For three years a young man by the name of Walter Maas was hidden in the eaves of this house in Biltholm, Holland by a brave family during World War II.  Maas, who was twenty-three when he went into hiding, was a Jewish refugee from Germany lucky enough to have family friends willing to safeguard him.

After the war was over and he was able to come out of hiding he, overcome with gratitude to the family and the Dutch people generally, started the Gaudeamus Festival in the same house to promote the music of young Dutch composers.  Today, nearly seventy-five years later the Gaudeamus Festival is going strong and has expanded into an international powerhouse.

It’s an inspiring story and I think especially poignant for the Americans who are here. We are one of the few countries on the planet never to have experienced a foreign invasion. For us the world wars are remote affairs seen on television or quickly brought to heel by John Wayne but, in Europe, even today, the reminders are everywhere.

As the Dutch scholar Erasmus has said, “war is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.”  Well maybe delightful is a bit of a strong word in this case but, as the U.S. and other countries continue to beat the nationalistic drum, it makes me nervous.  Nationalism is the first step toward identifying the “other” which is a slippery slope of mistrust that leads to misunderstandings, dehumanization and ultimately to war.

I was so moved by the story of Gaudeamus’ beginning.  Imagine if that family had not had the courage to take in Maas?  We would have lost an international music festival of great renown but, more importantly, we would have lost a human life.  Kudos to that family for recognizing a fellow human and for having the bravery and compassion to do the right thing.

Gaudeamus is Latin for “let’s be merry.”  It’s amazing to me that, after a three-year ordeal of constant fear and privation, Maas not only had the energy to start a festival but also gave it such an optimistic name.  Let’s be merry indeed, and recognize the humanity in all of us.

Ten years ago I was in a hell of my own making. I was in the middle of Eastern Expressions, ACM’s first large-scale project and I was in so far over my head it wasn’t funny. I had the idea to commission a composer in a different country from us and ask him to write a piece and email it to us in short installments as he composed it. We’d meet and read and record each installment and post it to our website for him. When the project was finished we’d bring him to Chicago and give the world premiere performance. It was, as they say, a simple plan.

I chose a wonderful composer in China named Xiaogang Ye and he agreed to this unorthodox style of working and we were off. As it turned out we were starting this project just as Yo-Yo Ma was announcing a huge initiative called Silkroad Chicago and we were able to become part of that larger project. Then I asked my filmmaker colleague Dave Less to film the rehearsals for what I thought would be just website posts.

But then Dave and I got a wonderful interview with Henry Fogel, the former head of the Chicago Symphony and he went on a diatribe about how classical music had created most of its own problems. It was killer stuff and we decided we had a documentary film on our hands. Then I managed to talk Boeing into funding us and they vouched for us with United and before I knew it Dave and I were filming in Beijing.

You can see where this is going. The project kept scaling upward until it was practically out of control. Every bit seemed manageable on its own but I was too inexperienced to see how, in the aggregate, it was a disaster waiting to happen. By the time of the final concert on September 10, 2006 (a date etched into my mind) I was wildly overcommitted and we were thousands of dollars over budget.

I managed to raise the money and solve the logistics challenges (I had to break down and call my mom who rented a van and helped me pick up our musical guests flying in to two airports from six different cities) and we got through it but in many ways it was a harrowing experience.

Looking back now I realize that I put myself through that at the time partly because I was inexperienced and didn’t know better but mostly because I was impatient. I wanted ACM to be a large organization RIGHT NOW and thought this project was a kind of magic bullet that would make that happen.

And the project was a huge success but what I didn’t know then was that you have to have the infrastructure to handle big projects. There are no magic bullets and, as I’m sure most arts leaders will agree, calling your mom is not a sustainable option.

By the way, if you’re curious to see that interview with Henry, it’s here.

Originally ran in Newcity Magazine on July 29, 2016

I’ve always thought of myself as more or less a model citizen although, of course there have been exceptions. I’ve stolen towels from hotel rooms, jumped a turnstile here and there and, like anyone else, I keep drink cups from Panera and then carry them around with me in my backpack so I can refill my iced tea later at other locations without paying again. But overall I’m generally on the straight and narrow path. Until last week.

