Out of their place. Out of their depth. Out of their minds. Composer and researcher George Lewis has lost track of the times he’s heard those tropes lobbed, implicitly or explicitly, at Black composers of classical music. These artists, he argues, too often slip through the cracks in academic and cultural discourse: They’re shunted to […]
Tag: George Lewis
Posted inMusic
Boogie-woogie 2, pandemic 0
We won’t know the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for many years, not least because they haven’t stopped piling up. Bodily sickness, mental illness, financial loss—everyone seems to have been afflicted differently, and the effects on our medical, political, social, and economic systems compound those individual misfortunes. New variants, vaccine updates, and long COVID are […]
Posted inMusic
Nicole Mitchell and Fabio Paolizzo’s Medusae brokers a truce between man and machine
Flutist Nicole Mitchell and composer Fabio Paolizzo first performed together live in 2018, in a concert at the University of California, Irvine. More accurately, Mitchell played a duo set with VIVO (Video Interaction VST Orchestra), a machine-learning program engineered by Paolizzo, which recorded her flute and voice improvisations and generated real-time accompaniment through loops and […]
Posted inMusic
Finding ways to play through the pandemic
Chicago improvisers Tim Daisy and Matt Piet have responded to the challenges of COVID by learning new ways to record alone.
Posted inMusic
Spektral Quartet’s Experiments in Living upends the timeline to stake out a fresh vantage point
The through line of Spektral Quartet’s first studio release in four years, Experiments in Living, is that there is no through line—at least on the surface. The double album covers 150 years of history, from Brahms to living lions such as George Lewis, but rather than foist a chronological or thematic flow onto the recording, […]
Posted inMusic
Ensemble dal Niente braid together several Chicago-grown approaches to musical spontaneity
Update: This show has been canceled to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. Ensemble dal Niente commissions and selects new music that justifies the word “new” not just because it’s recently composed; it also challenges players and audience alike to experience performances in new ways. The ensemble’s […]
Posted inMusic
George Lewis is the guest of honor at this year’s Experimental Sound Studio Gala
Experimental Sound Studio has been assisting boundary-pushing artists since 1986. It provides studio services, opportunities to perform and show work, events that facilitate dialogues between artists and audiences, and archiving resources for avant-garde and exploratory music materials that might otherwise be lost. This year’s ESS gala fund-raiser has a twofold purpose: to help finance upgrades […]
Posted inBlogs
Tyshawn Sorey’s compositional imagination blossoms on his new trio album Verisimilitude
The musician recently started his assistant professorship at Wesleyan University, filling the chair previously occupied by Anthony Braxton.
Posted inMusic
On its new George Lewis portrait album, Chicago’s Ensemble dal Niente vividly illustrates the composer’s talks of an improvisational practice
George Lewis initially made his mark as one of the greatest trombonists in the history of jazz, but as he gravitated toward more compositional work, his use of improvisation grew more abstract and elemental. Now, he brings improvisation to the act of living itself, a notion he’s long espoused in his writings and talks. The […]
Posted inMusic
The Ear Taxi Festival tours Chicago’s rich contemporary classical scene
The Ear Taxi Festival presents more than 80 new works in its six-day tour of Chicago’s rich contemporary classical scene.
Posted inMusic
Anthony Cheung has turned foghorns and out-of-tune piano into a Guggenheim Fellowship
Award-winning composer Anthony Cheung presents a new viola concerto at this weekend’s Ear Taxi Festival.
Posted inMusic
How will ESS replace Lou Mallozzi?
Experimental Sound Studio cofounder and executive director Lou Mallozzi is stepping down—and the rest of the staff is stepping up.
Posted inBlogs
The daring debut album of AACM historian George Lewis gets reissued
Hear a track from his classic 1976 solo trombone album.
Posted inMusic
George Lewis presents his experimental AACM opera Afterword
Chicago native, trombonist, composer, and scholar George Lewis wrote the definitive book on the history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians with his 2008 masterpiece A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. He knows about that history firsthand, as he got involved with the influential south-side organization in […]
Posted inMusic
Your comprehensive guide to the 37th annual Chicago Jazz Festival
Previews of every act in Millennium Park and beyond, including Fred Hersch in his overdue festival debut and AACM cofounder Muhal Richard Abrams leading a historic reunion of the Experimental Band