZRL. He frequently performs with International Contemporary Ensemble, Music of the Baroque Chicago, Manual Cinema, and Ensemble Dal Niente. He is an active freelance and touring musician, middle school band director, and improviser.

Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power embodying, in the words of The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.” Over the past 30 years, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. Transcending categorization, this music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness. Gordon is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can.

Born in Pittsburgh, Zachary studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and DePaul University. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music where he is researching the peculiarities of dyad multiphonics on the soprano clarinet. Alongside the musicians of Eighth Blackbird, he was Visiting Instructor at the University of Richmond during the 2019–20 academic year. ZACHARY GOOD & TONIA KO Zachary Good (clarinets/recorders) and Tonia Ko (bubble wrap) are a creative duo interested in exploring improvisation, composition, and their shared fear of heights. Zachary is a performer of sounds that resonate walls. Tonia is a composer of notes that rub against each other. Zachary is based in Chicago; Tonia is based in London. They are pen pals creating new work through shared discoveries from their own lives and practices.

164

BIOGRAPHIES

PIERCE GRADONE Pierce Gradone’s (b. 1986) music echoes the strange brew of musical cultures that made up his childhood, from playing bluegrass in the hills of Appalachia, to sprinting the marathon of blinding-fast pentecostal shout music. His recent work explores the notion of music as an embodied art, grappling with narratives of labor, personhood, and mechanical reproduction. Described as “gorgeous, expansive” (I Care If You Listen) and “engaging” (Chicago Tribune), Pierce’s music integrates the shimmering timbres of untempered harmony with an incisive, funk-infused rhythmic vocabulary. He currently resides in Illinois, where he is an Assistant Professor of Music at Knox College. MICHAEL HALL, MICHAEL DELFIN, AND MEGAN IHNEN TRIO A trio with over 100 works written for its members by composers from eleven countries, they bring together experiences of performing throughout Asia, Europe, and the US at venues such as the Kennedy Center, Gedung Merdeka, Guggenheim, Disney Hall, and Chicago’s Symphony Center. Each member is committed to expanding collaborative engagements between communities and its artistic and educational institutions. This includes founding an orchestra in Indonesia, El Sistema programs in refugee centers and orphanages, and curated anthologies. Members have been featured soloists at Chautauqua, Aspen, New Music Gathering, and Eastern music festivals, and recorded for fourteen labels.

SUSANNA HANCOCK

TED HEARNE

Susanna Hancock is an Asian-American composer and bassoonist whose music explores color, process, and acoustic phenomena. Her compositions have been performed by the JACK Quartet, ZAFA Collective, Metropolis Ensemble, Desdemona Ensemble, ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, and members of the St. Louis Symphony, among others. Susanna’s work has been featured in concerts and festivals across the world including the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, Vox Novus/ Composers Voice Concert Series, and the Dimitria Festival in Thessaloniki, Greece. Susanna is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Composer, performer, and bandleader Ted Hearne (b. 1982, Chicago) draws on a wide breadth of influences ranging across music’s full terrain, to create intense, personal, and multi-dimensional works. The New York Times has praised Hearne for his “tough edge and wildness of spirit” and “topical, politically sharp-edged works.” Hearne’s Sound From the Bench was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. Recent and upcoming commissions include those for the San Francisco Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic, chamber works for Eighth Blackbird and Ensemble dal Niente, and vocal works for The Crossing and Roomful of Teeth. HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PLAYERS

JONATHAN HANNAU Quirky and vibrant, Jonathan Hannau is a Chicago-based composer and pianist submerged in the surreal, abstract, minimal, and colorful possibilities of music. He actively embraces eclecticism and explores the concepts of narrative, drama, and stark expression while pushing them down the rabbit hole of timbre. He is currently working on the release of his first solo piano album Pieces I Wrote on a Cold Winter Night inspired by his meditation series: Music, Stillness, Solidarity, where musicians improvise in a quiet meditative spirit for people to center themselves to.

Heisenberg Uncertainty Players (HUP) is a 17-piece new music ensemble with jazz big band instrumentation that is quickly becoming known as one of the most ambitious and creative ensembles in Chicago. Formed in 2011 playing exclusively original compositions and arrangements from founder and director John Dorhauer, HUP has performed original arrangements of entire albums by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Heart and premiered a nine-movement multimedia suite inspired by destroyed baseball stadiums. HUP’s 2020 release, “Gradient,” is available on all major streaming platforms.

ERIN HARKEY

FLORIAN HOLLERWEGER

Erin Harkey is the First Deputy Commissioner of the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), responsible for overseeing Programming, External Events, Facilities, Finance, Marketing, Partnerships, Special Projects, and Human Resources. She also maintains a dual role as Senior Policy Advisor for Arts in Culture, Office of the Mayor, wherein she advises on cultural policy and arts strategy across all city

As an artist and scholar of sound, Florian Hollerweger (b. 1980, Austria) develops artistic strategies for aestheticizing everyday aural experience in the context of electroacoustic music compositions, sound installations, public listening interventions, and computer music performances. He has presented his work across Europe, Great Britain, the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. Before his current appointment as Assis-

departments and agencies.

tant Professor in the Department of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College Chicago, Florian was a Lecturer in Music Technology at MIT (2013-17) and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2011-12) and worked for the automatic audio postproduction web service Auphonic (2012-13).

Erin holds two master’s degrees in Public Art Administration and Urban Planning from the University of Southern California (USC) and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Howard University.

BIOGRAPHIES

165

AARON HOLLOWAY-NAHUM

DEIDRE HUCKABAY

Aaron Holloway-Nahum is an American-born, London-based composer, conductor and recording engineer. His music has been commissioned and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra (Hungary), HOCKET, Third Coast Percussion, and the London Sinfonietta. He has held fellowships with the Peter Eötvös Foundation and the Aspen and Tanglewood Music Festivals. Aaron is Artistic Director of The Riot Ensemble, via which he has programmed and conducted more than 180 world and UK premieres since 2012. He is a recording producer for Coviello Music Productions and has produced and recorded the Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Signal and Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Deidre Huckabay is a performer, artist, writer, photographer, and fundraiser living in Chicago. She is one of eleven Co-Artistic Directors at Mocrep and a co-owner of the experimental cassette tape label Parlour Tapes+. She curates the We Series at Elastic Arts with Lia Kohl and believes that liberation is possible in every lifetime.

MARTHA HORST Martha Horst is a composer who has devoted herself to the performance, creation, and instruction of classical music. Her work has also been performed by the Fromm Players, Grossman Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, Earplay, Alea III, Empyrean Ensemble, ~Nois, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Susan Narucki, Dal Niente, and others. She is a winner of the Copland Award, the Symphony Number One Commissioning Prize, and the Rebecca Clarke International Composition Competition, and she has held fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Wellesley Composers Conference, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and Dartington International School in the UK. Dr. Horst is Professor of composition and theory at Illinois State University and composer-in-residence at the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.

166

BIOGRAPHIES

Deidre is a 2017 3Arts Make a Wave Grantee and a High Concept Labs Sponsored Artist. In 2017, she received a full year studio and rehearsal residency from the Eighth Blackbird Chicago Artists Workshop. She has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Paul R. Judy Foundation, and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. Through the consulting business Sardine Consulting, Deidre offers grant writing and fundraising services to artists and arts organizations, especially those practicing experimental, interdisciplinary, and difficult-to-define approaches. Her current and previous clients include the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Dal Niente, The Neo-Futurists, Mocrep, and several individual artists working and living in Chicago and nationwide. AMY IWANO Amy Iwano is Executive Director of the University of Chicago Presents, the professional concert series presenting classical, early, contemporary, world, and jazz music, after a long tenure as Executive Director of The Chicago Chamber Musicians. She is Vice Chair on the New Music USA Board of Directors, a board member of the Amphion Foundation and Big Shoulders Ensemble, and an Advisory Board member for the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago. She has served as President of New Music Chicago and on the curatorial board of Ear Taxi Festival 2016.

NATHALIE JOACHIM

KAIA STRING QUARTET

Nathalie Joachim is a Brooklyn born Haitian-American flutist, composer, and vocalist known for creating “a unique blend of classical music, hip-hop, electronic programming and soulful vocals reminiscent of neo-R&B stars like Erykah Badu” (The Wall Street Journal). She is co-founder of the critically acclaimed urban art pop duo Flutronix and a former member of Eighth Blackbird. Joachim’s 2018 centerpiece Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti) is an exploration of her personal Haitian heritage and was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2019, winning a GRAMMY nomination that year.

The KAIA String Quartet is an ensemble that travels the world promoting the rich and colorful music of Latin America. Celebrated for their ability to “beautifully blur the lines between jazz, classical, Latin, and world music,” KAIA’s album collaboration with Fareed Haque was chosen by the Chicago Tribune as one of the top ten classical music recordings of 2018. Their latest album, Sureño, explores the music and relationship of composers Astor Piazzolla and José Bragato. They were the Ensemble-in-Residence at WFMT and are regular performers at Chicago’s Latino Music Festival.

HEIDI JOOSTEN

MARIA KAOUTZANI

Heidi Joosten earned a Bachelors of Music degree in Composition from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a Masters degree from Roosevelt University. Heidi’s music is heavily influenced by romantic opera, contemporary musical theatre, and film and television scores. With over 45 original compositions to her name, she enjoys writing for a multitude of genres, such as vocal, choral, opera, chamber, solo piano, and wind ensemble. She has received commissions from many performers as well as the Rice Lake Municipal Band, Living Water Lutheran Church choir, the UWEC Wind Symphony, and Platteville School District Lakeland All-Conference Honors Choir.

