The four-time Grammy Award-winning Eighth Blackbird’s Chicago Artists Workshop (CAW) live streamed performance series continues through June 30.All CAW events are hosted at the Eighth Blackbird production space located at 4045 N. Rockwell St. These live-streamed ticketed events also feature limited in-person seating. For more information visit www.eighthblackbird.org.
7 p.m., Thursday, June 17
Matthew Burtner composer portrait, with Jocelyn Zelasko, soprano
Matthew Burtner is an Alaskan-born composer, sound artist and eco-acoustician whose music and research explores embodiment, ecology, polytemporality and noise. Honors include First Prize Winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Czech Republic), a 2011 IDEA Award Winner, and a recipient of the Howard Brown Foundation Fellowship, Burtner’s music. His creative musical work is closely intertwined with the sciences, particularly environmental science and. He develops systems for human-computer-environment interaction featured in his music. He invented the NOMADS telematic system, the MICE human-computer ensemble and orchestra, the Metasaxophone augmented instrument, and a number of ecoacoustic approaches and is Director of the Alaskan-based environmental arts non-profit organization, EcoSono.
Detroit-based soprano, Jocelyn Zelasko, is the vocalist for Detroit's premiere ensemble, New Music Detroit, and a founding member of ensembles Juxtatonal and Whoopknox. Her career began in the classical realm, but a passion for making complex vocal music accessible to audiences led her to pursue new music. She has performed with the Grammy award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, Eastman Broadband Ensemble, and Matt Ulery Trio, among others. As an advocate for the creation of new works, Zelasko has commissioned 15 composers including Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, David Smooke, Marti Epstein, Daniel Felsenfeld and more. She also originated the title role of 100-year-old photographer, Pat Sturn, in the new mixed-media chamber opera, Pat & Emilia (Smallman/ Gervais/ Sievers-Hunt) which toured extensively in Canada and the Great Lakes region.
2 p.m., Saturday, June 26
Chaos Hands
Chaos Hands is a genre-bending, cross-media, improv trio comprised of Allison Wright (electronics, AU), Nicole Patrick (drums, USA) & Xuan (visuals, USA/DE). Their live performance is a mix of improvisation, through-composed material, and pre-recorded triggers. Everything created by Chaos Hands is based on pillars of trust, letting go and experimentation. All voices in the ensemble play and equal role in the development of the pieces. Each member lives in a separate continent, which means the material is passed from one to another as it is being developed. Our original compositions are heavily influenced by Berlin & Detroit Techno, drum and bass, Bjork, Jon Hopkins, Sophie, Arca, and Avant-Garde film.
7 p.m., Wednesday, June 30
Ayanna Woods
Woods is a composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist from Chicago. Her music explores the spaces between acoustic and electronic, traditional and esoteric, wildly improvisational and mathematically rigorous. Her pieces have been performed by the Wet Ink Ensemble, members of Fifth House Ensemble, the Chicago Children’s Choir, and others. Ayanna is a ravenous collaborator across genres. Her work as a writer, producer, and arranger can be found in film
scores for Manual Cinema, Revive LLC, and the viral web series “Brown Girls,” as well as in Jamila Woods’ release, “Heavn,” and Ayanna’s band “Yadda Yadda.” Woods earned her BA in music composition from Yale University and is a recipient of Third Coast Percussion's 2017 Emerging Composers Partnership, a 2017 3Arts Make A Wave grant, and a 2020 DCASE Individual Artist Program grant
Artists/dates/times are subject to change. For tickets or more information visit www.eighthblackbird.org.
Tickets
Eighth Blackbird’s Chicago Artists Workshop Series live streamed performances are staged at the Eighth Blackbird production facility located at 4045 N. Rockwell St. There is also limited in-person seating. Suggested ticket price per household is $20, but options include choosing a price as well as contributing as a supporter. All events include interviews and a Q&A with the artists. For tickets and more information visit https://www.eighthblackbird.org/product-category/caw-tickets/
About CAW
“Eighth Blackbird Presents: The Chicago Artists Workshop'' (CAW) live 2020-2021 concert series debuted in October 2020, and continues through June 2021 Artists/dates/times are subject to change. For tickets or more information visit eighthblackbird.org. CAW is made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
About Eighth Blackbird
Eighth Blackbird is “one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet” (Chicago Tribune). Launched in 1996 by six committed Oberlin Conservatory undergraduates, this Chicago-based super-group has earned its status as “a brand-name…defined by adventure, vibrancy and quality…” (Detroit Free Press).
Eighth Blackbird has since evolved from ensemble to institution, currently realizing its mission through five initiatives: Eighth Blackbird, the award-winning sextet; Blackbird IV, a piano/percussion duo featuring founding members Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall; the Blackbird Creative Lab, the organization's mentoring arm; Blackbird Productions, a designation for wide-ranging creative projects; and the Chicago Artists Workshop, a streaming platform created to support artists.
Recent achievements include a fourth GRAMMY Award, the inaugural Chamber Music America Visionary Award, an Ensemble of the Year Award from Musical America, and the prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. In 2017, the company launched the Blackbird Creative Lab, a tuition-free summer training program, alumni network, and career support platform for emerging professionals focused on cutting edge musicianship, dynamic performance aesthetic, and savvy entrepreneurship.
Set to celebrate its 25th Anniversary in 2021, Eighth Blackbird continues to fuel the modern canon it helped engine with hundreds of commissioned and premiered works by dozens of composers including Viet Cuong, Pamela Z, Bryce Dessner, Jennifer Higdon, Amy Beth Kirsten, David Lang, Andy Akiho, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, and Steve Reich, whose commissioned work, Double Sextet, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize (2009). A long-term relationship with Chicago’s Cedille Records has produced ten acclaimed recordings and four impressive GRAMMY Awards for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance. Eighth Blackbird's most recent album, “Singing in the Dead of Night” by Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Gordon, was released by Cedille in June 2020.
The group's latest venture is the inaugural 2020–2021 Chicago Artists Workshop series, a full season of 18 live-streamed concerts and events with a stellar lineup of featured artists as well as a residency program offering studio space and technical support to area artists. For more information about Eighth Blackbird visit eighthblackbird.org and visit them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter #eighthblackbird.