Thursday February 15th ~ Nois

~Nois is a Chicago-based saxophone quartet devoted to the performance of new music. Formed by graduate students at Northwestern University in 2016, ~Nois has quickly emerged as one of the premier young ensembles dedicated to contemporary performance. ~Nois was awarded the Silver Medal at the 2017 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and was previously awarded First Prize at the 2016 Chicago Woodwind Ensemble Competition.

 

~Nois was founded with the desire to push the boundaries of the saxophone quartet through collaborating with composers on new and experimental works for the medium. Past and present collaborators include José Arrellano, Mathew Arrellin, Julia Borrelli, Nicholas Cline, Darcy Copeland, Niki Harlafti, Joe Krycia, Craig Davis Pinson, Alec Sloane, and Phil Taylor, among others.

During the 2017-2018 concert season, ~Nois performed on the Frequency Series at Constellation in Chicago, a weekly music series that features new and experimental music, presenting world premieres and existing works written by Chicago-based composers.

 

In January 2018, ~Nois collaborated with conductor Chris Kaatz for a performance of Chen Yi's concerto for saxophone quartet and wind ensemble, Ba Yin: The Eight Sounds, and also appeared on the Irving Park Fine Arts Music Series. During the spring of 2018, ~Nois will embark on a tour throughout the Southeastern U.S. with appearances at Baldwin Wallace University, Lee University, and the Universities of Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In July 2018, ~Nois will appear as a featured artist at the 5th Annual Omaha Under the Radar Festival in Omaha Nebraska.

 

For more information please visit www.noissaxophone.com

 

Friday February 16th ~ Wurtz-Berger Duo

Alyson Berger is a native of Long Island and studied cello at Ithaca College and Wichita State University. After teaching/performing in New York, she relocated to Chicago and became an active freelancer and recitalist specializing in contemporary music. In 2012 she earned a fellowship to perform with the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, she is proud to be a founding member of Access Contemporary Music (acmusic.org) and its performing group Palomar, and has been featured on the Sunday Salon series at Chicago's Cultural Center, the PianoForte Salon Series and Live from Studio One on WFMT.

 

Amy Wurtz (composer and piano) studied Piano, Composition and Creative Writing at the University of Redlands and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she lived and worked for many years. After a year of intensive piano study in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she moved to Cologne, Germany where she produced and conducted performances of her composition Message from the Soul, a 70-minute work for chorus, chamber orchestra, soloists and speaker.  Amy currently resides in Chicago, where she composes, teaches and  performs throughout the city and surrounding area, is a board member of New Music Chicago, and performs with Calumet Chamber Musicians, Palomar, American Music Project, and as a soloist. www.amywurtz.com

Saturday February 17th ~ The Cosmic Milk w/Seth Boustead

Seth Boustead is a composer, the Executive Director of Access Contemporary Music and the host of Relevant Tones, the country's only weekly syndicated radio program dedicated to contemporary classical music.

Sunday February 18th ~ William Jason Raynovich

Involved in the performance and creation of contemporary music for twenty years, William Jason Raynovich has premiered over fifty works. Specializing in experimental contemporary music, he presents lectures on the performance practice of the composers of the New York School, John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff, focusing on the relationship between composition, aleatoric music, and improvisation. He has written works for electronics, solo works, chamber, orchestral, and vocal, focusing on setting the poetry of E. E. Cummings to music throughout his compositional career.

Thursday February 22nd ~ Calumet Chamber Musicians

John Wachala (flute) - The leader of the Calumet Chamber Musicians studied with esteemed English flutist William Bennett, and holds a Licentiate diploma (LRSM) from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, a master's in music from Roosevelt University, and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Purdue. He was for many years co-owner of Wachala Music in Hammond, and teaches flute privately and at Puzon's Music in Lansing, and is an adjunct faculty member at IU Northwest and Purdue University Calumet. He freelances with groups in the region, and recently appeared as one of four soloists with Valparaiso University's Bach Institute.

 

Amy Wurtz (composer and piano) studied Piano, Composition and Creative Writing at the University of Redlands and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she lived and worked for many years. After a year of intensive piano study in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she moved to Cologne, Germany where she produced and conducted performances of her composition Message from the Soul, a 70-minute work for chorus, chamber orchestra, soloists and speaker.  Amy currently resides in Chicago, where she composes, teaches and performs throughout the city and surrounding area, is a board member of New Music Chicago, and performs with Calumet Chamber Musicians, Palomar, American Music Project, and as a soloist. www.amywurtz.com

 

Friday February 23rd ~ Marie Alatalo and Garrett Mendelow

Marie Alatalo, pianist, has played new music internationally. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music and is on the faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago.

Garrett Mendelow is an up and coming percussionist from the United States. Though his interest in percussion extends to many different facets of the art, he dedicates much time to contemporary percussion performance practices and new music in both solo and chamber settings. Notable performances to date include a collaboration with SO Percussion as apart of the TROMP 2014 Percussion Festival, the North American Premier of Matthew Burtner's "Ecotones" at the Transplanted Roots Symposium in 2015 in Montreal, and several appearances throughout the
Pacific/Southeast Asia and Europe as a soloist and collaborator.

