Katinka Kleijn and Lia Kohl play with 30 cellos in a swimming pool, the rejuvenated Skin Graft Records drops a Chicago vs. New York compilation, and more.
Tag: International Contemporary Ensemble
Posted inMusic
Different avant-garde disciplines vibrate sympathetically at the Frequency Festival
When former Reader staff writer Peter Margasak began programming the Frequency Series in 2013, he envisioned concerts that would expose audiences of different avant-garde musical disciplines to artists from other genres that they had not heard before but might well appreciate. Margasak left the Reader and Chicago in order to move to Rome in 2018, […]
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
Jim Dorling of the Pillowhammer on a kinder, gentler sort of earworm
Current musical obsessions of the Reader’s Peter Margasak, the Pillowhammer’s Jim Dorling, and the Father Costume’s Sam Wagster
Posted inBlogs
Peter Margasak’s favorite albums of 2015, numbers 10 through 1
Veteran Reader critic Peter Margasak finishes counting down his 40 favorite records of the year—the top ten include Henry Threadgill, Joanna Newsom, and Yarn/Wire.
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
Alvin Lucier is sitting in a room (at the MCA)
Composer Alvin Lucier comes to Chicago for a three-day retrospective.
Posted inBlogs
Peter Evans and Cory Smythe promise to take early jazz into the stratosphere
The latest concert from International Contemporary Ensemble is all about improvisation.
Posted inBlogs
Best shows to see: Deafheaven, the Fresh & Onlys, Steve Kuhn, and the music of Edgard Varese
Between now and Sunday, your live-music options include Deafheaven, the Fresh & Onlys, Steve Kuhn, ICE performing Edgard Varese, and Nosaj Thing.
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best Forward-Looking New-Music Group
In February it presented the Chicago debut of the Georg Friedrich Haas masterpiece In Vain—probably my most powerful concertgoing experience of 2013.
Posted inBlogs
The music of David Lang in Chicago
International Contemporary Ensemble gives the world premiere of David Lang’s new The Whisper Opera this week.
Posted inBlogs
The weekend’s best shows include Matmos and Horse Lords, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and Kris Davis
A selection of shows to see from our Soundboard calendar.
Posted inMusic
Virtuosity without borders
Carla Kihlstedt combines avant-garde pop, contemporary classical, and dreams.
Posted inMusic
Carla Kihlstedt’s At Night We Walk in Circles and Are Consumed by Fire
This is video of all nine movements from last month’s premiere at the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City.