My wife and I were in a restaurant with a cash-only policy. I didn’t know it was a cash-only restaurant when we entered and in fact I would never have entered had I known ahead of time that they had this policy because I’m against it. I mean come on, it was a long road from bartering to credit cards, and I was thinking that the next logical step was something cool like paying with a retinal scan or those credit chips they had in Buck Rogers, something like that—not going back to carrying large sums of cash on our persons.

So I was annoyed as I shuffled over to the ATM to obediently pay the fee for foolishly having chosen this restaurant. I was about halfway there when I looked around at the crowded room, did some quick calculations and thought, shit, they must have twenty-thousand in cash here at the end of the night.  At least.

I stopped in my tracks, my eyes narrowed, my posture slumped a bit and I started rubbing my suddenly clammy hands together and accidentally said out loud in a voice no longer mine “That’s quite a haul.” It occurred to me that, this being America, I could probably go back to my table, order a gun with my phone, have it delivered, pay for it in cash and knock the place over and be on my merry way in a half hour.

But of course that’s not how it works is it? I’ve seen “Pulp Fiction,” after all. Plus my mother was always fond of saying, “Don’t knock over restaurants!” So I got my cash, returned to the table, paid for the meal and ended my criminal career before it began. But, I do have to say, it would be criminal of you to miss these live music events this month.

“Cosmic Garden in Bloom”

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation in Scotland is, as a garden should be, inspired by modern notions of cosmology. It’s not plant-heavy but is instead filled with sculptures and landscaping meant to conjure up images of cosmic wonders like black holes and fractals among other things. As you would expect, everything in the garden is also mathematically placed according to some algorithm that folks like you and I could not possibly understand.

I bring this up because it’s the inspiration for Michael Gandolfi’s “Cosmic Garden in Bloom,” a large-scale orchestral work that will have its world premiere at the Grant Park Music Festival the first weekend in August. Gandolfi is a wonderful composer, it’s a fascinating concept and this should not be missed for any reason. The great C Minor Mass of Mozart, who was no slouch himself, rounds it out.
August 5, 6:30pm and August 6, 7:30pm at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 55 North Michigan, $25-$89.

Bitchin Bajas & Friends Play Terry Riley
For the sixth year in a row the Bitchin Bajas invite special guests to join them for a performance of Terry Riley’s seminal work, “In C.” If you caught their performance last year at Pitchfork, you know they’re masters of drones and immersive, synthesized ambient sounds, which is to say that they’re the aesthetic grandchildren of Riley in more than one way. This performance also includes video.
August 7, 8:30pm at Constellation 3111 North Western, $5.

Chicago Composers Orchestra Club Night
An invention of Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of the famous Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev), club nights feature performances by DJs interspersed with sets by live, generally acoustic classical ensembles. They’ve been a big hit in London where Prokofiev resides, and the CCO has had great success with the concept in Chicago as well. This club night also serves as a preview of their upcoming concert season.
August 14, 8:30pm at Constellation, 3111 North Western, $10.

Here and Now II

The penultimate concert of the summer Rush Hour series features Fulcrum Point New Music Project in works by Chicago composer Mischa Zupko and Ensemble Dal Niente performing music by AACM composer George Lewis. Both composers have a hard-edged sensibility so this concert will not be easy listening by any means, but they’re both thoughtful artists with something to say and the adventurous listener will be rewarded.
August 23, 5:00pm at St. James Cathedral, 65 East Huron, free.

Originally ran in Newcity Magazine on July 16, 2016

Over the years there have been numerous rockers who have gotten interested in classical music and become composers.  Unquestionably the most successful of these was Frank Zappa, but he’s kind of a strange example because he was into avant-garde music early on.  In fact, there’s a famous story that for his fifteenth birthday he rejected all gifts in lieu of a long distance call to New York to talk to Musique Concrète composer Edgard Varèse. Sadly Varèse wasn’t at home and Zappa would never meet him.