Maria Kaoutzani is a composer from Limassol, Cyprus, currently working towards her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. She will spend the 2021-22 season working with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on a concerto with the GRAMMY-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird as part of the composer collective Kinds of Kings, as well as at art residencies at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild and Art Farm. Maria holds degrees from the University of York and New York University. Current and past teachers include Augusta Read Thomas, Anthony Cheung, Sam Pluta, Justin Dello Joio, among others. Other influences include Kaija Saariaho, György Ligeti, and Tania León.

OLIVIA JUNELL

HANNAH KIM

Olivia Junell is Director of Development & Outreach at Experimental Sound Studio. She has over 15 years of experience working in development and programming at small to mid-sized arts nonprofits, where she has gained extensive, diverse experience in fundraising, project management, project development, budgeting, production, strategic planning, and marketing.

An advocate for the arts, Hannah Kim is a performer, teacher, and arts leader based in Houston, Texas. Hannah is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Violin Performance, studying with Renée Jolles at the Eastman School of Music, along with an art history minor at University of Rochester. In addition, she is a candidate for the Arts Leadership Program Certificate and a Catherine Filene Shouse

Olivia serves on the board of Honey Pot Performance. She is also the Program Director for Back Alley Jazz, a project of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and South Shore Works.

BIOGRAPHIES

Fellow within Eastman’s Institute for Music Leadership. This summer, Hannah will be working as an intern for the Ear Taxi Festival and Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Through these opportunities, she is excited to explore the arts administration side of music-making and learn how to facilitate conversations and foster appreciation for diverse styles of music.

167

JONATHON KIRK

BETH KOEHLER

Jonathon Kirk is a composer and sound artist based in Chicago. He has recently presented his multimedia works at the Tate Modern in London, the London and Melbourne International Animation Festivals, Festival Internazionale di Musica Elettroacustica del Conservatorio S. Cecilia in Rome, the Los Angeles Short film festival, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnoligie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, the Santa Fe Currents International New Media Festival, and the Itaú Cultural in São Paulo. He has recently held residencies at the Logos Foundation in Gent, Belgium, and the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Beth Koehler is a non-Equity Stage Manager based in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Northwestern University in 2020 with BAs in Theatre and Psychology and a minor in History. She has worked on a wide variety of productions, including plays, musicals, dance shows, circus-based performance, neo-futurist work, and live events. Her previous theatrical experience includes Dream at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Young Performer Supervisor), Where We Stand (PA) and A Christmas Carol (PA) at Portland Stage Company, Bernhardt/Hamlet at the Goodman Theatre (SM Intern), and Mary Stuart (SM) and Fun Home (SM) at Northwestern University. Her previous live event experience includes Northwestern’s CommFest Gala (ASM) and Northwestern’s Commencement Ceremonies in 2018 (ASM), 2019 (ASM), and 2020 (SM).

TONIA KO No matter how traditional or experimental the medium, Tonia Ko’s music reveals a core that is whimsical, questioning, and lyrical. She has collaborated with soloists and ensembles across a variety of media—from acoustic concert pieces to improvisations and sound installations. Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Tonia’s music has been lauded by The New York Times for its “captivating” details and “vivid orchestral palette.” Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Tonia served as 2018-19 Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition. She was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2020.

168

BIOGRAPHIES

EMILY KOH Emily Koh (b. 1986) is a Singaporean composer+ based in Atlanta, Georgia, whose music reimagines everyday experiences by sonically expounding tiny oft-forgotten details and is characterized by inventive explorations of the intricacies of sound. Her work also explores binary states such as extremes x boundaries, distinguished x ignored, and activity x stagnation, through her unique Teochew and Peranakan Singaporean lens. An amateur multi-disciplinary artist herself, she enjoys collaborating with creatives of other specializations, especially when sound plays a central role in the project.

LIA KOHL

RONNIE KULLER

Lia Kohl is a cellist, composer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago. She creates and performs music and multimedia performance that incorporates sound, video, movement, theatre, and sculptural objects. She has presented work and performed at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Walker Art Center, Chicago Symphony Center, and Eckhart Park Pool, and held residencies at Mana Contemporary Chicago, High Concept Labs, dfbrl8r Performance Art Gallery, Mills College, and Stanford University.

Ronnie Kuller has composed for an eclectic array of Chicago arts organizations including the BBE, the Chicago Film Archives, Theater Oobleck, Mucca Pazza, the Actor’s Gym, the Neo-Futurists, and Opera-Matic. She has collaborated with and orchestrated for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and accompanies the illustrious Mister Tom Musick on a rickety piano at Weegee’s Lounge. Her composition “Tube Sock Tango” was recorded onto a wax cylinder at Edison National Historical Park, and featured on the series Transparent. Ronnie is a 2013 3Arts Awardee and a 2015 3Arts Ragdale Fellow. She lives in Chicago with her husband Patrick and daughter Sylvie.

She is a curator and ensemble member with poly-disciplinary performance ensemble Mocrep. As an improviser and collaborator, she has participated in cultural exchanges in Mexico, France, Germany, Denmark, China, and the UK. She has toured on four continents. Frequent collaborators include ZRL (Ryan Packard and Zachary Good), Katinka Kleijn, Macie Stewart, Jasmine Mendoza, and Corey Smith. She plays with Makaya McCraven, Whitney, OHMME, and Circuit des Yeux. She tours regularly with puppet theatre company Manual Cinema and helps create 60 Songs in 60 Minutes, a monthly show with the Neo-Futurists. KOSMOLOGIA KOSMOLOGIA is an ongoing artistic and research project led from Chicago by conductor, composer, scholar, and creative producer Carmen-Helena Téllez. Kosmologia is dedicated to the ideation and production of interdisciplinary works involving music in dialogue with scholarship and other arts, while employing the human voice and technology as favored expressive vehicles. Kosmologia works independently and in collaboration with other artists and institutions to produce immersive and interactive artistic works that break traditional boundaries between the arts and the audience, frequently addressing both topics in history and current cultural concerns.

BIOGRAPHIES

LAKESHORE RUSH Lakeshore Rush is a Chicago-based ensemble that comprises six extraordinary musicians from across the Midwest. Their mission is to provide high-quality performances of new and traditional classical music, championing underperformed works, commissioning new repertoire, and increasing access for new audiences to classical and contemporary music. Lakeshore Rush is named after a previously endangered species of grass indigenous to the shores of Lake Michigan. Since its founding in 2014, the group has become known for its riveting performances, programming innovation, and synergistic collaboration. DAVID LANG Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in music, David Lang is one of our most highly esteemed composers; his works are performed around the world in most of the great concert halls. His music has been nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and numerous Grammy Awards. Recent works have been presented by the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The BBC Symphony, Shara Nova, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and The Crossing. Lang is a Professor of Music Composition at the Yale School of Music and Artist in Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

169

KOEUN GRACE LEE

ERIC LEONARDSON

South Korean native Koeun Grace Lee is active in performing contemporary solo piano repertoire. Her performance of Folksong Revisited, a work of Korean composer Jean Ahn, was featured in Music in Chicago of WFMT. She has presented numerous performances and lectures in the U.S. and South Korea. She has performed in many venues including SPG Live! Performance series of Steinway Gallery in North Carolina, as well as Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. She is on piano faculty at Mattix Music Studio and holds a D.M.A in Piano Performance from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

Eric Leonardson, a Chicago-based audio artist, serves as President of the World Listening Project, President of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, and President of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. He is Associate Professor Adjunct in the Department of Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a performer, composer, and sound designer, Leonardson created sound with the Chicago based physical theater company Plasticene (1995-2012). Leonardson performs internationally with the Springboard, a self-built instrument made in 1994 and often presents on acoustic ecology to new audiences beyond art world contexts; engaging and connecting communities in the interrelated aspects of sound, listening, and environment.

WILLIAM RILEY LEITCH William Riley Leitch is a performer and composer currently living in Chicago. Riley has performed at the Nief Norf Festival, soundSCAPE Festival, Lucerne Festival Academy, and Omaha Under the Radar. He has studied with members of Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ensemble Modern. Riley has premiered over 30 new works for solo trombone, chamber ensemble, and orchestra at events such as Ear Taxi Festival and Red Note New Music Festival. He is currently commissioning new works for trombone that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. He listens and asks questions. TANIA LEÓN Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. She has conducted and been commissioned by many of the world’s top orchestras and chamber ensembles. A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals, was New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and is the founder/Artistic Director of the nonprofit and festival Composers Now. León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, and SUNY Purchase, and served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. Most recently, León won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

170

BIOGRAPHIES

GUSTAVO LEONE Originally from Argentina, Gustavo Leone studied composition at the Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires and the University of Chicago. He has served on the faculty at Columbia College Chicago and Loyola University Chicago, from which he retired in 2020. Leone is the recipient of a Walter Hinrichsen Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His scores are included in the catalogs of C.F. Peters and Theodore Front. His recorded music is in the catalogs of Toccata Classics, Naxos Recording, and Aparte Music. Ensembles such as Cuarteto Q-Arte, Grant Park Festival Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of Michoacán, the Chicago Sinfonietta, and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, amongst others, have played and commissioned Leone’s works.

