Spektral Quartet’s final Chicago performance, celebrating its 12-year history with a party of epic proportions.
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As we approach the concluding months of our final season together, we welcome back three of our earliest collaborators – composer Eliza Brown and Scrag Mountain Music co-founders Mary Bonhag (soprano) and Evan Premo (composer, bass) – for a presentation of three enchanting works that trace the cyclic nature of existence…and the stories we tell in an attempt to find our bearing.
IN-PERSON TICKETS ARE SOLD-OUT
But you can REGISTER for the free livestream!
It might be said that we enter the planetarium for the same reason we enter the concert hall: to be brought in touch with the sublime and the unknown. In both places we make contact with tangible reality and imagined panoramas, and in both places our sense of perspective is expanded exponentially. Expect ENIGMA to do exactly that, and strap in for the marquee event of our 2019/20 season at Chicago’s stunning Adler Planetarium.
It might be said that we enter the planetarium for the same reason we enter the concert hall: to be brought in touch with the sublime and the unknown. In both places we make contact with tangible reality and imagined panoramas, and in both places our sense of perspective is expanded exponentially. Expect ENIGMA to do exactly that, and strap in for the marquee event of our 2019/20 season at Chicago’s stunning Adler Planetarium.
It might be said that we enter the planetarium for the same reason we enter the concert hall: to be brought in touch with the sublime and the unknown. In both places we make contact with tangible reality and imagined panoramas, and in both places our sense of perspective is expanded exponentially. Expect ENIGMA to do exactly that, and strap in for the marquee event of our 2019/20 season at Chicago’s stunning Adler Planetarium.
It might be said that we enter the planetarium for the same reason we enter the concert hall: to be brought in touch with the sublime and the unknown. In both places we make contact with tangible reality and imagined panoramas, and in both places our sense of perspective is expanded exponentially. Expect ENIGMA to do exactly that, and strap in for the marquee event of our 2019/20 season at Chicago’s stunning Adler Planetarium.
Chicago is lucky to call the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands one of its own, and we are tenacious in our admiration for his artistry and ingenuity. So when the Chicago Composers’ Consortium approached us about a celebration of – and tribute to – his music, we eagerly jumped on board. But the real coup is that the creatives behind C3 are writing us 9 brand-new works, all inspired by – or actively mining – elements of Bernard’s new quartet.
We fell for our recent commission from Samuel Adams…hard. It’s energizing and hypnotic and unexpected, and this February, we’re going to bring Sam up on stage with us and unearth what this phenomenal string quartet is all about.
Current is the result of a friendship that deepened during Sam’s tenure as composer-in-residence for our hometown band, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Perhaps the most unusual element of It is that it employs snare drums, but not in the way you might expect.
Buy Tickets for in-person show
Stream Live (donations encouraged)
For this episode of Once More, With Feeling!, we’ve invited the eminently charming Julliard professor and Ainsi la nuit specialist Kendall Briggs to lead our excavation of this extraordinary work. We’ll perform a substantial excerpt at the beginning of the show before inviting Professor Briggs to illuminate our way through the labyrinth. No previous knowledge of this piece, string quartets, or even western classical music is necessary.
Buy Tickets for in-person show
Stream Live (donations encouraged)
We’re back at the Chicago Humanities Festival for an unconventional, ecologically-driven collaboration with acclaimed scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer at Chicago’s historic Café Brauer!
A single piece of music comprises the performance: Plain, Air, composed by Guggenheim fellow Tonia Ko and commissioned by Chamber Music America for us. Created in partnership with Chicago-based land conservation organization Openlands, Plain, Air is both a celebration of – and meditation on – Chicago’s dynamic lakeshore ecology.
When considering possible collaborators for this Humanities Festival appearance, one name quickly surfaced at the top of our list. An enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and author of the New York Times best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer is celebrated internationally for her inviting and evocative perspective on humans’ reciprocal relationship with their environment.
In advance of our October 5th performance of Nathalie Joachim’s Fanm d’Ayiti at the Harris Theater, we are playing a mini-set with the composer herself as part of the phenomenal Chicago LIVE Again! festival at Navy Pier.