But back to our narrative. Generally when a rocker decides to go classical it’s for what I would consider to be all the wrong reasons. Often they’re just in it for the prescription drugs and freewheeling older ladies, and as such they don’t do their homework and they often write derivative music that sounds like watered-down eighteenth-century drivel. Yeah, Billy Joel, I’m talking to you.

But the last few years have seen a dramatic uptick in quality with guys like Glenn Kotche, Richard Reed Parry, Greg Saunier, Jonny Greenwood and numerous others composing sensitive, interesting classical music for major groups like Kronos Quartet and Eighth Blackbird. But it appears that we’re about to take a major step backwards because none other than Kip Winger has just thrown his cowboy hat into the ring.

Yes, Winger is a composer now, and it’s tempting to follow in the footsteps of Metallica and Beavis and Butt-Head and mock him mercilessly, but what good would that do?  Classical music has survived Mannheim Steamroller, Andrea Bocelli, Starbucks gift packages, a thousand years of truly awful puns and much more. Dammit, we’ll survive Kip Winger.

In the meantime, here’s some music not written by Winger.

Pitchfork After Show, Sun Ra Arkestra

Long after founding pianist, composer and bandleader Sun Ra departed this earthly realm to return to his native Saturn, the Arkestra is still going strong, enlightening us mere mortals with his uncategorizable, otherworldly soundscapes. Not surprisingly the glory days are long gone, but the current lineup features founding sax man Marshall Allen and longtime trumpeter Michael Ray and—well, the Arkestra is never not interesting. Somehow the double negative is appropriate.
July 16, 8pm at Constellation 3111 North Western; $20-$25. 18+

Pitchfork After Show, Holly Herndon
A graduate of San Francisco’s legendary Mills College, whose list of notable faculty and students includes Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Dave Brubeck, Luciano Berio and the members of Kronos Quartet among others, Holly Herndon is an electronic composer and singer who creates a multi-layered tapestry of sound culled from a diverse range of acoustic and synthesized sources.  She’ll play Constellation for one night only as part of the Pitchfork after-parties.
July 17, 10pm at Constellation, 3111 North Western; $20. 18+

Osvaldo Golijov’s “Azul”

Former Chicago Symphony composer in residence and one of the few figures in classical music composition to have achieved mainstream success (a pesky little plagiarism problem a few years back notwithstanding), Osvaldo Golijov blends elements of his diverse Argentinian and Israeli backgrounds to write rhythmically compelling, lyrical music that is generally met with hysterical approval from his many adoring fans. Philip Glass’ “Life, a Journey Through Time” will also be performed.
July 20, 6:30pm at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 55 North Michigan; $25-$89.

Stravinsky’s “The Firebird”
This is a fairly mainstream concert but, for my money, any chance to see Stravinsky’s still-astonishing score for the ballet “Firebird,” his first for legendary Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev, should be seized upon. They’re performing it with puppets, which sounds a bit like something Kip Winger would do, but hopefully it won’t diminish the raw power of the music. This fiery piece is paired with music invoking the sea: Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes”—a work that’s always memorable for me because my undergraduate composition teacher once told me he would have given his left arm to have written it, which is obviously impossible—and Debussy’s beautiful “La Mer.”
July 26, 8pm at Ravinia Park Pavilion, Highland Park; $15-$75.

I had never heard of New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham until I watched a documentary about him the day after he died but he’s been living in my head ever since. I’m fascinated by his life because, at least on the surface, it was about as simple a lifestyle as it’s possible for anyone to have.

He was never in a relationship and in fact had no human entanglements of any kind.  He lived for much of his career in a tiny apartment in Carnegie Hall, tore up most of his paychecks to avoid being “owned,” ate every meal in the same restaurants and spent every day doing what he loved: biking through Manhattan photographing fashions that caught his eye. He truly was a kind of urban twentieth-century monk who just happened to have a great eye for women’s hats.

This is not the life that I would want to live and the film certainly hints at darker waters beneath the surface but I do understand the appeal of a life lived virtually without complications where each day has a ritualistic comforting sameness and I do believe that, for the most part, he spent the vast majority of his life in contentment and even happiness.

