“Contemporary music abounds in Chicago, thanks to hot spots at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and points between and beyond,” writes Howard Reich in Friday’s (2/15) Chicago Tribune. “Another promising series launched in January: On the third Thursday of every month but September … unfamiliar sounds will resonate in the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater. The venture is the work of New Music Chicago—a membership organization of musicians, students and advocates…. ‘The series is free to the public, and that says a lot about what we’re trying to do,’ explains flutist Jennie Oh Brown, a New Music Chicago member who will appear on the series April 18 with her chamber ensemble Picosa. ‘We’re trying to bring contemporary music to basically everybody.… Some [concerts] will be experimental, some amazingly lyrical and melodic and within an all-American tonal language.…’ All these thematic concerts are linked by an overriding theme: each features scores written since 2000 by composers who are still among us…. The concert at noon Feb. 21 … will be devoted to music of Chicago composer Marc Mellits, who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago and writes works that embrace populist idioms.”
Posted February 20, 2019
