The Chicago Composers Consortium returns to the Floating Lounge this February for a sneak peak at two new pieces written for us by composers Kathleen Cecilia Ginther and Timothy Dwight Edwards.
***PLEASE NOTE THIS DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED***
The Chicago Composers Consortium returns to the Floating Lounge this May for a sneak peak at two new pieces written for us by composers Kyong Mee Choi and Timothy Ernest Johnson.
With our appearance at Chicago Humanities Festival just around the corner, we wanted to give you the opportunity to spend more time with our one-of-a-kind composer, Tonia Ko, whose Plain, Air comprises the music for this event.
So what music moves a multi-dimensional creator like Tonia? You’ll have to RSVP to find out, but we’ll also be soliciting your questions and reactions as we progress through her playlist. It’s all streaming, so you are invited to engage as directly (you chat room ninja) or indirectly (sous vide-ing a Hot Pocket) as you like.
After eight long years, one of our favorite bands on the planet – Paper Mice – has a new album out! And they’re our special guests at the Floating Lounge! And we’re on the album!
Can you tell we’re just a little bit jazzed?
You know composer Dave Reminick from his brutal and hilarious Spektral commission, The Ancestral Mousetrap, but did you know he fronts one of the great post-everything, math-y, twitchy bands in the solar system? Together with incomparable drummer John Carroll and stupefying bassist Taylor Hales, these handsome ne’er-do-wells write some of the slappiest, killingest, and most sardonic tunes anyone has ever heard. If there was such a thing as something being devastatingly nerdy and piercingly cool…Paper Mice is that thing.
The Chicago Composers Consortium returns to the Floating Lounge this May for a sneak peak at two new pieces written for us by composers Elizabeth Start and Lawrence Axelrod.
You may recall that our concert featuring the premiere of Bernard Rands’ new string quartet – and the Consortium member’s miniatures that were written in response to it – was an early casualty of the pandemic. So it is with great pleasure that we offer you these interactive listening parties during which we’ll perform excerpts of each of these new works in pairs and get a chance to look inside them with the composers.
One of the great pleasures of the Floating Lounge series is inviting our über-talented colleagues to come share an evening of fantastic music with you, and on March 10th, Clara’s friend – and newest member of the storied St. Lawrence String Quartet – Owen Dalby is our special guest.
We are in awe of Miguel Zenón, and so we are over the moon to have him at the helm of the Floating Lounge this month. One thing we know for certain is that when Miguel listens to an album, he listens to that album. Like, he’ll breakdown the harmonies for you after just one pass and list moments of exceptional playing with disturbing accuracy. He also has a wide appetite for many flavors of music, so you can expect a multi-leg flight during this round-trip featuring Miguel’s favorites.
For this first Floating Lounge of 2021, we’re taking the wheel and steering you through the sights and sounds that we’re looking to for inspiration as we find our own voice in Debussy’s monumental String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10. We’ll share an exemplary recording or two of it, for sure, but perhaps more intriguingly, we’ll reveal less obvious sources of motivation that will inform our eventual interpretation.
A fellow Chicagoan we’d been admiring long before she ever wrote us a piece, Tomeka Reid is an unstoppable creative force…or as The New York Times put it, a “New Jazz Power Source.” Lucky for you, on December 16th, Tomeka hijacks the Spektral Zoom-waves and presents an evening of the music that inspires her.
As we begin this collaboration with Tarek Yamani, we wanted to invite you inside the process of how musicians from divergent backgrounds and musical practices immerse themselves in each others’ worlds to discover the collisions and parallels that will inspire their work together. For this second night, Tarek presents a playlist highlighting music in and around the Arab Peninsula, sharing music that both inspires him, and in some cases, provides elemental building blocks for his own, unique compositional voice.
As we begin our collaboration with Tarek Yamani, we wanted to invite you inside the process of how musicians from divergent backgrounds and musical practices immerse themselves in each others’ worlds to discover the collisions and parallels that will inspire their work together. For this first night, Spektral presents a playlist highlighting the string quartet pieces that light us up: original voices that exploit the combination of vin/vln/vla/vcl in the most imaginative ways.
Our new double-album, Experiments in Living, is finally here and it’s time to celebrate!
Sweet jumping Jehoshaphat do we have a treat for you. Soprano Lucy Shelton – one of the greatest living interpreters of Arnold Schoenberg’s ouvre – is joining us on The Floating Lounge!
Two of our heroes join us for celebration of the music of Anthony Cheung and the reveal of our new tracks of his quintet for flute and quartet: The Real Book of Fake Tunes.
Composer/ improvisor/sound-artist and Spektral main-squeeze Sam Pluta spins choice tracks for this interactive listening party – and we unveil his soon-to-be-released track on our album, Experiments in Living.
Experimental vocalist Charmaine Lee brings a stack of mind-altering tracks for us to listen to together – and illuminates the mysteries of improvisation
SUGGESTED DONATION: $10
Martha Horst and Laura Schwendinger from the Chicago Composer’s Consortium join us to pull back the curtain on two new works for Spektral, both inspired by the work of Chicago luminary Bernard Rands.
The illimitable George Lewis is joining us for this episode of the Floating Lounge listening party series!
SUGGESTED DONATION: $10
Get a sneak peak (listen?) at tracks still in the mixing phase from our upcoming double-album this summer featuring Johannes Brahms and Arnold Schoenberg – and get a load of why Johannes was Arnie’s favorite composer.
***Doors open at 7:20pm (Central)***
SUGGESTED DONATION: $10
Chicago is now home to a bold new record label – Sideband Records – and on Wednesday, April 29th, we invite you to join an interactive listening party celebrating Sideband’s captivating debut release, Hans Thomalla: Bagatellen / Air / Noema. This album, featuring our recording of Bagatellen, and Clara Lyon’s solo performance of Air marks a vital new touchstone in Chicago’s new music community and its visibility around the globe.