ILYA LEVINSON

GEORGE LEWIS

Ilya Levinson (University of Chicago PhD ‘97) studied with Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran, John Eaton, and Howard Sandroff. Levinson’s works have been performed in the US, Europe, and Middle East. He is music director of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, ensemble-in-residence at The University of Chicago. Their last CD, As Dreams Fall Apart: The Golden Age of Jewish Film and Stage Music (1925-1955), recorded on the Cedille label was GRAMMY nominated in 2016. He is a composer-in-residence with American Music Festivals and an Associate Professor and Coordinator of Composition Studies at the Music Department of Columbia College Chicago.

George Lewis, Professor of American Music at Columbia University, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Doris Duke Artist. Lewis’s compositions are performed by ensembles worldwide, and he holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, New College of Florida, and Harvard University. He is the author of A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press) and co-editor of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies.

MICHAEL LEWANSKI

CLARE LONGENDYKE

Michael Lewanski, Curatorial Director of Ear Taxi Festival, is a conductor, educator, and writer. A champion of new and old musics, he seeks to facilitate engaged connections between audiences, musicians, composers, and the music that is part of their culture, society, and history; his work fosters a critical perspective towards the classical music industry’s historical injustices with hopes for collective, systemic change. Based in Chicago, he is conductor of Ensemble Dal Niente and Associate Professor at DePaul University’s School of Music. Recent recordings with Dal Niente include music of Murat Çolak, Andile Khumalo, George Lewis, Hilda Paredes, Jeff Parker, and LJ White. Recent guest conducting has included the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, the State Symphony Orchestra of Turkmenistan, and Mexico City’s Ensamble CEPROMUSIC. A native of Savannah, Georgia, he began conducting at age 13. At 16, he studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (Russia) with Ilya Musin. He attended Yale University; he subsequently studied with Cliff Colnot and Lucas Vis. www.michaellewanski.com

Clare Longendyke is an award-winning pianist whose dazzling musicianship and colorful interpretations delight audiences wherever she performs. Recognized for the expressive energy she brings to new and traditional repertoire, she is a sought-after soloist, performing over 50 concerts a year around the globe. Recent performances include the UChicago Presents Series and as soloist with the Arlington Philharmonic of Boston and Bloomington Symphony Orchestra of Minnesota. Hailed as “a sparkling pianist” by the Hyde Park Herald, Longendyke is on track for a transcendent musical career. She is Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago and Artistic Director of the Music in Bloom Festival in Indianapolis.

BIOGRAPHIES

171

RICARDO LORENZ

ERIC MALMQUIST

GRAMMY nominated composer Ricardo Lorenz has received commissions and performances from Carnegie Hall, Ravinia Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, France’s Berlioz Festival, Spain’s Festival Internacional de Música Contemporanea de Alicante, and the Festival Cervantino in Mexico. His music has been programmed internationally by the CSO, Minnesota, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta, and New World Symphony Orchestras, among many others. 19992003 Composer-in-Residence of the CSO’s Armonia Musicians Residency Program, Prof. Lorenz holds a Ph.D. degree from University of Chicago and teaches at Michigan State University. Published by Keiser Southern Music and Boosey & Hawkes his music can be heard on ECM, Naxos, and Cedille Records.

Eric Malmquist’s love of early music and modern influences have led to commissions from the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, tubist Scott Tegge, historical keyboardist Charles Metz, historical flutist Leighann Daihl Ragusa, the International Chamber Artists, the Newberry Consort and the Wicker Park Choral Singers. His tuba sonata has been performed by Gene Pokorny of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Scott Tegge of Gaudete Brass, and his work Prairie Music for CYSO was featured on Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival in October 2016. His music has been performed across the US and is often featured on 98.7WFMT.

SABRINA C D JEAN LOUIS Haitian Composer Sabrina C D Jean Louis writes music to capture emotions and provide outsiders an accessible entry to Haitian culture. As a student of the Dessaix Baptiste School Of Jacmel, Haiti, she composed the cello quartet Clair de lune (“Moonlight“) at age 14, before she knew the word “composer”! Jean Louis wrote Plainte d’un Rescapé, (“Survivor’s Lament”), capturing her feelings in the immediate aftermath of the devastating Haitian earthquake of January 12, 2010, which she describes as the most terrifying moments of her life. After majoring in agronomy in college, she now works raising her young family in Haiti.

MAVerick ENSEMBLE MAVerick showcases works that are typically underrepresented on the concert stage within a multimedia context including Music, Art, and Video (inspiring the MAV- in MAVerick). A fluid ensemble of classically trained musicians, the MAVerick ensemble functions under many guises. The core group was modeled after the instrumental quintet of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano) with an added guitar. However, varying ensembles emerged from this group in each concert, whether as soloists, duos, trios, or quartets. CHAD MCCULLOUGH

Composer/performers Jenna Lyle and Riley Leitch make a habit of deconstructing the way sound comes into being—be it through their instruments (Lyle, voice; Leitch, trombone), found materials, elec-

Chad McCullough is “a Chicago trumpeter with a remarkable lyrical gift “(Chicago Tribune) and his performances with a variety of ensembles have garnered critical acclaim. His latest album Forward has drawn high international praise. He has been featured in jazz festivals from New York to Dublin, Belgium, and Russia. His work with Belgian pianist Bram Weijters has spawned 200 concerts globally within the last decade. A recipient of two

tronic accidents, or movement. They work outside of genre and classification to make intuitive performance works rooted in listening and asking questions.

DCASE grants from the City of Chicago, McCullough is on faculty in the jazz studies departments at DePaul University and UW-Madison.

LOUISE & OSCAR’S FASHION SHOW (FT. JENNA LYLE AND RILEY LEITCH)

172

BIOGRAPHIES

ANDREW MCMANUS

SUSAN MERDINGER, STEINWAY ARTIST

Andrew McManus’ (b. 1985) orchestral work Strobe, premiered in 2014 by the New York Philharmonic, was called “riveting” and “breathless…surging…hazy… sometimes all at once” by the New York Times. His project Neurosonics, a collaboration with a University of Chicago neuroscientist supported by a Copland House Residency Award and a New Music USA project grant, creates electroacoustic soundscapes from raw neurological data. Organizations that have featured his work include Alarm Will Sound, the Spektral Quartet, NYCEMF, Eighth Blackbird, Fort Worth Opera, the Aspen Music Festival, SPLICE Institute, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2020 he was Limited Term Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Georgia.

Steinway Artist, Susan Merdinger is an internationally acclaimed, prize-winning soloist who has been a strong advocate for contemporary music, premiering and recording many contemporary works. Merdinger performed her sold-out solo recital debut in Carnegie Recital Hall at age twenty-four and has continued to grace the stages of some of the world’s best concert halls. She has performed internationally on radio and television, as a soloist with professional orchestras, and has been a frequent Visiting Artist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music Series. Merdinger is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale School of Music.

MARC MELLITS Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, enjoying hundreds of performances throughout the world every year, making him one of the most performed living composers in the United States. His unique musical style is an eclectic combination of driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations that all combine to communicate directly with the listener. Mellits’ music is often described as being visceral, making a deep connection with the audience. Mellits is often a miniaturist, composing works comprising short, contrasting movements or sections. His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, colorful, and always carrying a sense of forward motion. GARRETT MENDELOW Garrett Mendelow is a solo and collaborative percussionist from the United States. Though his interest in percussion extends to many different facets of the art, he dedicates much of his time to contemporary percussion performance practices and new music in a wide variety of settings.

BIOGRAPHIES

CLAY METTENS The Chicago Tribune has praised the music of David “Clay” Mettens (b.1990) as “a thing of remarkable beauty,” displaying a “sensitive ear for instrumental color.” His work has been recognized with a 2020 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, first prize in the 2018 Salvatore Martirano Composition Competition, and a 2016 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He holds degrees from the University of Chicago, Eastman School of Music, and University of South Carolina, and was adjunct faculty in music composition at Valparaiso University during the 20202021 academic year. ALEX MINCEK Alex Mincek is a composer, performer, co-director and founder of the New York-based Wet Ink Ensemble. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Alpert Award, and multiple awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition to his work with Wet Ink, Mincek has collaborated with ensembles including Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble Linea, Talea, Dal Niente, Yarn/Wire, Mivos and the JACK Quartet. Mincek’s compositional thinking is primarily concerned with creating musical contexts in which diverse sound worlds seamlessly coexist—from raw to highly refined timbres, from rhythmic vitality to abrupt stasis, and from mechanical-like repetition to sinuous continuity.

173

JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

Janice Misurell-Mitchell, composer, flutist, and vocal artist, teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For twenty-five years she was Co-Artistic Director of Chicago’s CUBE Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and she is now a member of the 6Degrees Composers. She has taught and performed in the US, Mexico, Europe, Morocco, Israel, Palestine, India, and China. Recently she received commissions from the Chicago Composers Orchestra and the Ear Taxi Festival, and an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council. Her CDs, Vanishing Points, music for solo, duo, quartet and Uncommon Time, music for flute, voice and percussion, are on the Southport Records label. Other music of hers is available through MMC Recordings, OPUS ONE Recordings, Capstone Records, Arizona University Recordings and meerenaishim.com; her videos After the History, Scat/Rap Counterpoint, Sermon of the Spider and others are available on Youtube.

