Nicholas Phan and Eric Ferring, Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago’s artistic and executive directors, preview the 2023 Collaborative Works Festival: Song of Myself . Now in its twelfth season, the Collaborative Works Festival is Chicago’s premier showcase of art song and vocal chamber music. Taking inspiration from Walt Whitman’s opening inscription to his seminal work Leaves of Grass, the 2023 Festival theme will center around the question: what does it mean to sing of “One’s-self” in today’s America? In probing this question, CAIC’s season will examine the art of song as an expression of identity, using the medium to explore the complexity, multiplicity, and intersectionality of identity in America today. Learn more HERE.
The 2023 Collaborative Works Festival

Playlist
Baptiste Trotignon: Why
Florence Price: Because
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Baptiste Trotignon, piano
Claude Debussy: L’ombre des arbres from Ariettes oubliées
Nadia Boulanger: Cantique
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Myra Huang, piano
Ethel Smyth: On the Road
Eric Ferring, tenor
Madeline Slettedahl, piano
Nico Muhly: Impossible Things
Part III: “27 June, 1906, 2pm; Impossible Things”
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Colin Jacobsen, violin
The Knights
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
William Marshall Hutchinson: Dream Faces
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Kevin Cooper, guitar
Laureano Quant: Ahora hablo de gaitas
Laureano Quant, baritone
Donald Lee III, piano
Spiritual arr. Shawn E. Okpebholo: God is a God
Zoie Reams, mezzo-soprano
Shannon McGinnis, piano
Used with kind permission from Shawn E. Okpebholo
Spiritual arr. Patrick Dupré Quigley: Steal Away
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Baptiste Trotignon, piano