This event is FREE and open to the public
*Due to necessary precautions taken by the presenter regarding the COVID-19 virus, we are sorry to report that this concert has been cancelled*
It might be said that we enter the planetarium for the same reason we enter the concert hall: to be brought in touch with the sublime and the unknown. In both places we make contact with tangible reality and imagined panoramas, and in both places our sense of perspective is expanded exponentially. Expect ENIGMA to do exactly that, and strap in for the marquee event of our 2019/20 season at Chicago’s stunning Adler Planetarium.
*Due to necessary precautions taken by the presenter regarding the COVID-19 virus, we are sorry to report that this concert has been cancelled*
Chicago's newest ensemble of contemporary music specialists are lead by Jerry Hou in the premieres of works by guest composers Paula Matthusen and Stephen A. Taylor, along with a work by UChicago composer David Clay Mettens, and the 2019-20 Postdoctoral Researcher Ashkan Behzadi.
We’re hooked on composer Lisa R. Coons and choreographer/director Mark DeChiazza because they are risk-takers…but also because The Space Between is a collaboration three years in the making.
This project has us venturing into uncharted territory: a space in which not only our sound, but our bodies and voices interact. One in which we’re not confined by chairs or stands, and the edges of the stage are permeable. Moments of tenderness, solitude, conflict, virtuosity, and discovery abound in this theatrical work – and born from these physical gestures, the sonic landscape spans from the crunch of pure noise to the rapture of ethereal beauty.
The CCCC resident ensemble takes the stage for its first concert of the season, conducted by Michael Lewanski. The ensemble that "filled the evening with wonder and, at times, awe" (Third Coast Review) premieres four works by distinguished guest composer Tania León, Grossman Ensemble co-director Anthony Cheung, and UChicago composers Will Myers and Alison Yun-Fei Jiang. Guests are invited to an after-party with the artists.
At this year’s Chicago Humanities Festival, we’ll be bringing Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin on stage with an arrangement of the tv show’s theme music created by our good friends and collaborators Gene Knific and Joey Meland. Need we say more?
String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135 (1826) – Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 2 (1988-89) – Shulamit Ran
String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51 (1873) – Johannes Brahms
Franz Schubert’s “Rosamunde” Quartet is one of those masterworks we’ve been itching to perform for the first time in Spektral. A question put to us frequently is, “How do you go about finding your own musical voice with a piece that’s been performed and recorded thousands of times?” Well, friend, you’re about to find out…
Our open rehearsals intentionally bring you, the listener, into our early process with a piece both to pull the curtain back on how we assemble a challenging new score – but also to get your input into the musical decisions that await us. The only prerequisite for these informal, entertaining events is curiosity.
Refreshments will be served following the event.
This event is FREE and open to the public
We are very happy to be sharing a perennial Spektral favorite – Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ – with our friends and neighbors in Edgewater this April. This is a piece that, no matter one’s spiritual proclivities, offers an opportunity for contemplation and reflection – something we find to be in short supply these days.
This concert is FREE and open to the public
We’re popping up for FREE shows around our home base of Edgewater throughout the 2018/19 season, and on April 5th we’ll perform from a menu including Beethoven, Mozart, Elliott Carter and Hans Thomalla at Ellipsis Coffeehouse.
*Spektral Quartet is not liable for any extraordinary emails, inspired film scripts, or general flourishes of creativity during this hour.
This event is FREE and open to the public
Quartet Movement by composer Samuel Adams is a commission that we’ve had up on stage quite a bit in recent years…and now this alluring, episodic piece is growing! We can’t get enough of Sam the person or Sam the composer, so we’re eager to share the newly-written portion of this expanded work with you.
Our open rehearsals intentionally bring you, the listener, into our early process with a piece both to pull the curtain back on how we assemble a challenging new score – but also to get your input into the musical decisions that await us. The only prerequisite for these informal, entertaining events is curiosity.
Refreshments will be served following the event.