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed violinist, composer, and educator. She has received grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation, and the Sorel Organization. She has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, the Grant Park Music Festival, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, among many other ensembles. Jessie holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is Professor of violin and composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

JANICE MISURELL-MITCHELL : RESISTANT NOISE (2020), FOR VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE, AND ELECTRONICS The ensemble members in Resistant Noise are all musicians whom I’ve worked with before, and I value their ability to perform in a wide range of music. Included are members of the MAVerick Ensemble, the AACM, and the Music Institute of Chicago, among others. The piece is dedicated to the memories of vocalist, pianist, composer, and cherished member of our 6Degrees composers, Ann Ward; the brilliant baritone who could swing with the best, and still soar in a Handel aria, Saalik Ziyad; and our son, filmmaker, artist and songwriter, Gabriel Mitchell, whose loud whistle honoring my performances still rings in our ears. –Janice Misurell Mitchell

ADRIÁN MONTÚFAR Adrián Montúfar is a composer and sound artist working with contemporary concert music, video, improvisation, performance, dance and voice. He is currently a firstyear doctoral student in Composition at UC Berkeley. Between 2017 and 2019, he completed MMus programs in Composition and Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London, under the supervision of Roger Redgate and Freida Abtan. He thinks of sounds as a kind of trace: of movement, of matter, of different physical bodies interacting, and of the forces that give shape to those interactions. TED MOORE Ted Moore is a composer, improviser, intermedia artist, and educator based in Chicago. His work focuses on fusing the sonic, visual, physical, and acoustic aspects of performance and sound, often through the integration of technology. Ted also frequently performs on electronics using his laptop, modular synthesizer systems, resonant physical objects, lighting instruments, and video projection. He has been featured as an installation artist at New York University, Northern Spark Festival, Studio 300 Festival of Digital Art and Music, and St. Paul Public Library. Ted is one half of Binary Canary, a woodwinds-laptop improvisation duo alongside saxophonist Kyle Hutchins.

174

BIOGRAPHIES

ZACH MOORE Zach Moore is an artist working in the medium of sound, performance, and technology. His work prioritizes experimentation and often situates self-discovery and personal connections above aesthetic goals. Zach believes art making should be an attempt at exposing something genuine beyond one’s own imagination, sharing the pleasure of negotiating differing perspectives and ideas with the people we surround ourselves with. These concepts are most exemplified in his work with Mocrep, a performance collective that explores the ideas of collaboration and understanding in artistic pursuits and interpersonal relationships. As a founding member of Mocrep, Zach has curated, performed, and engineered performances in a multitude of spaces ranging from large arts institutions to DIY basements. Some recent works include Mocrep’s Other Sensations at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, a piece for Natacha Diels at The New York Electronic Art Festival, I like my friends Mocrep’s debut album on Parlour Tapes+, Please Don’t Go an installation in collaboration with Natacha Diels and Sam Scranton at Radius Gallery in Santa Cruz, and For Space a collaborative installation with Chris Wood and Courtney Mackendanz at ACRE artists residency. PATRICIA MOREHEAD Patricia Morehead, composer/oboist, PhD Composition University of Chicago, BM Oboe New England Conservatory, diplomas Royal Toronto Conservatory, Paris Conservatory, and Siena Accademia Chigiana. An Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, she has taught composition at Roosevelt University, Dominican University, Columbia College Chicago, and Merit School of Music. She was commissioned by the North Bay Symphony to compose a new symphonic work honoring the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven. She is the recipient of more than 40 commissions by performers in Chicago and festivals abroad. Her CDs “Good News Falls Gently” and “Brass Rail Blues” are available on the Navona Label, Naxos and compositions published by Jeanné.

BIOGRAPHIES

ERICA NEIDLINGER Dr. Erica J. Neidlinger is Associate Professor and wind conductor at DePaul University. Additional responsibilities include teaching courses in conducting as well as wind history and repertoire. Dr. Neidlinger’s conducting experiences are broad, ranging from chamber ensembles, contemporary ensembles, symphonic bands, to wind ensembles. She has guest conducted ensembles across the United States and has traveled to Singapore and Canada as an adjudicator and clinician. Additionally, Dr. Neidlinger has been a featured guest conductor and clinician in Riga, Latvia, and Moscow, Russia. OSNAT NETZER Osnat Netzer is an Israeli-American composer, performer and educator. Her kinetic, visceral compositions take inspiration from Embodied Cognition and Composed Theatre. Her music has been commissioned and performed by soprano Lucy Dhegrae, Patchwork, Spektral Quartet and Winsor Music, published by Edition Peters and earthsongs, and recorded on Bridge Records. Her opera, The Wondrous Woman Within, was described as “riotously funny” in The New York Times when its first scene was performed by NYCO in 2012, and “challenging and fascinating” by critic Amir Kidron when it received its premiere in a sold out run at Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theatre in 2015. MELISSA NGAN Melissa Ngan cultivates personal and organizational growth through creative acts and collaborative practices. She serves as President and CEO of the American Composer’s Orchestra and as a board member of Fifth House Ensemble as its founder. She has designed projects that promote social justice through civic practice, develop mindfulness and creativity through K-12 and social service residencies, and cultivate emerging arts leaders through partnerships with higher education institutions nationwide. She consults with major arts institutions as they develop bold new directions in emerging artist training, civic engagement, and arts integration. Recent partners include The Cleveland Orchestra and San Francisco Opera.

175

~NOIS

OGNI SUONO

Founded in 2016, ~Nois has become one of the premier ensembles in the U.S. by combining contemporary classical music and improvisation in unique concert experiences. Known for their “truly innovative musicianship” and “raw creativity” (Cacophony Magazine), ~Nois has been awarded top prizes at prestigious chamber music competitions including the Fischoff and the M-Prize competitions. Since its founding, ~Nois has given over 70 performances in 20 states from coast to coast and has premiered over 30 pieces.

Noa Even and Phil Pierick formed Ogni Suono in 2010 with a commitment to expand and champion repertoire for saxophone duo. They have since released Invisible Seams (2014) and SaxoVoce (2018), two albums of commissioned works that showcase the depth of their collaborations, breadth of aesthetic interests, and expressive versatility. SaxoVoce, which explores the wide-ranging ways of synthesizing saxophone and voice, was described by I Care If You Listen as a “tour de force of new possibilities.” The duo has toured Asia, Europe, and North America, pairing performances with master classes, composer readings, and artist talks.

NON:op OPEN OPERA WORKS NON:op Open Opera Works strengthens ties across communities by producing immersive, interactive, and multi-disciplinary performances and installations for virtual, indoor, and outdoor public spaces, pairing them with complementary discussions and salons. Collaboration is a fundamental component in NON:op’s evolving programming and organizational vision, which seeks to facilitate artistic experimentation and creativity. In the non-hierarchical and non-directive structure of its organization, NON:op foregrounds community, devising and deploying innovative artistic platforms that empower people to collectively work towards a more just society. SHAWN E. OKPEBHOLO Shawn E. Okpebholo is Professor of Music Composition at Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music and a widely sought-after and dynamic composer. A laureate of numerous awards for his artistry, most recently, the Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him The Walter Hinrichsen Prize. His music has been performed on five continents, in over forty states, and he regularly receives commissions from noted soloists, chamber groups, and large ensembles—artists who have performed his works at some of the nation’s most prestigious performance spaces, including Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. He earned his masters and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, also studying music theory. For his complete bio and to experience and learn more about his music, visit shawnokpebholo.com. 176

BIOGRAPHIES

MEARA O’REILLY Meara O’Reilly is a composer and artist, with a focus on perception and new musical interfaces. Most recently, she wrote, performed, and recorded vocal arrangements for several tracks on the Fleet Foxes album, Shore. Her work has been presented at Bang on a Can, National Sawdust, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Hall, SF Davies Symphony Hall, The Bauhaus Dessau, and as part of Bjork’s world Biophilia tour. She is co-creator of the Rhythm Necklace app, a musical sequencer that uses two-dimensional geometry to create rhythm. She currently lives in Los Angeles. PANDEMIC SOUNDSOURCING Visda Goudarzi is a music technologist working at the intersection of audio and human-computer interaction. She designs and performs using interactive and participatory sonic interfaces. Her sonic works include live electronic performances, live coding, and data driven sound. She is an Assistant Professor of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College Chicago and works as the principal investigator (PI) for the Austrian funded project COLLAB (Collaborative Creativity as a Participatory Tool for Interactive Sound Creation). Visda also performs live electronics as a member of intra-sonic electronic duo.

MARIANNE PARKER

LAROB K. RAFAEL

Pianist Marianne Parker’s playing has been described as “a cut above” (Chicago Classical Review). Her album, Pages intimes, features re-discovered works by Haitian composers. Marianne is curator for the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music for Solo Piano. A fierce advocate of new music, Parker is in demand as a collaborator regionally and nationally, regularly commissioning and premiering new works. She serves as Vice President New Music Chicago. Marianne performs with prominent chamber ensembles across the Midwest, including Milwaukee’s Present Music, Chicago’s Access Contemporary Music, Fourth Coast Ensemble, Crossing Borders Music, and more. Marianne served as the principal pianist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra.