I’m not the only one in awe of the idea of the simple life simply led. The idea is in vogue now around the world but there’s a dark edge to it. This is no monastic life being dreamt of, but a life in which society conforms to a homogeneous ideal.  And when this fails, as it always does, they respond through acts of violence, isolationism and the conjuring of imaginary bogeymen who haunt public restrooms.

But there’s no going back.  Isolate yourselves into any kind of homogeneous group and it’s only a matter of time before someone comes out as different.  It’s a fundamental part of being human.  Although for that matter,  unfortunately, so is fearing that which is different. But diversity is inevitable and it’s time people got used to it.

The great thing about Cunningham is that he lived a simple life personally but in his work he sought out and celebrated diversity. If his legacy teaches us anything, it’s that the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive.

Originally ran in Newcity Magazine on July 3, 2016

I had just moved to Chicago in 1995 when I was asked to play a friend’s wedding. I was happy to have the gig but had mixed feelings because the wedding was being held at what I thought was a McDonald’s in Oak Brook and I remember thinking, who the hell has their wedding at a McDonald’s?

When I got there I realized pretty quickly that this wasn’t a fast-food restaurant but a giant corporate campus. It wasn’t exactly as if Grimace were the best man or anything, but it still seemed like a strange place to get married. I played “Wind Beneath My Wings” like a good soldier and moved on with my life.

Now, almost exactly twenty-one years later I see that McDonald’s is moving this corporate campus, including their august institution of higher learning, Hamburger University, into the former Harpo studios in the West Loop, and I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a golden arch of opportunity in this somewhere.

I mean there’s the obvious benefit of prestige.  An institution like Hamburger University could go anywhere in the country. But I’m thinking bigger. Our mayor and governor, despite making millions of dollars together in the past, don’t seem to like each other anymore and the city is suffering as a result.  And of course the governor is hardly a friend to higher education but this isn’t something frivolous. This is an institution of higher learning that even Rauner can support. This is Hamburger University.

I have this vision of Rauner and Rahm at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building, cheeseburger in one hand, shovel in the other, jointly ushering in a new day for our city to the tune of “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Grimace is there too, smiling for once. It’s a beautiful vision but, until that magical day we’ll just have to console ourselves with the fact that we still have a thriving music scene.

Here’s a small sample of upcoming events.

Chartreuse Trio

Though it’s no Hamburger University, Oberlin has produced numerous truly stellar musicians and greatly enriched the Chicago scene. The latest ensemble to migrate our way, the Chartreuse Trio, combines great chops with a restless search for new music from composers around the world. Here they are the meat in a new music hamburger, performing the second set of a three-act bill that also includes guitarist Terrence McManus and the Drobka/Weller Duo.
July 11, 9pm at Elastic Arts Foundation, 3429 West Diversey #208; $10.

Rush Hour Concerts

Chicago’s St. James Cathedral, not to be confused with the St. James Infirmary of song, is the setting for a stellar summertime series of classical music concerts. Started by the late, great Deborah Sobol and still going strong many years later, the Rush Hour series features some of the city’s top musicians performing often daring blends of new music. This week it’s the Spektral Quartet performing with the superlative pianist Daniel Schlosberg. This concert is especially noteworthy as it’s a memorial concert for Sobol.
July 12 at 5:45pm, St. James Cathedral, 65 East Huron; free.

Takacs String Quartet

Clarinetist Anthony McGill is one of Chicago’s great musical success stories. From inauspicious beginnings on the South Side, through the Merit School of Music to the Metropolitan Opera, and now principal clarinet in the New York Philharmonic, it’s an incredible journey. He’ll join the wonderful Takacs Quartet for a concert featuring the beloved three Bs of classical music: Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich. Yeah, yeah, I know, but cut me some slack. I went to Hamburger University.
July 15 at 7:30pm, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park, $40/$60, lawn $10.

October of this year marks the hundredth anniversary of the printing of Carl Sandburg’s collection Chicago Poems and ACM is working with mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley and five composers, myself included, to set several of the poems for voice and piano trio for a performance at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of the Ear Taxi festival.

