Inside the 'Dovetail Series': Oscar Brown, Jr.

So. We're launching a new series in partnership with Theaster Gates's Rebuild Foundation, titled The Dovetail Series, and our first collaboration is with vocalist/spoken-word artist Maggie Brown. The thing about Ms. Brown is that in addition to her own creative efforts, she has become a champion for the legacy of her father–the brilliant Chicago songwriter/poet/activist Oscar Brown, Jr. If this is a new name for you, you're not alone. Oscar Brown, Jr. was fiercely protective of his creative freedom and profoundly adverse to the commercialization of music, so despite having penned lyrics for the likes of Miles Davis and Max Roach, drawing Muhammed Ali to star in one of his theatrical productions on Broadway, running for a seat in the Illinois state legislature, and releasing a critically-acclaimed debut album–he passed away in 2005 with far less recognition than he deserved.

We thought we'd take a moment, as we gear up for our show with Maggie this Sunday (which you can attend for FREE if you RSVP here) by immersing you in her father's work, which will feature prominently during the performance. Collaborating with Maggie has been everything we'd hoped the Dovetail Series would be–inspirational, educational, thought-provoking, and fun (she will break into song and dance with little provocation in our meetings)–and we hope our fledgeling effort will help expose the brilliant songwriting and beautiful (and devastating) poetry of Oscar Brown, Jr. to a wider array of listeners. Dig in!

Oscar Brown Jr.'s brilliant debut album, 'Sin & Soul'

 

One of the first jazz records to engage with the Civil Rights movement: Max Roach's 'We Insist!' (with lyrics by Oscar Brown, Jr.)

 

A total stunner: Oscar Brown, Jr. on Def Poetry performing his 'I Apologize'

 

One of the most jaw-dropping stories from Oscar Brown, Jr.'s career: creating the show 'Opportunity Please Knock' for one of Chicago's most feared gangs, the Blackstone Rangers

 

And to bring it full-circle: a touching exchange between Maggie and Oscar as she honors her father's artistry

Spektral 2016/17 Season Photo Gallery!

We've had an incredible season–Grammys, Feldman, Rome, et al–and we thought we'd pull some photos off our glowing rectangles to share with you. 

For 2017/18, we're launching the ONCE MORE–WITH FEELING! series at Constellation, and we need your support to make it happen. For it, we'll fly in a composer, perform a piece from their catalog at least twice, and in the middle discuss what inspired its creation, and how it works. This series was born out of feedback from our audiences–that if only they could hear a new piece more than once, they'd be able to digest and appreciate it more–and this new series is our answer. We are seeking to raise $3,000 by the end of this week in order to fly Wadada Leo Smith, Eliza Brown, Lisa Coons, and LJ White to town next season. Thank you so much for considering a donation to get this project launched!

 

Chicago Tribune: Spektral throws a new-music disco party

Chicago Tribune: Spektral throws a new-music disco party

The Spektral Quartet likes to put on performances that are not so much concerts as high-energy thrill rides for musically inquisitive listeners. The operative question behind all of them is: What makes a contemporary classical string quartet contemporary? The answers are many and varied, designed to provoke as often as delight.

So it was over the weekend at Constellation, where the virtuosic Chicago foursome presented a program of new and cutting-edge contemporary pieces, including world premieres by Charlie Sdraulic and Andrew McManus. The club was packed with Spektral groupies who were given instruction in how to dance the hustle following the performance.

New York Classical Review: Spektral Quartet brings a strong, modernist wind from Chicago

“The Windy City is known for high buildings and broad shoulders, and there was plenty of altitude and attitude in Friday night’s program by the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.

…

That’s where the attitude comes in. Throughout the program’s intense hour and a quarter, the composers demanded, and the Spektral players delivered, a flurry of radical string-playing techniques that put a charge under every bar, whether the mood was whimsical or ferocious.

…

The boldest moments came in George Lewis’s String Quartet 1.5: Experiments in Living, which the Chicago-born trombonist, composer, Columbia University professor, and former MacArthur Fellow put his African-American cards on the table in service of “the volatility of memory, resistance and hope,” as he put it in a program note.

…

A quieter kind of “experiment” followed in Samuel Adams’s Quartet Movement for string quartet and three snare drums, composed last year amid the press of Adams’s duties as composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The drums lay on their sides on the stage and were activated electronically by small loudspeakers, producing a variety of ambient sounds—a surf-like throb, an undulating haze, an astringent hiss—for the piece’s six brief sections.

Each section began with the same down-up violin phrase, then went on to explore acoustical effects, such as notes going slowly in and out of unison to produce shimmering “beats,” and rhythmic suggestions, culminating in an active, finale-like closing section and a fadeout for the drums alone. The quartet brought the same fierce concentration and attention to detail to this gentle piece as it had to the dramatics of the Lewis work.