A native of Temple Hills, Maryland, Bass -Baritone, LaRob K. Rafael developed a love for singing at an early age. He found a spirit in the Gospel songs he sang, passion in the R&B he heard, and nuance in the Classical music he studied. A graduate of DePaul University where he received a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, LaRob has studied with world-renowned teachers, directors, and coaches and has had musical opportunities that include traveling to study language, culture, and music. LaRob continues to sing around the Chicago-area (William Ferris Chorale/ North Shore Baptist Church), and is the Founder and Artistic Director of Hearing in Color, an organization dedicated to uplifting those whose contributions and stories have been historically excluded from classical spaces. As an arts administrative specialist, he concurrently works at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the Learning and Creative Engagement Department, sits on the Board of La Caccina, a professional women’s ensemble, as Diversity and Community Engagement Advisor, and is an active consultant with the recently formed Black Opera Alliance and Black Administrators of Opera groups. LaRob also aims to use his voice to connect people from different communities as a newly appointed host of Chicago’s classical music station, WFMT (98.7 FM) to continue changing the predominantly white, European, male-centered classical consciousness.

JUNIUS PAUL Junius Paul, composer, bandleader & acoustic and electric bassist, born in Chicago and raised in the Chicago area, is a graduate of St. Xavier University (Chicago). An internationally established bassist, some of Junius’ performance and/or recording credits include The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, numerous configurations of ensembles led by Roscoe Mitchell, Famoudou Don Moye Sun Percussion Summit, AACM Small Ensemble & Big Band, Kahil El’Zabar, Makaya McCraven, The Fred Anderson Trio, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Jeff Parker, Vincent Davis & Percussion Plus, Dee Alexander, The Curtis Fuller Quintet, Oliver Lake, Willie Pickens, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Marquis Hill, KRS-One and Donald Byrd among others. In 2013-14, Junius served as music department faculty for Trinity Christian College (Palos Heights, IL). In 2017, Junius was the featured artist and honoree for his alma mater, St. Xavier University’s Jazz Weekend. Junius’ debut album, Ism, was released in November 2019 via International Anthem Recording Company to critical acclaim, receiving a 4 star rating from Downbeat Magazine and an 8 out of 10 rating from Pitchfork.

BIOGRAPHIES

JEAN “RUDY” PERRAULT Jean “Rudy” Perrault is Director of Orchestras and Professor of Music at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Born in Portau-Prince, Haiti, he earned his Master’s degree in Music Performance from Temple University, under the tutelage of Helen Kwalwasser. He is a frequent panelist on national and international instrumental and conducting competitions, and has participated in many prestigious music festivals including the International Music Camp, Aspen, Tanglewood, and Chautauqua. His “Exodus” string quartet has been performed by the Borromeo Quartet, Kontras Quartet, and by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

177

DANIEL PESCA Pianist–composer Daniel Pesca has played the world premieres of over one hundred works. Among Daniel’s recent compositions are a sextet commissioned by the American Wild Ensemble, performed at national parks across the country; a song cycle for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, premiered at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center; and a song cycle for tenor Zach Finkelstein, premiered at Oberlin College and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Daniel is pianist of the Grossman Ensemble and a founding co-director of the Zohn Collective. He holds a doctorate from Eastman, and previously taught at University of Chicago. DANIEL PESCA + HANNAH HURWITZ Longtime friends and collaborators, violinist Hanna Hurwitz and pianist Daniel Pesca are co-directors and performing members of the Zohn Collective, a flexible new music chamber ensemble founded in 2017. Both Hanna and Daniel perform in Chicago frequently and can be seen onstage with Ensemble Dal Niente and the Grossman Ensemble. They met at Aspen where they both held fellowships, and deepened their friendship during their several years of overlap in the doctoral program at the Eastman School of Music. Hanna is now an assistant professor at Denison University, and Daniel is assistant professor at University of Maryland Baltimore County. JUSTIN PETERS Justin Peters is a Chicago-based percussionist, composer, producer, and facilitator of music making. With equal experience both on stage and behind the scenes, Justin is devoted to helping artists reach audiences. He began performing at an early age but quickly developed a passion for showcasing other artists as well. He cut his teeth curating bills at local rock clubs and eventually opened and co-managed a performance venue in his hometown. This drive to facilitate live performance has led him to work with the Pitchfork Music Festival, MusicNOW, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the University of Chicago, and NPR’s Live From Here. As a performer, Justin has appeared with artists such as Eighth Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, Nico Muhly, and 178

BIOGRAPHIES

Nadia Sirota. In 2015, he received his Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He stays busy as a freelance percussionist, and performs and records regularly with many groups in Chicago and abroad, including Emily Blue, Dan Durley, and Villekulla. He currently co-hosts an ongoing digital series, Yoga + Music. NICK PHOTINOS Four-time GRAMMY Award-winner Nick Photinos is one of the most innovative cellists of our time, collaborating with artists including Björk, Wilco, Bryce Dessner, Dawn Upshaw, Philip Glass, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars in tours throughout the world. Currently Artist– Teacher of Cello at the Longy School of Music, Nick served for 24 years as the founding cellist and Artistic Director of Eighth Blackbird. For more information, visit nickphotinos.com. PICOSA Picosa is a Chicago-based ensemble, comprised of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and composer-in-residence, presenting compelling performances that reimagine the traditional classical music concert. Formed in 2014, Picosa holds residencies at Elmhurst University and North Central College, presents concert series at DePaul University’s Holtschneider Performance Center, Epiphany Center for the Arts, and the Driehaus Museum, and performs in elite concert series and workshops throughout the Chicago area. Picosa’s signature programming features Chicago composers each season and weaves together music and narrative around themes highlighting shared human experiences. Please visit PicosaMusic.com.

SARAH PLUM

DANIEL QUINN

Sarah Plum began her career in Europe playing with noted orchestras and new music ensembles. Upon returning to the US, she has championed composers, commissioning and premiering music at numerous concerts and festivals both here and abroad. Plum relocated to the Chicago area in 2018, to continue this work and has been performing with 5th House, Dal Niente, and Fulcrum Point. Next season brings a premiere of a two-violin concerto written for her by Japanese composer Mari Takano with the Chicago Composers Orchestra and the release of her fourth solo CD, containing new music for violin alone and with electronics.

Daniel Quinn is a Chicago-based trombonist and music educator, currently serving as the Instrumental Music Director at Westminster Christian School in Elgin. Quinn received degrees in music education and performance from the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. He is the second trombonist with the Fox Valley Orchestra and regularly performs with various ensembles throughout the area.

QUIJOTE DUO New music and chamber music artists, Juan Horie and Sixto Franco, have joined together to form the Quijote Duo. With a combined experience in many fields including theater, education, composition, concert music, and arts management, the Quijote Duo expands the limits of the performative arts and the relationship between artist, performance, and audience. The Quijote Duo has been selecting new works for viola and cello with the idea in mind of breaking the barriers of expression and novelty through experimentation and innovation. Every program the Quijote Duo designs shows our support to emergent composers. QUINCE ENSEMBLE Singing with the precision and flexibility of modern chamber musicians, Quince Ensemble is changing the paradigm of contemporary vocal music. Described as “the Anonymous 4 of new music” by Opera News, Quince continually pushes the boundaries of vocal ensemble literature. This performance will feature two members, Liz Pearse (soprano) and Kayleigh Butcher (mezzo soprano) with a program of duo repertoire.

BIOGRAPHIES

JANNA WILLIAMSON Janna Williamson holds piano performance degrees from the Chicago College of Performing Arts (Roosevelt University) and Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, where she studied principally with Winston Choi and Karin Redekopp Edwards. Janna has extensive collaborative experience with individuals and groups including the St. Charles Singers and the String Academy of Chicago. An MTNA Nationally Certified Teacher of Music since 2004, Janna maintains an independent studio in West Chicago and coaches less experienced teachers around the country. SHULAMIT RAN A native of Israel, Shulamit Ran is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer whose music has been played by leading performing organizations around the world. She was Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, having been appointed by Maestro Daniel Barenboim. She was Music Director of “Tempus Fugit,” the International Biennial for Contemporary Music in Israel and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Science. In 1973 she joined the faculty of University of Chicago, where she is now the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the Department of Music.

179

WILLIAM JASON RAYNOVICH

TOMEKA REID

William Jason Raynovich is Co-founder/Artistic Director of the MAVerick Ensemble. As a performer, he has given numerous lectures and performances on improvisation and the performance practice of indeterminate music at national and international festivals. As a composer, he has received awards, commissions, and performances by organizations such as the Chicago Composers Forum, York Vocal Index, Access Contemporary Music, and more. William received his DMA from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and his Bachelor and Master of Music from Syracuse University. Deeply involved in the contemporary music scene in Chicago, he has been active in the promotion and creation of contemporary music for twenty years. He currently is Associate Professor of Music at Chicago State University.

Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by the New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. She is a Foundation of the Arts (2019) and 3Arts Awardee (2016), received her doctorate in music from UIUC in 2017, and serves as the Darius Milhaud composition chair at Mills College.