I hadn’t read the poems in some time and have greatly enjoyed reading through them again. Many of the poems are quite clear in their meaning and employ a workmanlike, rough-hewn structure.  And others leave you thinking about them long after multiple readings.  Such a poem is the poem I chose to set for this project: Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard.

Before writing a note of music I tried to analyze the poem as best as I could.  Here is Sandburg’s beautiful short poem and my analysis is below.

NOCTURNE IN A DESERTED BRICKYARD
STUFF of the moon
Runs on the lapping sand
Out to the longest shadows.
Under the curving willows,
And round the creep of the wave line,
Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters
Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night.

Why stuff of the moon?  Not light of the moon?  Or some poetic word for light?  It’s as if he’s saying that the moon’s contribution to the scene is somehow more than merely light. Stuff of the moon.  The moon is investing in the scene, the stuff of the moon like the stuff of life, or the stuff of legend.  It’s moonstuff, not light.  All things attributed to moon: light, energy, femininity, etc.  He’s setting the stage with an odd word but there is power here too.

Runs on the lapping sands.  The sands don’t lap of course, the water laps the sand or so we would think.  But because of the stuff of the moon perhaps it is confused what is lapping what. Also, perhaps it’s not a bright moonlit night, again stuff does not necessarily evoke light, but could also be the moon’s power to obscure or to subtly alter our perception of a scene.

Out to the longest shadows.  The stuff of the moon runs on the lapping sands out to the longest shadows.  What an odd sentence. Now we have the “stuff” of the moon running presumably at a tilt from above on the lapping sands.  The sands seem to be moving, to be lapping, which is an effect of the moonlight.  So the stuff is the moonlight. But again I feel there is more to it.

The stuff of the moon runs on the lapping sands but it stops at the longest shadows. The stuff of the moon cannot penetrate the longest shadows.  Or does it create the shadows?  Doesn’t moonlight create shadows?

Under the curving willows and round the creep of the wave line, fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night.

I believe we’re following the moonlight-created shadows first and then we go round the creep of the wave line which is confusing because the pond would presumably be still.  Is he talking about waves of light?  Did they know back then that light was waves and particles?  At any rate, we follow the moonlight, the stuff of the moon carrying with it its power to alter perception, to the sands and out to the shadows, or defining the longest shadows as we light up everything else, and then under the willows, round the creep of the wave line.  Here I think it’s just poetic language evoking waves, of light, of water, etc.  Fluxions is a mathematical science-y term. It appears that mister Sandburg knew his physics a bit.

Yellow and dusk flux together the way waves do in particle physics and they make the old pond appear to be a pansy, a kind of flower.

Overall it’s an evocation of a lonely scene. There are no humans here, including I believe the narrator who is not a witness.  This poem is an evocation of a scene without a first person narrator.  And yet, that can’t be true because reality is altered by the stuff of the moon, or by the waves, fluxions, etc.  But perhaps this is the tree that falls in the forest.

At any rate for coherence’s sake let’s go with the idea of this as an evocation of a lonely, nighttime scene. There is wonder here, mystical but also a new mystical, the mystics of modern science and physics in which nothing is as it seems.

Also this is a brickyard but a deserted brickyard.  Is it deserted because it’s late at night or is it no longer in use?  Is the brickyard itself a metaphor for loneliness, for lost purpose?

At one time the brickyard was a bustling scene, provided jobs and was emblematic of the rise of a great city.  now, in its desertion, either temporary or otherwise, there is a sense of loss, of nature reasserting itself without humanity.  Chicago is a great city and the work of ambitious men and Sandburg aims to praise that but, he also sees that it is temporary, without purpose aside from that which we humans give it and the works of man appear odd, shiftless

I believe the title is significant too.  It’s a nocturne in a deserted brickyard.  Not nocturne for or of a brickyard.  There’s something to that.  This isn’t a song for the brickyard or even a song of the brickyard.  It’s a song in the brickyard like the waves represent not only light but sound as well. The path the moonstuff takes creates the shadows, alters the pond and is a kind of ghostly song of loneliness.

