Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition, 2018

October 1, 2018. CCCC.  It’s easy to remember and, if you’re interested in contemporary music, very much worth checking out.   CCCC stands for Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.  The recently established organization will present its inaugural season starting with a concert on October 13^th by Yarn/Wire performing music by the Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki, Enno Poppe, a German composer and conductor, and two young Chicagoans.   Like most of the season’s concerts it will take place at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th Street.

The UChicago has a long tradition of presenting new music, beginning with the Contemporary Chamber Players under Ralph Shapey in 1964 and continuing as Contempo in 2002 under Shulamit Ran and in 2015 under Marta Ptaszyńska.  CCCC is led by one of the most interesting contemporary American composers Augusta Read Thomas (here, for example, is her Angel Musings, performed by the Orion Ensemble, and here – Aureole, performed by the DePaul University Symphony, Cliff Colnot conducting). A key component of the Center’s performance series is the newly formed Grossman Ensemble which comprises 13 leading contemporary music specialists.  Even the selection of the instruments comprising the ensemble is unusual:  a flute,oboe, clarinet, saxophone, horn, two sets of percussion, harp, piano plus the Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet. The ensemble is co-directed by Ms. Thomas and two other young composers, Anthony Cheung, and Sam Pluta, both from the University’s Music department.

Over the course of the season, the Grossman Ensemble will participate in three performances at the Logan Center for the Arts, all with a focus on the process of creating new work. Eight rehearsals will lead up to each performance, enabling composers to write, workshop, and review new works in close collaboration with the ensemble. The public will be invited to attend an open rehearsal before each concert, allowing them unprecedented access to the creative process.  In this inaugural season, the Grossman ensemble will workshop and perform 12 world premieres by University of Chicago faculty, students, and guest composers in the concert season.

In addition to the Grossman Ensemble and Yarn/Wire, Tyshawn Sorey, a composer and performer working at the intersection of classical and jazz music, will play with his trio.  And on February 5^th of 2019 nine UChicago composers will have a unique occasion to be heard in a performance by the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony: all of them were asked to create new works to be premiered by this outstanding professional ensemble.

Seven more established composers (“established” being a relative term for a contemporary classical composer) have been commissioned to write new works.  They include Steve Lehman, who writes jazz and experimental music (his most recent album was called the #1 Jazz Album of the year by NPR Music and the Los Angeles Times); David Rakowski, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and recipient of many international prizes; Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, also a multiple prize-winner; composer and soprano Kate Soper, a Pulitzer Prize finalist whose works have been commissioned by many America orchestras; Chen Yi, known for blending Chinese and Western traditions in her music; and Shulamit Ran (here is her For an Actor: Monologue for Clarinet in a virtuosic performance by Alexander Fiterstein (Clarinet).

We strongly encourage our listeners to give this wonderful undertaking a try.