VANESSA REED Vanessa Reed is a passionate leader, advocate and changemaker in music with over two decades experience of supporting artists who are defining the future of music. Vanessa became President and CEO of New Music USA in August 2019 following a decade as CEO of PRS Foundation where she received multiple awards for her work and launched the international Keychange program for gender justice in music. Since moving to the US, Vanessa has focused on developing programs which respond to the changing landscape for artists and non-profits affected by the global pandemic and the inequities it has exposed. @iamvanessareed HOWARD REICH Howard Reich is the Emmy-winning producer-writer of three documentary films and the author of six books, including “Portraits in Jazz,” “Let Freedom Swing,” “Jelly’s Blues” (with William Gaines), and “Van Cliburn.” Howard served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Music four times, including for the first jazz winner: Wynton Marsalis’ “Blood on the Fields” (1997). Howard graduated from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music as a piano performance major, did graduate studies there in music theory and history, and holds two honorary doctorate degrees. He covered music for the Chicago Tribune from 1978 to 2021. 180

BIOGRAPHIES

Reid released her debut recording as a bandleader in 2015, with the Tomeka Reid Quartet. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in October 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as “fresh and transformative—its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid’s singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work.” She co-leads the adventurous string trio HEAR IN NOW, and in 2013 launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a semi-annual three-day international festival of cutting edge string players held in Chicago. DAVID REMINICK With his music described as “bracing, original, and often jaw-dropping” (New Music Box), composer David Reminick brings a rigorous and hyper-energetic approach to his concert music—and a cogent, structurally complex approach to his post-punk endeavors. As both a composer and the singer/guitarist for the Chicago post-punk band Paper Mice, David’s writing doesn’t so much blur the perceived boundaries between genres as augment and exchange the virtues/idiosyncrasies of each. In his relatively young career as a composer, David includes such notable groups as the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Spektral Quartet, and Quince Ensemble in his inventory of commissions and collaborators.

RHYTHM IS IMAGE

LAURA SCHWENDINGER

rhythm is image is a new, Chicago-based contemporary music initiative. We explore the intersection of sound, medium and concept in music. Our work focuses on provocative music that originates locally, nationally, and internationally. We are fascinated by the interconnection between composers of different cultures and perspectives, and particularly the way artists reach across boundaries to find unique modes of expression.

The first composer to win the Berlin Prize, Laura Schwendinger’s music has been championed by artists Dawn Upshaw, Matt Haimovitz, Miranda Cuckson, Arditti & JACK Quartets, International Contemporary Ensemble, Jenny Koh, Janine Jansen, Eighth Blackbird, Mathieu Dufour, and American Composers Orchestra; at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall; and at the Tanglewood, Bennington, Aspen and Ojai Festivals. Honors include a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, two Koussevitzky foundation commissions, a Fromm Foundation commission, a fellowship at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, a Copland House prize among many others. Schwendinger is currently Professor of Composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

rhythm is image was founded by Hannah Barnes as a nascent new music project, called Purposeless Play, at DePaul University. BEN ROIDL-WARD Ben Roidl-Ward is a bassoonist and improviser based in Chicago who is dedicated to working with and advocating for composers of his generation. He has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic. A 2018 Luminarts Fellow in Classical Music, Ben is a member of the Illinois Symphony and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Leaders, and serves on the faculty of Carthage College. He studied with David McGill, Ben Kamins, George Sakakeeny, and Francine Peterson. CHRISTINE SCHERZER Versatile Berlin-based performing artist Christine Scherzer (b. 1978) studied Art History in Leipzig and graduated in Jazz Vocals from the University of Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. She has participated in numerous transdisciplinary projects combining music, dance, and theater. Scherzer’s collaborations with Austrian and international musicians, artists, and theater groups have incorporated various music styles and led to appearances at several international festivals across Europe. Christine was a semi-finalist at the Montreux Jazz Voice Competition in 2010. Since 2006, she has been performing as a Red Noses Clown Doctor to cheer up children at hospitals, elderly people and refugees.

KELLEY SHEEHAN Kelley Sheehan is a composer and computer musician moving between acoustic, electro-acoustic, and performance art works. In any medium, her work centers on noise, performance, and interaction. Her work has been described as “Full of discovery, collaboration, and unpredictability” (Gaudeamus Foundation) with “Woozy Electronics” (LA Weekly). When not composing, she is advocating for experimental music as a founding member of The Plucky Plunkers, an improvisational duo focused on commission works for the toy piano and multimedia collaborations and as a member of the composer collective Ultravioleta. Currently pursuing a PhD in Composition at Harvard University studying with Czernowin and Tutsku. ELENNA SINDLER AND HASCO DUO Elenna Sindler is a performer-composer who creates works that bridge multiple genres and disciplines through a feminist lens. A versatile singer of many genres, she won a YoungArts Merit Award for Popular Voice and has performed at various venues in the Chicago area, such as Schubas, Wells Street Art Festival, and the Jazz Showcase, among others. Hasco Duo (Amanda DeBoer, soprano, and Jesse Langen, guitar, both members of Ensemble Dal Niente) is an experimental duo that performs original music, commissions, and free improvisation.

BIOGRAPHIES

181

SINGING BRONZE

STEVEN SNOWDEN

Singing Bronze is a collaboration between bells, electronics, and voice. Joey Brink is University Carillonneur at the University of Chicago. Kaitlin Foley, soprano, has sung with the Haymarket Opera Company, Grant Park Chorus, Third Coast Baroque, Ensemble Dal Niente, and is a founding member of the genre-bending female vocal trio Artemisia. Joseph Min is a fourthyear at the University of Chicago, studying carillon under Joey Brink and pursuing degrees in Architecture and Music. In 2021 he passed his Carillonneur exam with the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.

The music of Steven Snowden has been described as “A visceral evocation of raw communal memories” (GoldenPlec, Dublin), “Beguiling… combining force with clarity” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “Wonderfully dynamic” (Interlude Hong Kong), “Marvelously evocative”, (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and “The most wildly intriguing sight and sound I have experienced at a concert” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). Writing music for dance, theater, multi-media installations, and the concert stage, his work often focuses on underground American history and how past events relate to modern society. He currently lives in the Boston area where he works as a freelance composer.

DAVID SKIDMORE David Skidmore is a GRAMMY Award-winning percussionist and composer. As a member of Third Coast Percussion, he performs over 100 concerts each year on tour throughout the United States and abroad. David taught on the percussion faculty at the Peabody Conservatory for four years and was a member of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Ensemble ACJW. His compositions are performed regularly in concert halls and universities all over the world. David holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. GABRIELLA SMITH Gabriella Smith is a composer and environmentalist. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area playing and writing music, hiking, backpacking, and volunteering on a songbird research project. Whether for orchestras, chamber ensembles, voices, or electronics, Gabriella’s music comes from a love of play, exploring new sounds on instruments, building compelling musical arcs, and connecting listeners with the natural world. Recent highlights include the LA Phil’s performances of Tumblebird Contrails, conducted by John Adams; and the Aizuri Quartet’s recording of Carrot Revolution on their GRAMMY-nominated debut album Blueprinting. Smith currently lives in Oslo, Norway.

182

BIOGRAPHIES

LIZA SOBEL Liza Sobel Crane is a composer and soprano based in Chicago. Her compositions are often influenced by current social issues. Some of the venues her music has been performed in include: Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Symphony Space, Bang on a Can, the Aspen Music Festival, Eighth Blackbird’s Creative Lab, and Aldeburgh Britten-Pears. Performers that have played her music include: the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Minnesota Orchestra, Ensemble Dal Niente, Spektral String Quartet, Cygnus Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Nouveau Classical Project, and Ekmeles. Current commissions include: a chamber opera for the Zafa Collective (in which Liza will sing) and a new orchestral work for the New York Youth Symphony to be performed at Carnegie Hall.

ANNIKA SOCOLOFSKY

ALEX TEMPLE

Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant folk vocalist. Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads and unapologetically joyous Dolly Parton covers. Annika writes extensively for her own voice, including composing a growing repertoire of “feminist rager-lullabies” titled Don’t say a word, which serves to confront centuries of damaging lessons taught to young children by retelling old lullaby texts for a new, queer era. Annika has taken Don’t say a word on the road, performing with a number of ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, Albany Symphony Dogs of Desire, Knoxville Symphony, and Latitude 49. She is Assistant Professor of Composition and Artistic Director of Pendulum New Music at the University of Colorado Boulder and is a 2020–21 Gaudeamus Award nominee. She holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University. www.aksocolofsky.com

A sound can evoke a time, a place, or a way of looking at the world. Alex Temple (b. 1983) writes music that distorts and combines iconic sounds to create new meanings, often in service of surreal, cryptic, or fantastical narratives. In addition to performing her own works for voice and electronics, she has collaborated with performers and ensembles such as Mellissa Hughes, Julia Holter, wild Up, Spektral Quartet, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In 2017 she completed a DMA at Northwestern University, and she is now an Assistant Professor of Composition at Arizona State University.

ELIZABETH START Composer Elizabeth Start has received numerous grants and commissions and over 500 performances of over 140 works in the United States and abroad. As a cellist, Start has performed with the Elgin and Kalamazoo Symphonies, with Ralph Shapey’s Contemporary Chamber Players, CUBE, and in concerts for American Women Composers and New Music Chicago. She holds bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and cello from Oberlin College and Conservatory, as well as master’s degrees in cello and music/theory composition from Northern Illinois University, and a PhD in composition from the University of Chicago. She has taught at DePaul University and Columbia College. www.elizabethstart.com

BIOGRAPHIES

THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE (CME) AND BIENEN CONTEMPORARY/ EARLY VOCAL ENSEMBLE (BCE) OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Under the direction of Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter, CME is a one-on-a-part ensemble of approximately 20 players. CME trains students to take on challenging repertoire while thriving in a large chamber ensemble setting. The ensemble also provides models for entrepreneurial careers outside of the mainstream orchestra world. Conducted by Donald Nally, BCE is a 24-voice ensemble that sings a highly specialized, virtuosic repertoire for advanced choral singers, concentrating on music of the 21st century and drawing relationships to its polyphonic roots in early music, primarily that of the Renaissance. THE DREAM SONGS PROJECT AND TED MOORE Formed in 2010 in Minneapolis, voice and guitar duo The Dream Songs Project engages audiences with repertoire spanning Renaissance lute songs to 20thcentury masterpieces, with a particular emphasis on newly commissioned works. TDSP strives to connect performers, audiences, and composers through high quality chamber music concerts and educational events. Ted Moore is a composer, improviser, and intermedia artist based in Chicago. His work focuses on fusing the sonic, visual, physical, and acoustic aspects of performance, often through the integration of technology. Timothy Otte is a poet, critic, and sometimes playwright from Minneapolis.