Originally ran in Newcity Magazine on June 10, 2016

It’s that time of year—when I look ahead to the coming summer months with joy and irrational exuberance, and start to compile a thoroughly unreasonable list of exciting things I plan to do. Every year I think to myself, this summer is going to be epic!

This summer I’ll drink on every rooftop bar in the city, bike downtown on the lakefront path every day, make a hundred free throws in a row, one-handed, before the Creamsicle in my other hand melts, and rappel down the hole in the ground that was supposed to be the Spire, and sit at the bottom for a while listening to Kurt Vile and kind of just looking up at the sky.

I’ll also perfectly execute a Triple Lindy, obtain facial hair from somewhere, stage my own Air and Water Show in the backyard, hang out at the Holiday Club with my new motorcycle gang and, dammit, finally go on the freaking riverboat architecture cruise that I know is an essential part of Chicago but which after twenty-one summers have come and gone, I’ve still never done.

And of course, being a rabid fan of live music; and I’ll start it all off by going to these great concerts. This summer is going to be EPIC.

Grant Park Music Festival
Outdoor music is hardly a rare commodity in Chicago during the summer, though many of our street festivals frankly are in dire need of some new ideas. Or at least some new bands. Not so the Grant Park Music Festival, which every year provides some of the most consistently interesting programming in the city. It continues that tradition with this concert, pairing works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis with a new piece by Michael Torke, a synesthete who associates colors with individual pitches. Beethoven’s first symphony is the meat in this contemporary music sandwich.
June 17 at 6:30pm, June 18 at 7:30pm, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park; free.

Chicago’s Next Generation
Composer and pianist George Flynn started the Green Mill contemporary music series decades ago and it’s still going strong, featuring concerts of bold new work about every other month or so in Chicago’s favorite former speakeasy.  In June clarinetist Cory Tiffin puts together a great cast of musicians to perform world premieres by Conrad Tao and DownBeat Award winner Jennifer Bellor.  Music by Louis Andriessen, Kaija Saariaho, Alexandra Gardner and George Flynn himself will also be performed among others.
June 19 at 3pm, The Green Mill, 4802 North Broadway; $10.

A pe ri od ic
Chicago-based collective A pe ri od ic performs a concert of music by composers Morton Feldman and Earle Brown, both friends and colleagues of John Cage and important proponents of the so-called New York School—an artistic aesthetic that, in music, encouraged the introduction of chance, experimented with alternate notation systems and incorporated improvisation. These guys were a huge inspiration to musicians in the downtown scene in New York that so thoroughly dominates contemporary American classical music today. In other words, they’re kind of the original badasses.
June 26 at 8:30pm, Constellation, 3111 North Western; $8-$10. 18+.

Eighth Blackbird’s residency at MCA
Four-time Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird concludes its extraordinary year-long residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art this month, and if you haven’t gone, you owe it to yourself to drop by. The players have actually moved their practice space into the museum and, when they’re in town, they rehearse in the gallery. It’s unlikely that most of us have seen high-level music-making this up-close and personal. Interactive video installations show the Birds at work when they’re not in town.
Through July 10 at Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago; free with admission.

Close your eyes for a moment and picture this familiar scenario: A super-villain is sitting in a high-backed chair, fiendishly stroking a kitten while he tells a momentarily incapacitated super-spy and a handful of hapless goons his current plan for world domination. What music is he listening to as he does this? That’s right, he’s listening to classical music.

Given that this is one of the enduring images we who have chosen this field have had to deal with at least since Wagner, how disappointing was it to open up the newspaper the other day and read that that arch-fucker Vladimir Putin had decided to put on an open-air classical music concert in war-torn Syria featuring his good buddy and fellow one-percenter, and also decidedly mediocre cellist, Sergei Roldugin.

I was eating tacos at a great new spot in Uptown when I read this and I actually turned to the guy next to me, shaking the paper in such a way that he couldn’t possibly read it, and said, “Do you believe this shit?!” Naturally he moved to the other side of the restaurant, but I was too distracted to notice.