…

That set the stage for some serious fun in Anthony Cheung’s playfully-titled The Real Book of Fake Tunes, an allusion to the “fake books” and lead sheets that have been the jazz player’s friend for generations. The piece featured the talents of flutist Claire Chase–Brooklynite, new-music specialist, and the second MacArthur Fellow to appear on this program–who both inspired the piece and joined the quartet onstage Friday.

…

The image of three composers and five players taking a bow served to remind the onlooker that, ideally, new “classical” music is not just a matter of imaginatively realizing the composer’s intentions—although the Spektral Quartet and guest Chase certainly did that—but of being present at the creation, and a vital part of it.”

Read the entire article here

Spektral Quartet Raises Over $4,000 for GirlForward

We are pleased to announce that we raised $4,150 for GirlForward, a Chicago-based non-profit organization dedicated to creating and enhancing opportunities for refugee girls.

For our Chicago premiere of Morton Feldman’s Quartet No. 2 on March 11th, we issued a challenge to attendees: for any concertgoer who stayed with us for the entirety of the five-hour epic, a donation would be made in their name to GirlForward.

Generously funded by key supporters, board members, and audience members, the Feldman Forward initiative aimed to take advantage of the enhanced visibility surrounding our performance by adding this charitable dimension. GirlForward was selected as the beneficiary based on strong recommendations from the community, as well as the organization’s relatively small size and potential impact this gift could make.

Read more about this amazing organization on their website: https://www.girlforward.org/

 

 

Chicago Tribune: A quiet, 5-hour marathon scaled by Spektral Quartet at MCA

Chicago Tribune: A quiet, 5-hour marathon scaled by Spektral Quartet at MCA

The Everest of modern string quartets received its Chicago premiere at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday night, and Spektral Quartet gamely scaled it in a mere five hours and eight minutes.

What? That's surely a misprint.

Well, no. Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2 (1983) is the longest such piece in the active repertory. Its title page estimates duration to be between five and one-half and six and one-half hours. That is, of continuous music, without a break.

Chicago Classical Review: Spektral Quartet brings refined artistry, impressive stamina to Feldman work

Chicago Classical Review: Spektral Quartet brings refined artistry, impressive stamina to Feldman work

In their first complete performance of Feldman’s quartet, the Spektral members (violinists Clara Lyon and Maeve Feinberg, violist Doyle Armbrust and cellist Russell Rolen) brought tonal refinement, focused ensemble, and a terraced array of dynamics—consistently exploring the extreme degrees of pianissimo where most of the music lives.

Chicago Magazine: How Four Musicians Plan to Survive the Longest String Quartet Ever Written

Illustration: Ryan Snook

Illustration: Ryan Snook

Six hours onstage, with no intermission and rests barely long enough to sip water. Sounds more like Marina Abramović performance art than a chamber music concert. But that’s precisely what the daring local ensemble Spektral Quartet will undertake on March 11 at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago when the group performs Morton Feldman’s formidable String Quartet No. 2. Lasting somewhere between five and just over six hours, Feldman’s work is the longest in the canonical string quartet repertoire. Here, in anticipation of the performance, the four musicians detail their seven steps for survival.

Pig out

At about 4 p.m. on the day of the event, eat enough to last eight hours. Protein over carbs, which might make Feldman-induced serenity (he’s known for quiet pieces) tip over to food coma.

Read the whole article here

Feldman No. 2: Doing the Time Warp (Part III)

Feldman No. 2: Doing the Time Warp (Part III)

One of the more fascinating elements of Feldman’s second quartet is that of memory. Yes, it’s an absurdly long, absurdly quiet piece, but as untethered as that might sound, it’s the recurrence of material that keeps us mindful of something passing, rather than just existing. And just like memory, it is wholly unreliable. The material sounds familiar, but one tiny detail of it has been renovated.

It reminds me of one of my most indelible memories from childhood. As a family that didn’t really do vacations, visiting my grandparents in Indianapolis was borderline exotic. I can’t remember what I was performing last month, or what I’m supposed to pick up from Whole Foods on my way home today, but I can feel my 10-year-old self sitting atop scratchy astroturf on their back porch, underneath a garden table, eating my Nana’s liverwurst sandwiches and icebox cookies. This fort was killer. I had ultimate agency–no one bothered me under there and I could read until dusk–and when I was lucky, it would rain. I can still see the way the sunlight filtered through the undulating, emerald fiberglass canopy above. I can smell the funk of the liverwurst. I start salivating at the thought of the crunch of perfectly-browned cookies.