This event is FREE and open to the public
As part of our season-long In Spektral’s Neighborhood series – in which we offer free concerts in our home base of Edgewater to create a deeper sense of community – we are headed to three public schools over three days to pique the curiosity and creativity of young minds. We can’t wait to interact with the students of Helen Peirce International Studies ES, George B Swift Elementary, Stephen K Hayt Elementary, and Nicholas Senn High School…because post-performance reactions from these age groups is unfiltered and REAL.
Peek behind the curtain on our rehearsal process as we dig into and polish the first two movements of Arnold Schoenberg's pivotal String Quartet No. 2. This is really one of the most stunning pieces of music we've ever tackled, and for this Open Rehearsal, your questions and insights are at the heart of the event.
Never found your foothold into Schoenberg's music? Eager to learn more about this paradigm-shifting music? This is your event.
FREE and open to the public
We're looking forward to meeting the new batch of composers at UChicago this year, and we're diving right in with (post-Doc fellow) Aaron Helgeson's Brief Regards for Sometimes and Maria Kaoutzani's jaune doré.
This event is free and open to the public
*From the UChicago Music Dept. website:
The New Music Ensemble’s autumn concert celebrates the talented composers who have just joined our Department of Music: Postdoctoral Fellow Aaron Helgeson and graduate student composers Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, Maria Kaoutzani, Kevin Kay, and Ted Moore. Ensemble-in-Residence Spektral Quartet performs Helgeson’s 2006 string quartet Brief regards for sometimes and Artist-in-Residence Daniel Pesca presents his 2012 piano solo, Through glimpses of unknowing. Other NME musicians perform recent solo and chamber works by Jiang, Kaoutzani, Kay, and Moore.
A reception will follow.
In partnership with the Rebuild Foundation, we present the inaugural performance of our DOVETAIL SERIES with a concert featuring vocalist/spoken-word artist Maggie Brown at the dashing Stony Island Arts Bank. Conceived as an incubator for collaboration and exchange across Chicago’s geographic and cultural borders, the DOVETAIL SERIES pairs us with Rebuild-affiliated artist/musicians, each playing a solo set and then meeting in the middle for a devised or improvised middle set.
The culmination of four days of intensive rehearsal, coaching, and masterclasses, the final performance of the 2017 CMI is a celebration of dedicated work on pieces from the Romantic period. Offering pieces by Brahms, Dvorak, Borodin, Schumann, and Debussy, this concert will also feature CMI coaches the Spektral Quartet and pianist Daniel Pesca performing a movement from Brahms’s Piano Quintet Op. 34.
FREE and open to the public
There is perhaps no more revered American string quartet than the Guarneri, and we are delighted to welcome first violinist Arnold Steinhardt as the special guest artist for the 2017 CMI. For this unique discussion, Steinhardt opens up about the inner workings of his famed ensemble, touching on rehearsal techniques, touring, conflict resolution, and the curious life of a chamber musician.
FREE and open to the public
Guarneri Quartet 1st violinist Arnold Steinhardt is our special guest artist at this year's Chamber Music Intensive! Our ensembles have the privilege of performing for this world musician on the third day of the CMI, gaining access to some of the choicest knowledge in the chamber music world.
FREE and open to the public
Composer, broadcaster, and documentarian Gerard McBurney, whom Chicago Symphony patrons will remember as the creative director of the popular Beyond the Score series, delves deep into the Chamber Music Intensive’s theme of Romantic-era music in an engaging lecture/discussion. With us on hand to perform excerpts from Ravel’s iconic string quartet as a point of departure, McBurney offers a colorful contextualization of this essential period in music history.
FREE and open to the public
Summer is upon us, which means that one of Chicago's most-beloved concert series is here, too! Rush Hour Concerts has been a friend of Spektral since the beginning, and we've brought everything from Verdi to Reminick to this antidote to freeway gridlock. This year we arrive with the Chicago premiere of Gerard McBurney's String Quartet No. 1 "Hildegard Quartet," which features us playing three settings of antiphons by one of history's greatest persist-ors, Hildegard von Bingen. For it, we are also required to play wind chimes, tuned water glasses, and...wait for it...three "very sharp knives."
Might want to sit somewhere other than the first row for this one.
