Aperiodic Credit: Courtesy the Artist

Local new-music group Aperiodic recently released its second album, For Aperiodic (Focus). The record’s four pieces, composed respectively by Billie Howard, Michael Pisaro, and ensemble members Kenn Kumpf and Nomi Epstein, showcase Aperiodic’s rigorous execution of scores whose parameters include indeterminacy. In its tenth year, the group will carry on this practice through direct collaboration with three composers: Peter Ablinger, Annea Lockwood, and Renée Baker. The first of the three, the Austrian-born Ablinger, has used a myriad of means to court a particular end—getting people to doubt what their ears tell them. He’s the artist in residence at the nine-day Gray Sound series, an experimental music and sound event sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Gray Center Lab. The residency’s final concert is Aperiodic’s performance of Ablinger’s site-specific 3 Orte / 3 Places Chicago (2001/2020). The composition begins with the selection of three spaces within walking distance of one another. Each space is measured acoustically, resulting in microtonal scales that the ensemble articulates in long tones that reflect the spaces’ dimensions. The musicians will perform the first part of the piece in the Logan Center’s great hall, then walk together with the audience to two other places in the building, where the process of illustrative performance will be repeated—ultimately yielding sonic portraits of all three locations.   v