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.

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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.

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We are certainly not alone in our affection and admiration for composer Shulamit Ran, whose illustrious career includes a kind of unofficial deanship of the Chicago new-music community. Despite a Pulitzer Prize win and a list of commissions that reads like a who’s-who of the world’s top orchestras, Shulamit’s generosity as a collaborator – regardless of an ensemble’s age or station – is peerless. Every time we have the good fortune to work with her, we’re reminded of just how effortlessly she walks the line between rigor and encouragement. 

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One reason we are enamored with composer LJ White is that his Zin Zin Zin was one of our breakout new-music pieces, with this feverish, Mos Def-inspired number eventually included on our debut album, Chambers. Because of his borderless approach to music, LJ was our first choice when we got it in our collective head to commission a cover of perhaps the most notorious of all cult classics: The Shaggs’ 1969 head-spinner, My Pal Foot Foot. It’s music so seemingly disorganized that it reaches a new dimension entirely.

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We’re always out to make the unfamiliar more familiar, so we are pleased to invite saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón to our Once More, With Feeling! series at Constellation. We’ll be performing selected movements from Yo Soy La Tradición, which Miguel wrote for the five of us and premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz festival (the review was VERY favorable, and garnered a "Best of 2016" nod from the Chicago Tribune). Celebrating and reshaping the folk traditions of his native Puerto Rico, this piece is a captivating collection of heart-tugging melodies, spirited dances, deep grooves, and devilish virtuosity.

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The theatricality of Lisa Coons’s new work for us is as adventurous as anything we’ve attempted, and this evening offers a rare opportunity to witness creativity still very much in process–and even influence the final production.

PROGRAM
Lisa Coons – The Space Between

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Discover how a composer transfigures the extraordinary legacies of visionaries like Rosa Parks and Angela Davis into a string quartet with one of the most brilliant composer-performers who’s ever set our minds set ablaze–Wadada Leo Smith.

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PROGRAM
Wadada Leo Smith – String Quartet No. 9

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We peel back the curtains on our brand-new, multiple-listen, deep-dive series with one of our favorite tracks from the Spektral rep list, penned by a seriously engaging public speaker, composer Eliza Brown.

PROGRAM
Eliza Brown – String Quartet No. 1

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