 

Saturday February 24th ~ Amos Gillespie Quartet and Gaudete Brass

 

Trevor Patrick Watkin is the Director of Operations for Access Contemporary Music in Chicago, IL, with 34 students in the areas of piano, voice, flute, and composition. He is a past recipient of the Joseph Jefferson Award for Original Incidental Music, a recent winner of the Houghton College Sacred Choral Music Competition, and a founding member of the Gillespie Quartet.

 

Dave Keller, an Iowa native, received early instruction in piano, cello, and guitar. After a music-filled upbringing he attended the University of Northern Iowa where he studied cello, composition, jazz, and music theory. As an Iowa cellist he performed with the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, the Oskaloosa Symphony, and the Cedar Rapids Symphony. David has been involved in many diverse musical endeavors in the Chicago music scene.

 

Richard Zili has performed extensively as a freelance clarinetist in Chicago and beyond. Comfortable in a variety of styles, Richard has played with symphony orchestras, new music chamber ensembles, jazz combos, and even rock and hip hop groups. He's established himself as an accomplished orchestral musician, working with Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra, American Wind Symphony Orchestra, Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Lake Shore Symphony Orchestra, and Lakeview Orchestra.

Amos Gillespie's music has been heard on WFMT in Chicago, WQXR in New York City and PBS. His music spans a wide range of genres including chamber and orchestra concert music, jazz, as well as music for film, theater and dance. Amos has received special recognition and finalist awards from ASCAP, League of Composers (ISCM), American Prize, the Macarthur Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council among others.

 

Charles Russell Roberts is a Chicago-based trumpet player with the Gaudete Brass Quintet and Civic Orchestra of Chicago, regularly appears with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest, and has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

Originally from Culpeper, VA, Philip Kassel is a member of Gaudete Brass and is the Associate Principal Horn of the Boise Philharmonic. During his first season with the Philharmonic, he was the featured horn soloist in their performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Winds. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Serenata Chamber Orchestra and, in 2015, will again perform as a soloist with the Boise Philharmonic in two performances of Robert Schumann's Konzertstuck for Four Horns and Orchestra.

 

Bill Baxtresser is a Chicago based soloist and chamber musician who performs for both contemporary and classical trumpet audiences around the country. Having been honored as the Detroit's Artist of the Year from Tuesday's Musicale in 2013, Bill has captured the interest of a wide variety of musical organizations across the United States.

 

Scott Tegge is the tubist in the Gaudete Brass, and works to create performance opportunities for the group. A Chicago native, Scott received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music in Tuba Performance. He continued his studies and received his Master's degree from University of Miami and Professional Diploma in Orchestral Studies from Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts.

 

Paul Von Hoff is a trombonist and chamber music specialist who performs extensively on both historic and modern trombones. Paul is a founding member of the Gaudete Brass Quintet, where he is responsible for much of the planning and organization of long term artistic and programing goals for the group. Paul is also a founding member of Rook, a chamber ensemble dedicated to performing the music of the 16th and 17th centuries, where he plays baroque alto, tenor and bass trombones (sackbuts) and Renaissance slide trumpet.

Sunday February 25th ~ Shi-An (Andy) Costello, Ian Le and Kyra Saltman

Ian Le received a Masters in Piano Performance from the Bienen School of Music in 2007, studying with Ursula Oppens. He later received a PhD in mathematics at Northwestern University in 2013, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Perimeter Institute. He plays chamber music whenever he can, and also enjoys playing piano in large ensembles, like the Chicago Composers Orchestra and the Northshore Concert Band.

 

Kyra Saltman has toured the United States extensively as a member of the Petar Jankovic Ensemble. She was the principal cellist of the Chicago Composer's Orchestra for five seasons, and was the onstage cellist for Steppenwolf Theatre Company's production of East and Eden.

 

Others have described Shi-An Costello (世 安) as "a tour de force... a thoughtful and adventurous artist" (Boston Musical Intelligencer), "a precise, engaged, welcoming performer unafraid of deep ambiguities" (Chicago Reader), and "completely unique to the Montréal scene and perhaps the world over" (Innovations en Concert). In addition to a 5-year career as a musician, Shi-An also performs as an actor, with TUTA Theater group, The LivingRoom, Northbrook Theatre for Young Audiences, and various independent shows, at venues such as Victory Gardens, Stage 773, and the Chicago Cultural Center. As a writer, Shi-An has contributed articles to FOCI Arts, chicshifter, Riksha, Performance Response Journal, NewMusicBox, Cacophony Magazine, and a soon-to-be released anthology, Art Matters. Shi-An holds a Bachelor's degree from Columbia College magna cum laude, and an M.Mus from Schulich School of Music at McGill University, and is also trained in Meisner technique and Viewpoints at Chicago Black Box acting studio.

 

Eric Hollander is a multidisciplinary artist in search of mind-opening concepts and better methods for the globalization of original ideas. With extensive exposure in classical viola repertoire (especially focused on 20th and 21st century performance practice), traditional Irish and Celtic music, big band jazz, ska, funk, and free improvisation, Eric has found his way into a wide variety of ensemble, composer-collaborative, and creatively driven experiences. He has also released a vast number of commissioned poetry and semiotic scores to performers in America and Europe. His most prized accomplishments include the co-founding of the UB project [an initiative to help impoverished orphans in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia], The Founding of the Haiga Chamber Music Ensemble, Duo, and concert series, and his recent work with the 100 Ducks