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This past February, Stephen Alltop led the Northwestern University Symphony, the Alice Millar Chapel Choir, the Evanston Children’s Choir, and soloists in Terra Nostra – Our Earth – by the acclaimed Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop. This large-scale celebration of our planet, and the relationship between humankind and the natural world, uses poetry by Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Walt Whitman, and …
WFMT observes the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day with a fitting broadcast: Chicago composer Stacy Garrop’s oratorio Terra Nostra, which celebrates our planet and explores the relationship between humankind and the natural world.
This prismatic NPR Tiny Desk Concert will challenge your view of what making music means in the digital age.
As an outsized figure in literature and poetry, Poe has inspired composers like Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Philip Glass, and composer-conductor Leonard Slatkin, who set Poe’s “The Raven” to music in 1971.
A marathon 6-hour performance will be held in an unexpected (but increasingly familiar) place: Zoom! The video conferencing platform will provide the proscenium for a performance of Pauline Oliveros’ postmodern masterpiece ‘The Lunar Opera.’
While isolating ourselves in our homes, many of us have been keeping our social connections through technology. Though the deep need for this technology may feel new, the popular choral composer Eric Whitacre pioneered the concept of a “virtual choir” over a decade ago.
One of the world’s most popular contemporary classical music composers, whose works have featured in Hollywood films like The Shining and Shutter Island, has died.
The 35-minute program features an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, stitched together from more than 60 separate remote recordings of Civic musicians.
Wuorinen won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize in Music for ‘Time’s Encomium,’ a four-channel work for synthesized sound that became the first electronic composition to earn the honor.
From medieval times to modernity, women have made important contributions to all aspects of music, including as composers.
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) — Musician and composer Brett Dean has been hospitalized in Australia with the new coronavirus. British agent Intermusica says the violist and conductor is in isolation in an Adelaide hospital with the COVID-19 illness. He was to perform with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the Adelaide Festival on Saturday. Festival executive director Rob Brookman says Dean canceled …
The opera is a fictionalized account inspired by the theft of seven artworks from a museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
With all the incredible performances that happen every year around this city, it can be easy to forget: Chicago is a hub for new music. This year, one of the cornerstones of Chicago’s contemporary classical music scene — Frequency Festival — celebrates its fifth year in a week of new music concerts.
With a story that highlights how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go, Chicago Opera Theater presents the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride, which centers on a pivotal moment in the civil rights struggle.
The classical crossover has not always had the best reputation, but there’s no shortage of ambitious, energizing takes on genre-mixing. Composer and conductor Teddy Abrams, who collaborated with indie-rocker Jim James on a recent album, breaks down the perils and payoffs of the crossover.
The Chicago Sinfonietta’s longstanding mission of bringing communities and people together through the symphonic experience takes center stage with the Sinfonietta’s annual tribute concert to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Joker” composer Hildur Guðnadóttir made history by becoming the first woman in 19 years to win best original score at the Golden Globes. Guðnadóttir was the sole female nominee.
Composer and percussionist Glenn Kotche is a force in both the classical music and rock worlds: his energetic performance, rhythmic intelligence, and inventive style set him apart.
Classical music, jazz, Celtic folksongs, and funk — these genres make up just a few of the words in Wynton Marsalis’ musical language. Violinist Nicola Benedetti calls Marsalis’ new violin concerto a “path of discovery.”
Thompson’s 2015 piece brings to light an issue that hits close to home in Chicago and countrywide: the killing of unarmed African American men. Thompson parallels Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ; using the liturgy as a guide, he weaves a piece that prompts conversation about race and social injustice.
This is no laughing matter: “Joker” composer Hildur Guðnadóttir could be the first woman in 19 years to win the Golden Globe for best original score.
“It has been said that a society can be judged by the way it treats its animals,” composer David T. Little says in the program notes for his chamber opera, Dog Days. Based on a short story by Judy Budnitz, the opera is set in a war-torn future that’s not too far away from our own time.
Terence Andrus has been on death row since 2012. Through a penpal program, celebrated bass-baritone Ryan McKinny has become a friend and artistic collaborator.
Born in Damascus, Syria, clarinetist Kinan Azmeh’s home country has undergone years of political strife, violence, and a refugee crisis. Azmeh has looked to his own craft in order to draw attention to these ongoing struggles in the form of a concerto by Syrian composer Kareem Roustom.
“I would not consider myself a composer at all,” says Kian Soltani, shortly after playing a piece of music that he composed called Persian Fire Dance. “I’m really a cellist first and foremost, but I try to be creative also.”