Chicago Reader: Spektral Quartet give the local premiere of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet no. 2, all six hours of it

Chicago Reader: Spektral Quartet give the local premiere of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet no. 2, all six hours of it

The music is exquisitely quiet, so while string players don’t have to exert great pressure on their instruments, they hold their bows for what must feel like an eternity during long tones, which are only occasionally interrupted by pizzicato plucks. With recently enlisted violinist Maeve Feinberg joining Doyle Armbrust, Russell Rolen, and Clara Lyon, Chicago’s Spektral Quartet will provide the long overdue local premiere of the quartet in conjunction with the current Merce Cunningham exhibition “Common Time” (Feldman was one of many brilliant 20th-century composers who collaborated with the choreographer).

Feldman No. 2: Doing the Time Warp (Part II)

Feldman No. 2: Doing the Time Warp (Part II)

"The sense of time distortion and suspension present in Feldman 2 for me recalls the timelessness of many sleepless nights spent in love with nighttime rambles, and the hidden things only those who stay awake will see and hear. There is a certain way in which a non-linear, conceptual piece like Feldman 2 requires a listener to accept, absorb, and re-assemble kaleidoscopic patterns in a way that is similar to the music you can hear if you listen closely to a forest at nighttime–something I did a lot of growing up and, as the chance has presented itself, over the years. Once your eyes and ears and brain quiet down and adjust to the soft darkness of a forest it’s music is rarely quiet, often loud, seldom stagnant, and moves in a shape-shifting activity all it’s own: to find music in this place is to create a structure out of the tones and rhythms of unpredictable winds and birds and stars and raindrops and insects and who knows what other manner of creatures.

Feldman No. 2: Doing the Time Warp (Part I)

Feldman No. 2: Doing the Time Warp (Part I)

"For me, this piece evokes a vivid childhood memory I have of being on a sailboat with my older brother. At one point during our sail, almost without warning, the wind dropped and a thick fog began to roll in. The sensation of watching this opaque wall of vapor approach and then completely engulf us gave me a strong feeling of inexorability and then almost total sensory deprivation. I found that in the total white-out my sense of hearing felt heightened, and yet, as we sat waiting for the fog to lift, without any concept of where we were or how fast we were moving, if at all, my sense of time became completely skewed. When the wall of fog began to dissipate and we were finally able to make out the distant outline of the coast, we found ourselves in a completely different place that we had expected and it felt that minutes or even hours could have passed.

Between Two Pianos: An Interview with Maeve Feinberg

Between Two Pianos: An Interview with Maeve Feinberg

This Friday, January 27th, marks the Chicago debut of our fantastic new violinist, Maeve Feinberg, and we thought you all might like to get a glimpse behind the scenes at what she's like...and why her personality is a perfect fit for our brand of skylarking. 

 

Doyle: So...Beethoven Op. 74, Ravel Quartet, and Dai Fujikura’s first quartet. We’re not exactly easing you into your first Chicago concert, are we?

Maeve: I want a raise.

DA: So this show is all about pieces that feature pizzicato. If you were going to get a finger tattoo, what would it look like?

MF: Well, they say you should never get tattoos on your hands but I’m thinking “FUJIKURA” across my knuckles would be suitable for this concert.

Serious Business Remixed (Part III): Bevin Kelley (aka Synopterus, aka Bevin Blectum) vs. Josef Haydn

The third in our lineup of Serious Business remixes is a real brain liquefier, and it comes by way of the one-and-only Bevin Kelley (aka Bevin Blectum)! 

It turns out that "The Joke" is far from a new one for Bevin, and she had this to say about creating the remix:

I remember playing this quartet, one semester when I was a violinist at Oberlin many years ago, and I still love the second movement especially! This remix was made in and out / back and forth between Ableton Live and ProTools softwares. It uses only the source material — the Spektral recording of the second movement. The source was fragmented, layered, effected and processed in various ways, fragmented again, and finally restructured and layered again, and played/recorded live in Live. It flows in a similar trajectory to the untouched Haydn, but renegotiates the experience of time, timbre and layer. It sometimes magnifies the microscopic, or extends a stay in the whirlpool of a sound, or smashes moments together while shifting character. It is computer/electronic music responding to the digital imprint of the acoustic moment. 

 

Chicago Tribune: Howard Reich's best jazz performances of 2016

(photo: Brian Jackson for Chicago Tribune)

(photo: Brian Jackson for Chicago Tribune)

Miguel Zenon and the Spektral Quartet at Logan Center, Sept. 24: 
The 10th Hyde Park Jazz Festival featured several memorable events, but one stood out: the world premiere of Zenon's "Yo Soy La Tradicion" ("I Am Tradition"), a tour de force of composition, performance and improvisation. Zenon's score was packed with remarkably complex string writing for Chicago's Spektral Quartet, the musicians finessing it all, while Zenon offered freewheeling phrasemaking one moment, carefully scored lines the next.

Read the full article here

- Howard Reich

 

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