I mean here we have Hitler, at least half of the James Bond villains, Gary Oldman’s character in “The Professional” and Alex DeLarge from “A Clockwork Orange,” just to name a few—and now Putin too? It’s too much. Obviously we’ll never overcome the image of classical music as the genre of choice for super-villains, but still I’d like to respectfully ask a favor. If you’re a super-villain and you’re thinking of trying to legitimize your recent bombing campaigns by having a concert on a historic landmark, for fuck’s sake call Yanni.

And now for some local classical music events put on by the good guys.

Currents initiative
Percussion quartets have sprung up like wildfire over the last twenty years or so around the world, so it was probably only a matter of time before Chicago got one too. Luckily for us Third Coast Percussion is one of the very best: an exciting group of topnotch players who consistently choose interesting composers with whom to work, frequently write their own material and are electrifying performers. The latest in their ongoing series, called Currents, features new music by Danny Clay inspired by music games he made for children, new music for solo vibraphone and new works by ensemble members Peter Martin and David Skidmore.
June 5 at 8:30pm, Constellation, 3111 North Western, $10-$20. 18+

Grant Wallace Band
A trio of composer-performers who, by their own description, “weave a diaphanous sound from threads of new music, modern jazz and old-time folk styles,” the Grant Wallace Band, consisting of Northwestern University music school alums Ben Hjertmann, Chris Fisher-Lochhead and Luke Gullickson, always put on a good show.

I’ve seen them live several times—including once at the Empty Bottle and once in Austin for the opening-night party of the Fast Forward Austin festival—and I’m a big fan of their unique blend of instrumental chops, rough-hewn vocals and tight compositional forms. (Although I will admit I had to look up the word diaphanous. It means light, delicate and translucent.)
June 6 at 9pm, Hungry Brain, 2319 West Belmont, free.

Our Severed Sleep Record Release
A new album by three guys who, according to their press release, have served as the human ambassador to the great Ursine civilization, been raised from birth by a community of human-sized insects and toured with Wire. Naturally I’m cherry picking from the release but I think there’s a nice flow there. These three preternaturally interesting individuals, Daniel Wyche, Ryan Packard and Julian Lynch, are getting together to celebrate the release of their new album featuring original material for guitar, drums and electronics.

Inspired by a diverse range of composers from German experimentalist Mathias Spahlinger to the repetitive looping of minimalist composers such as Steve Reich (but with a sense of style all their own), this promises to be an interesting evening. Ape Forward and Akosuen will also perform.
June 10 at 9pm, Elastic Arts Foundation, 3429 West Diversey #208, $7.

Ten years ago this month was the first time I flew to New York to attend the awards for new music held by the American Music Center, as it was then called.  I had a great time and from then on it became a ritual for me each year.

New Music USA was the first organization to write about ACM’s Weekly Readings project way back in 2004. They thought it was good for composers and so they spotlighted it, and that’s the simple litmus test that they’ve used since the beginning: is it good for composers?

Since that first event I’ve sat in on many meetings and have always been blown away by the integrity, dedication and selflessness of the staff.  Which is especially laudable as it’s mostly a group of folks who are composers themselves.

We composers can be very selfish.  We spend so much time trying to get our music out there that we don’t often realize we’re only one of tens of thousands of composers in the same boat.  The truth is that no one organization can effectively convince classical music institutions to embrace contemporary music, find funders, guarantee commissions and match composers with professional level ensembles skilled in concert production and promotion. There’s just too many of us. But therein should lie our strength.

I get a number of emails every year from composers complaining that ACM hasn’t done enough for them.  My question for them is, what have you done to help another composer lately?  Because if each of us did something to help someone other than ourselves we would all be helped.  This would be so much more effective and beautiful than ten thousand plus composers with an every man for himself attitude.

New Music USA is a wonderful organization but it’s only the beginning.  We need to create a buddy system or, filtered through a Hitchcock-esque lens, we need to swap murders except instead of murders it’ll be advocacy.  Seriously though, many of us have a hard time with self promotion. What if instead we promoted each other?