183

THE LUCKY TRIKES The Lucky Trikes, a storytelling chamber band, has been delighting intergenerational Chicagoland audiences since 2014. Dynamic, interactive readings of beloved, new, and award-winning books are accompanied by improvised and composed music. The Lucky Trikes is composer/percussionist Kyle Gregory (KG) Price and storyteller/vocalist/uke player Deirdre Harrison. Rotating “third wheel” collaborators from Chicago’s new music, free jazz and indie opera scenes join for each event. A full band plays for museum and festival events. The Lucky Trikes have released two vinyl albums with support from the IACA and Timeless Toys: We Are the Lucky Trikes and Listen! Listen! Listen! THE ROPE DANCER ACCOMPANIES HERSELF WITH HER SHADOWS Flutist Shanna Pranaitis fearlessly expands the realm of sonic possibility for her instruments through innovative performances and educational projects, integrating new and historically reimagined works with multi-disciplinary elements to create seamless, immersive concert experiences. Her debut solo CD of Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf’s works for flute (NEOS) has been hailed as “remarkable” and a “virtuoso testimony.” Jay Alan Yim is an internationally recognized sound designer and composer, with a Kennedy Center/Friedheim award, three BMI and two ASCAP awards, Tanglewood and Aspen fellowships, Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and three Illinois Arts Council fellowships. Jay Alan Yim teaches at Northwestern University. AUGUSTA READ THOMAS Augusta Read Thomas’s music “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). The New Yorker called her “a true virtuoso composer.” She was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony and, in 2013, founded the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition, a dynamic, collaborative, and interdisciplinary environment for the creation, performance, and study of new music and for the advancement of the careers of emerging and established composers, performers, and scholars. University Professor of Composition at The University of Chicago, 184

BIOGRAPHIES

Thomas, one of the most active composers in the world, with commissions, performances, recordings, awards, and honors, is also a long-standing, exemplary citizen of the profession at large, who, among other things, spearheaded Ear Taxi Festival 2016. DENNIS TOBENSKI Dennis Tobenski is a composer, singer, and die-hard advocate for living composers. As a composer and performer, he embraces emotional complexity and honesty, and never shies away from vulgarity or a good laugh (no polite chuckles, please). Whether he’s behind the microphone as the host of the Music Publishing Podcast or working as the creator and driving force behind the NewMusicShelf Anthologies of New Music, he lifts his colleagues up, and works to build structures and communities that he wished he’d had as a young musician. Dennis lives in NYC with his husband, Darien Shulman, and their cat Pistachio. JESSICA TONG Recently named Associate Artistic Director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Jessica was raised in Salt Lake City where she attended the University of Utah and danced as a member of Utah Ballet. Tong went on to dance with BalletMet, Eliot Feld/Ballet Tech, and Hubbard Street 2 before joining the main company for 11 years, becoming Rehearsal Director upon retirement. Named one of Dance Magazine’s Top 25 to Watch in 2009, Jessica has served on the Ambassador committee for Dance for Life Chicago and in 2013 had the honor of traveling to North Africa as part of Dance Motion USA, a US Department of State and Brooklyn Academy of Music sponsored program that facilitated cross-cultural exchange through dance. In 2020-2021 Tong is overseeing Hubbard Street’s first ever all-virtual Season 43, presenting five new dance films free of charge to online audiences everywhere.

FRANCINE TRESTER Francine Trester, Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music, has had works commissioned and premiered throughout the US and abroad. Trester’s “An Oman Odyssey,” was commissioned by the Mirror Visions Ensemble and premiered at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center. The cycle was also performed at the Louvre, Paris and in Glasgow. Her chamber opera based on the life of composer Florence Price was recently commissioned by Shelter Music Boston. The Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms Society premiered her orchestral version of “Street Views” at Faneuil Hall. Trester has written “A Walk in Her Shoes” for the Boston Landmarks Orchestra. This piece commemorates the centennial of the 19th Amendment and was premiered by Landmarks at the Hatch Shell in September 2021. www.francinetrester.com

UNSUPERVISED WITH CHICAGO COMPOSER’S CONSORTIUM Unsupervised is Chicago’s first member-organized conductorless orchestra. With programs and performances developed through collaboration, Unsupervised connects musicians and audiences through shared experiences of music. Founded in 2017, the ensemble has performed across Chicago in locations including the Fine Arts Building and Zhou B Art Center, and has been featured on Music in Chicago on WFMT. Visit www. unsupervisedchi.org to learn more. The Chicago Composers’ Consortium (c3) is a grass-roots organization of composers dedicated to creating new music in Chicago. Since 1988, c3 has found new ways to introduce Chicago to new music through concerts, commissions, and collaborations with renowned musicians and ensembles.

TRI-AGAIN

EMMANUELLE WAECKERLÉ

Tri-Again is the brainchild of Chicago-based composers, performers, and improvisers Laura Adkins, Jonathan Hannau, and Riley Leitch. Though the members of this trio have performed together many times previously, Ear Taxi 2021 marks the first time they have done so as a larger iteration of Hannau and Adkins’ original Duöver duo project. Tri-Again creates music based on the idea that the performers and the audience’s interpretation play just as big of a role in the creation process as the composers of that music.

Emmanuelle Waeckerlé is a London based academic, artist, performer, and improviser, working with the materiality and musicality of language. Her practice emerges between text, image, and performance, between the page and the body and her textual compositions, artist publications, installations, and participatory occasions seek meaningful ways of engaging with our interior or exterior landscape and each other. Emmanuelle is a regular attendee of Eddie Prevost weekly improvisation workshop, a founding member of Bouche Bée improvising trio on the edges of Language, with Petri Huurinainen (guitar) and John Eyles (saxophone). She curates the house concert series Cosy Nook as well as the here.here series of streamed concerts.

MATT ULERY’S MANNERIST 11 Chicago-based bassist/composer and bandleader, Matt Ulery, has developed an instantly recognizable sound. Known for his sweeping lyricism, unconventional phrase structures, and expressionistic emotionalism, Ulery leads and composes all the music for several of his own bands. As a composer, Ulery has collaborated with diverse ensembles such as Eighth Blackbird, Miami String Quartet, New Millennium Orchestra of Chicago, Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, Axiom Brass, Wild Belle, Guimaraes (Portugal) Jazz Festival, and Projeto Arcomusical.

BIOGRAPHIES

185

KARI WATSON

LJ WHITE

Kari Watson (b.1998) is a composer and sound artist working between the mediums of contemporary concert music and electroacoustic music. Motivated by a passion for narrative and musical drama, Watson works to create music that is clear, tactile, and emotionally driven. With roots in vocal study and performance, her work is informed by the vocal line and often incorporates text. Watson holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory in Composition, with a minor in TIMARA (technology in music and related arts) and is currently pursuing a Ph.D at the University of Chicago under Augusta Read Thomas and Sam Pluta.

LJ White has worked with many of the leading performers in contemporary classical music, including Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble SIGNAL, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Quince Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Third Angle Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, the Spektral Quartet, and members of Talea, Roomful of Teeth, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Recent projects include collaborations with Steven Schick, Sleeping Giant, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s “Live at the Pulitzer” series, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “Music NOW” series. White was a full-time lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis from 2017-2020 and currently lives in Chicago.

RANDALL WEST Randall West is a composer, sound artist, software developer, and artistic director of the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Randall seeks to tell stories through music while exploring theatrics, decision-making processes, language, and technology. He uses technology to create interactive music, algorithmic compositions, and sound design. His works have been presented in concert halls, galleries, and abandoned warehouses. WET INK ENSEMBLE The Wet Ink Ensemble is a collective of composers, performers, and improvisers dedicated to adventurous music-making. Named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times, Wet Ink’s work is rooted in an ethos of innovation through collaboration, extending from the music, and the unique performance practice developed in the “band” atmosphere of Wet Ink’s core octet of composer-performers, to projects with a broad range of renowned creators, from Evan Parker to George Lewis to Peter Ablinger, and committed performances of music by young and underrepresented composers, from today’s most promising emerging voices to the next generation of artists.

186

BIOGRAPHIES

EVAN WILLIAMS Originally from the Chicagoland area, composer and conductor Evan Williams currently resides in Memphis, TN, where he is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Instrumental Activities at Rhodes College. Williams’s catalogue contains a broad range of work, both acoustic and electronic. He has been commissioned by acclaimed ensembles and soloists including the Cincinnati Symphony, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Quince Ensemble, with further performances by the Detroit, Seattle, National, and Toledo Symphonies, Axiom Brass, American Brass Quintet, and many more. Williams holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati, Bowling Green State University, and Lawrence University. MADELEINE WILMSEN Madeleine Wilmsen is a performer and teacher based in the Chicago area. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Arts in Music where her principal teachers were Sarah Frisof and Michael Gordon. Wilmsen has combined her love of music and her passion for promoting the arts in her community by working as an intern for nonprofits such as the National Flute Association, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Ojai Music Festival. She served as the co-Exhibitor Chair for the Chicago Flute Club’s 2019 annual festival and currently serves as an intern for Ear Taxi Festival.

