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wandering | reminiscence

Saturday October 5, 2024 - 7:30pm
St James Cathedral

65 E Huron St | Chicago

www.chicagocomposersorchestra.org

PROGRAM

The 2024-2025 season is sponsored by the Katherine L. Griem and Anthony G. Montag Charitable Fund in memory of Anthony Montag.

 
1.

Marcus Norris

My Idols Are Dead (2018)

My idols are dead.
My choices were blind.
I’ve never heard God.
The voices were Mine.

– Marcus Norris

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2.

Leah Asher

Travelogue (2019)

Travelogue was written in celebration of the Great Learning Orchestra’s 20th anniversary. The creation of this piece was inspired by Cornelius Cardew’s monumental work, Treatise, and his accompanying research on graphic notation and improvisation. The title, Travelogue, is a reference from the Treatise Handbook, a collection of Cardew’s working notes and research, which has been a mainstay throughout my writing process. The ‘Working Notes’ section of the Handbook is a collection of diary-like entries in which Cardew processes his thoughts on Treatise: what it means, why he made it, how it could be interpreted. The question ‘what is Treatise?’ recurs throughout the text, seeming to torment Cardew - sometimes to the point of silliness “11th March 65 Treatise: What is it? Well, it’s a vertebrate...” and yet other times more sentimentally “a travelogue of the land of composition”. His struggle to understand his own creation results in notes that are conflicting, at times hypocritical. Through the thick of his stream-of-consciousness style of writing, my takeaway from his notes comes in the form of two main ideas:

- This is not free improvisation.

- If an interpretation is made in earnest, he cannot find fault in it.

 

These two points have been pillars in my own music and continue to inspire me to write in open notations that feel genuinely collaborative with performers.

 

There is another question from the Treatise Handbook that has driven my own explorations in graphic notation. He writes “Can I make empty symbols significant intuitively?” The magic and mystery of intuition is what keeps me returning to open scores and experiments in notation. With an understanding of intuition, a score that appears very indeterminate on the surface can in performance be quite determinate, consistent, and identifiable. 

 

At the end of the second movement, I make a direct reference to the 44th page of Treatise. In an 193-page score of mainly rigid graphics, suddenly the lines on page 44 appear wavy, as if drawn by hand. As someone who creates all of my scores by hand, I have always found the sense of human touch on this page to be captivating and inspiring.

- Leah Asher

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Brief Pause

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3.

Jonathan Hannau

3 Pieces for Orchestra (2024 - World Premiere)

Three Pieces for Orchestra consist of arrangements of my original piano music. Each movement focuses on the beauty of the earth, experienced from the perspective of  a lone traveler who is journeying in a world reclaimed by nature. It’s a call for caring for our planet and bringing awareness to the gross exploitation of and commodifying of our only livable habitat.

- Jonathan Hannau

4.

Oswald Huynh

Beauty despite daylight (2022)

 

​Like many people during the pandemic, I spent much of those years alone and isolated from my friends and family. Weekend outings with my family were replaced with online activities like playing Mario Kart with my sister and watching NBA games with my brother. Although these were things we had previously done together in person, there was a newfound significance that acted as a sort of therapy for me. In retrospect, these were the moments that prevented me from falling apart. Beauty despite daylight examines these themes of home and kinship, drawing from ru con—traditional Vietnamese lullabies—which acts as the foundation for this work. The untitled song I quote is interwoven throughout the entire piece, first fragmented into several motifs and then presented in its full form.

- Oswald Huynh

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About CCO

The Chicago Composers Orchestra presents music by living composers, extending the orchestral tradition to be open and vibrant, to speak to contemporary life and bring diverse people together.

We envision the orchestra as a powerful vehicle for contemporary music, filled with energy and purpose for composers, performers, listeners, and their communities.

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CHICAGO COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA

 

Conductor, Music Director

Allen Tinkham

 

Violin 1

Carmen Abelson* concertmaster

Laura Duggan

MK Guthrie

Izi Austin


Violin 2   

Noah Jenkins*

Yulia Price

Raquel Gonzalez

      

Viola

Traci Huff*

Christina Karakos

Raven Huang

    

Cello

Meghan Lyda*

David Sands

Bass

Bradley Modjeski

Flute

Lesley Swanson (piccolo)

Oboe

Becca Dora

  

Clarinet

Shaun Flynn

Bassoon

Randal Dennler

Horn

Mitchell Hansen

Trumpet

Hamed Barbarji

Trombone

Colin Marusek

Tuba

Castin York

Percussion

Adriana Harrison*

Cameron Marquez

 

Timpani

Socrates Hwang

Harp

Lauren Hayes

*denotes principal

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Support

Thanks to you, we are able to bring orchestral music by living composers to the Chicago community. The CCO is a non-profit 501(c)3 charitable organization. Support the CCO with a tax deductible on our website

$5,000+

The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE)

Illinois Arts Council Agency

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity

National Endowment for the Arts

New Music USA

The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation

 

$1,000-$4,999

Anonymous

The Amphion Foundation

Aaron Copland Fund for Music

The Alice M. Ditson Fund

The Katherine L. Griem and Anthony G. Montag Charitable Fund

Kathleen Guarna

Jayne Swanson

 

$500-$999

Brandon Harrington

 

$100-$499

Anonymous

Linda Berna

Linda Branscome and Mark Marotto

Geoffrey Fichtl

N. Alexandra Hannau

Kelsey Hanson

Grace Healy

Paul Johnson

Ken Leng

Paul Marusek

Caitlin Meeter

Bruce Oltman

Gerald Rizzer

Eva Sullivan and Layla Doss

Allen Tinkham

Becki and Debu Tripathy

 

$50-$99

Anonymous

Matthew Corso

Cameron and Jackson Craft

Richard Harrington

Christine and Glenn Hayes

Osnat Netzer

 

$1-$49

Anonymous

Seth Boustead

The Dillons

Dan Galat

Paul Giallorenzo

Emily Hartung

Ilya Levinson

Dr. James Orr

Rachel Pyle

Clayton Terrill

Trevor Thomas

Kelsey Wooley

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Board of Directors

Brandon Harrington, President

Kathleen Guarna, Secretary

Paul Johnson

David Keller

Caitlin Meeter

Staff

Lesley Swanson, Executive Director

Jonathan Hannau, Artistic Director

Allen Tinkham, Music Director

Artistic Fundraising Group, Development

 

Interested in sponsoring your favorite section, an upcoming concert, or CCO’s season? Contact development@chicagocomposersorchestra.org for details.

 

Contact

General: info@chicagocomposersorchestra.org

Giving: development@chicagocomposersorchestra.org

Interested in getting involved with CCO? We would love for you to join us whether as a composer, performer, volunteer or board member, you name it! Email us at info@chicagocomposersorchestra.org.

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Supporting Organizations

We thank these organizations for their generous support:

 

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