A recent article in The Guardian by music critic Alex Ross prompted a discussion between arts reporter Ben Schuman-Stoler and me in the Chicagoist HQ's Fine Arts Parlor (required for admittance: beret, loafers, air of condescension). The article's subject was why contemporary classical music is less popular than the contemporary works of other mediums, with Ross concluding that the culprit is classical music's "idolatrous relationship with the past." more ›

This weekend local music collective Anaphora will put on the Interdisciplinary Arts Festival, a series of concerts on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday featuring music, sound installations, and other works inspired by the Fluxus art movement (a full schedule can be found here). Fluxus pieces, which make up the bulk of the festival, are usually just one or two sentence directives that produce strange displays; for example, Fulcrum Point's concert last week contained a Fluxus work where a drummer played on the head of a helmet-wearing fellow musician. The resulting art is meant to be ridiculous and often laughter-provoking. more ›

Two new-music groups that normally perform chamber music programs that tend toward the avant garde and experimental are taking the edge off by going back in time this weekend, with concerts featuring music that's, relatively-speaking, downright ancient. more ›

Here at Chicagoist, our motto's always been "When it's right, it's right." This then raises the question: Why wait until the middle of the cold, dark night? That's the thinking of two Chicagoist faves, Anaphora and Third Coast Percussion, each of whom has scheduled some afternoon delight for this Sunday's day o' love. more ›

We'll plug pretty much anything either Anaphora or dal niente does, so when there's an Anaphora concert that features a world premiere by dal niente founder Kirsten Broberg, obviously we'll tell you to check it out. more ›

Innovative, thoughtful programming and unorthodox venues were hallmarks of Anaphora's inaugural season, and it looks like they'll be picking up where they left off with tomorrow night's opener of their Contemporary Series at the Jazz Showcase. The concert will highlight a recent contemporary music trend of incorporating jazz in more sophisticated ways. Many of the early attempts to combine the two genres treated jazz as a novelty - an orchestra playing swing eighth notes, say - but now the fusion is becoming more organic and less overt, due in large part to a shrinking music world that allows composers to be exposed to and influenced by a wider variety of sources. Augusta Reed Thomas, the former Chicago Symphony Orchestra Composer-in-Residence whose “D(i)agon(als)” for solo clarinet will be performed Tuesday, described this new approach:

It is clear, in all my works, that I have been listening to jazz for 30 years. I am not a composer who does empty-headed "cross-over" jazz pieces where the jazz bits make all the jazzer's blush with embarrassment.... rather, there is a deeply integrated and digested set of references and perfumes which can be sensed.

Local ensemble Anaphora has put together another can't-miss mix of new music by local and big name contemporary composers for the final concert of this season's Contemporary Series. more ›

We all know a marriage creates a single existence out of two individual lives, but composer Sarah Ritch and violinist Aurelien Pederzoli's wedding also created a music ensemble. Pederzoli's gift to his new bride was a concert of her works, and the subsequent collaboration between them and two others, Cory Tiffin and Lisa Dell, was so successful, they decided to run with it. more ›