In 2016, “The inaugural Ear Taxi Festival, a massive undertaking curated by composer Augusta Read Thomas and Fulcrum Point New Music Project founder Stephen Burns, tapped hundreds of area artists and ensembles—from heavy-hitters like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to lither upstarts—to perform music, much of it brand-new, by local composers,” writes Hannah Edgar in Tuesday’s (7/20) Chicago Tribune. “Its 2020 iteration was deferred. But fear not: Ear Taxi is whizzing across the city again from Sept. 15 through Oct. 4…. Its theme, ‘Hear Chicago,’ exhorts audiences to explore their city through myriad sounds, and, in executive and artistic director Jennie Oh Brown’s words, ‘break down silos’ of genre…. This year’s festival [encompasses] 600 artists, 36 world premieres, and more than 20 venues…. Most of its hundred or so events will be completely free…. Composer, performer, and scholar George Lewis returns to Ear Taxi with a keynote talk, incisively titled ‘New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps.’ … An entire day devoted to professional development workshops … and program book essays—on topics like COVID-19’s impact on Chicago artists and the history of Black music in Chicago, from Sun Ra to the present—bolster the festival’s philosophy of thinking out loud.”
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