JESSICA WOLFE

AYANNA WOODS

With over ten years of experience in arts administration, music, performance, and education, Jessica Wolfe thrives in connecting communities through the transformative power of shared musical experiences. Presently, she serves as the Director of Production and Education at the University of Chicago Presents where she produces classical, jazz, early music, contemporary, and world music concert series and manages a range of educational programs. Jessica is honored to serve in the role of Managing Director for New Music Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival and celebrate the amazing musical identity and community of Chicago.

Ayanna Woods is a composer, performer and bandleader from Chicago; her works have been performed by Third Coast Percussion, Wet Ink Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, and The Crossing. She is a frequent collaborator with the Chicago Children’s Choir, of which she’s an alumna. She has composed music for the Emmy-nominated series Brown Girls and the live film, No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She is a sought-after bassist and improvisor and records with her own band, Yadda Yadda. She originated her role in Place, a Grammy-nominated and Putlizer-finalist work by Ted Hearne and poet/librettist Saul Williams.

AJA BURRELL WOOD

JONATHAN WOODS

Aja Burrell Wood is the managing director for Berklee’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Wood currently implements vision and strategy, oversees institutional initiatives and programming, teaches courses related to gender and justice in jazz and Black music history, and produces events for the Berklee community. She has extensive experience as an ethnomusicologist, educator, and curator, with a background in development and violin performance. Prior to Berklee, Wood taught courses on music, history, and culture at the City College of New York and Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of Music. Her work includes research on musical community among Black classical musicians, women in jazz, jazz in the digital era, music and civic engagement in Harlem, and other related genres of the African Diaspora, such as blues, hip-hop, soul, and West African traditions. She has been a visiting fellow at the New School, in addition to her role as guest lecturer at New York University and various institutions throughout New York City.

Jonathan Woods is a Chicago-based artist specializing in film/animation direction, improvised visual performance and music production. His early fascination with both surrealist and African means of expression has fuelled a wide variety of unique partnerships and projects for over 30 years.

BIOGRAPHIES

RAFFI WRIGHT Bridging the boundary between opera and musical theatre, Raffi Wright is a singer, actor, pianist, and teacher from Buffalo, NY. He is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree at the Eastman School of Music in Vocal Performance, Secondary Piano, Arts Leadership, and the selective honors degree, the Musical Arts Major (MUA) with focus on the Armenian Genocide. For him, it is a pleasure to serve both his community and his art. Chicago is one of Raffi’s favorite cities in the world, and he is thrilled to be a part of the Ear Taxi Festival to engage with Chicago’s artistic innovation and diversity.

187

PHOEBE WU

ANNA XAMBÓ

Phoebe Wu is a pianist newly based in Chicago. She is dedicated to bringing new works to life through collaborations with artists of all disciplines, and to encouraging curiosity and joy in music-making in her piano students. In March 2021 she gave a virtual solo concert—inspired by the US women’s suffrage centennial— exploring music written by women in America from 1920 to the present. She has collaborated with many composers including Jennifer Higdon, Viet Cuong, and Carlos Simon; and with Khemia Ensemble, ÆPEX Contemporary Performance, and members of Yarn/Wire. Phoebe can occasionally be found as a performance artist, woodworking novice, and tap dancer.

Anna Xambó is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Audio Technology at De Montfort University, a member of Music, Technology and Innovation - Institute of Sonic Creativity, and an experimental electronic music producer. Her research and practice focus on sound and music computing systems looking at novel approaches to collaborative, participatory, and live coding experiences. She is PI of the EPSRC HDI Network Plus funded project “MIRLCAuto: A Virtual Agent for Music Information Retrieval in Live Coding,” investigating the use of a live coder virtual agent and the retrieval of large collections of sounds.

AMY WURTZ A fervent advocate for new music and the community that surrounds and supports it, Amy Wurtz is a performer, composer, and curator of new music based in Chicago. Her recent album, Cello Dances at Night, with the Wurtz-Berger Duo, a cello-piano collaboration with Alyson Berger, features Amy’s work Songs and Dances and was commissioned by the Ear Taxi Festival. Amy has lived and worked in California, throughout the Midwest, South America and Europe. In addition to composing and curation, she is in demand as a solo pianist, chamber, and choral musician, teacher, and collaborative pianist. www.amywurtz.com WURTZ-BERGER DUO Cellist Alyson Berger and pianist Amy Wurtz have been part of Chicago’s new music community for over a decade. After years of crossing paths on various concerts, they decided to combine their talents to perform the contemporary music of this classic duo of instruments.

JAY ALAN YIM Listed in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Jay Alan Yim is an internationally recognized composer, with a Kennedy Center/Friedheim award, three BMI and two ASCAP awards, Tanglewood and Aspen fellowships, Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and three Illinois Arts Council fellowships. Other honors include an appointment as a composer/fellow (1995-96) for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Yim has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Nieuw Ensemble, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and more. Yim has been recorded by both the New York Philharmonic and Arditti Quartet and is co-founder of the “localStyle” digital media collaborative, with museum installations in Asia, the USA and Europe. BETHANY YOUNGE Bethany Younge’s music explores the manifold kinesthetic properties of musical performance. For her, the act of music-making cannot be divorced from the physical presence of the human instigator. Younge is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Columbia University in New York. Her works have been featured in New Music Darmstadt, Resonant Bodies Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek and she has worked with ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Distractfold, ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, and TAK Ensemble. She was awarded a Stipend Prize for New Music Darmstadt, a National Sawdust commission prize, and the 10th Mivos/Kanter prize.

188

BIOGRAPHIES

ALISON YUN-FEI JIANG Canadian composer Alison Yun-Fei Jiang explores the intersections of genres and cultures by drawing inspiration from an array of sources: Chinese traditional folk music, film music, popular music, literature, Canadian landscapes, and Buddhism, creating musical narratives and soundscapes in a lyrical, dynamic, and storytelling nature. She explores the topics of culture crossing, diaspora, and identity transformation, often contemplating the clashing and merging of cultural identities manifested in her own musical language. Alison is currently a Carrefour Composer-In-Residence with the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada and is Ph.D. candidate in music composition at the University of Chicago. ZAFA COLLECTIVE Chicago-based new music ensemble Zafa Collective was founded in 2016 with the mission of performing works by underrepresented composers at its core. Zafa has been a Sponsored Artist of High Concept Labs, Ensemble-in-Residence at Northwestern and Roosevelt Universities, and after taking a pandemic hiatus, looks forward to premiering works by Liza Sobel, Rossa Crean, and Rebecca Bracewell in the 21/22 season. ADAM ZANOLINI Adam Zanolini is a multi-instrumentalist, ethnomusicologist, writer, and arts organizer based in Chicago. He received his PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2016. He is the Executive Director of Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago and former Associate Director of Arts for Art, presenter of the annual Vision Festival of avant-jazz in New York City. He is also co-founder of the Participatory Music Coalition and member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Adam serves on the Board of the Live the Spirit Residency, producer of the annual Englewood Jazz Festival, and also on the Board of the Milwaukee Avenue Alliance. Adam plays flute, double bass, saxophone and other instruments, performing regularly with PMC, the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, Sura Dupart’s Sidepocket Experience, with Angel Bat Dawid

a community musician: to cultivate and share knowledge through music in order to help heal, strengthen, and empower the Black community. TAALIB-DIN ZIYAD Taalib-Din Ziyad is a vocalist, flutist, composer, arranger, and instructor. Since his musical career began at an early age singing in his church choir, Taalib-Din has performed with many notable musicians such as Ari Brown, Phil Kelan Cohran, Ernest Kabeer Dawkins, Adegoke Steve Colson, Jodie Christian, Renée Baker, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians’ (AACM) Great Black Music Ensemble, and the AACM Experimental Ensemble. He has performed in Paris, France; Poznan, Poland; the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy; the Chicago Jazz Festival; the Frankfurt Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, Germany; and with the 3rd Army Soldier Show touring the United States. Taalib-Din is the former Vice President of the AACM. He performs as a flutist with the St. Xavier’s Flute Choir; as a vocalist and flutist with Renée Baker’s Chicago Modern Orchestra; and regularly with the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble. MISCHA ZUPKO Mischa Zupko’s works have been championed, commissioned, and premiered at the Grant Park Music Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, Civitas Ensemble, Fulcrum Point New Music Project (composer in residence 2010-2011), Eighth Blackbird and Lincoln Trio. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including those from the Fromm Foundation and the Barlow Endowment as well as first place in the Pacific Symphony Orchestra’s ‘AMERICAN COMPOSER’S COMPETITION’. Performances of Zupko’s works have been featured at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, and Ravinia and recordings are available on the Crystal Records, Innova, American Modern Recordings, ENF, and Cedille Records. Mr. Zupko is on the faculty at DePaul University School of Music.

and Gira Dahnee in addition to his own projects. His highest ambition is to be BIOGRAPHIES

189

SUPPORTERS New Music Chicago and Ear Taxi Festival are supported by a generous gift from Helen Zell, contributing partners DePaul Art Museum, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, WFMT, and StoryCorps, and grants from the Alice M. Ditson Fund, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, The CliffDwellers Arts Foundation, and Irving Harris Foundation. Additional funding and support are provided by:

EarTaxiFestival.com 190

@EarTaxiFestival

#HEARCHICAGO