Category Archives: Concerts

Friday, February 21 at 7:30 in Ganz Hall, we will present our annual concert of electro-acoustic music.  Noted local composer Sam Pluta will be our guest for this program, His works Triptych for EF and Points Against Fields for bassoon and electronics will be featured. Also on the program include Unfolding for flute and electronics by Tim Edwards, Steel Plan for lead steel pan, vibraphone and electronics by Tim Johnson, Vanished for harp and electronics by Kyong Mee Choi and Whispers and Secrets, an installation piece by Beth Bradfish. Performers for this program include Ben Roidl-Ward, bassoon, Ben Melsky, harp and Lisa Goethe-McGinn, flute.

Also on the concert will be a work by the winner of this year’s call for scores, Panayiotis Kokoras, and our runner-up John Gibson, chosen from among 59 entries from all over the world.

Please join us for this celebration of one of the cutting edges of new music!

October 6 was a banner day for the Chicago Composers’ Consortium – we celebrated our 30th anniversary at the Experimental Sound Studio. For any organization, this is a remarkable amount of time. For a small self-administered not-for-profit group, it is a minor miracle.

Beth Bradfish and KC Ginther took the lead in organizing the event, assuring that good food (from the Middle Eastern Bakery in Andersonville), lovely silent auction art works and scheduling all went smoothly. Kyong Mee Choi, Martha Horst and Laura Schwendinger used their considerable charm in engaging our attendees, making sure the food and wine remained properly displayed and directing our attendees to the performing space. Tim Edwards provided important audiovisual `support of C3 history. Larry Axelrod, Tim Johnson and Betsy Start, along with former member Sebastian Huydts and flutist and dear longtime supporter and friend Caroline Pittman were the performers.

We also took this important marker to honor one of Chicago’s most fervent supporters of new music – Jane Heron. Jane’s role in creating New Music Chicago, her support of us and many of other new music groups, and her sane, solid advice have been fixtures for many years. We were delighted to share our celebration of good fortune with her.

It was a lovely afternoon, so our audience friends were able to enjoy the garden space. To our delight, most people decided to spend several hours with us, enjoying good food, conversation and music. The warmth and good will of the event were readily apparent to everyone.

Here’s to the beginning of our next decade of bringing the newest music to Chicago!

Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola

Chicago Composers Consortium Season Finale with the Nois Saxophone Quartet!

Painting by Cassandra Kaczor
Portrait of Seth Pae Playing His Viola (2016)
Acrylic on Canvas

The Chicago Composers’ Consortium has once again brought together a fascinating group of pieces exploring both electronic and acoustic media including works by three guest composers to keep your eye on, as well as several established Chicago composers. On April 5, Experimental Sound Studio will be the setting for the event including works featuring a variety of instrumentalists performing on bass clarinet, viola, piano, violin, spoken word and French horn, and with an emphasis on electronic interaction.

Themes of travel, motion, dreams, surrealism and introspection pervade these highly individual and personal musical expressions. Guggenheim-winning composer Kyong Mee Choi will include her acousmatic piece Trains of Thought, “based on the experience of sitting on a train and having various thoughts evoked by the sounds of the environment.” Based on a short story, Cassandra Kaczor’s piece secondhand smoke for amplified viola is also a technical study. The theme of introspection continues with the sonically rich electro-acoustic autobiographical piece about a trip to Japan, Journey/Dream by Lawrence Axelrod. Keith Kusterer’s newest premiere will exhibit the most masterful fusion of dramatic and compositional elements in a duet performance for pianist Shi An Costello and electronics. The composer writes “for measure is a surrealist work performed by two very close friends. The live performance is layered with pre-recorded sonic events that are designed to pair with real-time elements of theater, interactive movement and musical gesture.” Jeff Schaller’s piece for solo violin is inspired by soundscape work and virtuosic performance experienced in Italy.

While at ESS, you’ll want to experience The Sound Art Chair, a sound installation by Beth Bradfish in collaboration with Celia Grainer, inspired by her synesthetic response to paintings by Anna Kunz. The project was supported by a grant from DCASE. It is the third sound sculpture object in the series “Home Sounds.”

Experimental Sound Studio

5925 N Ravenswood Ave., Chicago

7:30 pm April 5, 2019

Tickets $20/$5 at the door

C3 presents a concert of chamber works at Guarneri Hall in downtown Chicago as part of the second annual Impromptu Fest created by New Music Chicago. Concert to include works by Betsy Start, Larry Axelrod, Tim Johnson, Tim Edwards, KC Ginther and Kyong Mee Choi.

Concert is March 28, 7:30PM.

Guarneri Hall
11 East Adams Street · Suite 350A
Chicago, Illinois 60603
847.780.6720

https://guarnerihall.org/

For more info see:

https://www.newmusicchicago.org/impromptufest/