In Wednesday’s (11/18) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein interviews the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new composers-in-residence, Samuel C. Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek, who are hosting and curating the CSO’s MusicNOW series this season. The CSO will premiere Ogonek’s commissioned work Lightenings in February; a new work by Adams is scheduled for 2016-17. “Adams, son of the eminent American composer John Adams and a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, has a master’s degree in composition from the Yale University School of Music” and currently resides in Chicago. Ogonek, a Minnesota native now living in Ohio, holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Southern California and is completing a doctorate at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama while serving as a visiting professor at Oberlin College Conservatory. Contemporary music “is in an extremely interesting position,” says Adams, “not only stylistically but also with regard to the various ways composers are redefining what it means to be a composer. What makes curating so exciting to (us) is figuring out how to corral this insane multiplicity of styles and disciplines.” Ogonek states that “the pluralism of contemporary music is something Sam and I fundamentally share as a guiding philosophy.”
Posted November 20, 2015
