Moving through soundworlds created by Pisaro and Lachenmann's music-- variously austere and dense, delicate and violent-- the guitar emerges as something other than the lyrical, heroic instrument with which we are familiar. The music operates at the outer limits of the guitar's capabilities, ranging from prickly percussive attacks to bell-like overtones verging on inaudibility. It thus unfolds the latent expressive possibilities of the instrument, its capacities for evoking aggression, tact and loss.

Soloists from Fonema Series is a sponsored project of High Concept Laboratories at Mana Contemporary, 2014-15.

Program
Salut fur Caldwell, by Helmut Lachenmann
here (1), by Michael Pisaro

Featuring trombonist Weston Olencki, this program explores the role of auxiliary performers in questioning mediums that have historically been taken for granted. In Clint MacCullum's Twinzies, both the flutist and the vocalist crossover as they intervene into each other's instrument, while in Pablo Chin's new work From Afar, a short vocal duo is inserted into a piece for solo trombone. Katherine Young's puddles and crumbs amplifies and processes electronically trombone sounds beyond recognition so that such sonic outcome intercedes in the traditional physical means of technical production. The program also features Marisol Jiménez' Caro Cibus, which displays a series of self-made objects to expand the mechanism of instrumental sound production.

Program
Caro Cibus, by Marisol Jiminez
Twinzies, by Clint McCallum
puddles and crumbs, by Katherine Young
From Afar (World Premiere), by Pablo Santiago Chin

Fonema Consort is thrilled to welcome composer James Dillon to Chicago for a concert and public discussion of his chamber works. ANCIENT RITES II contrasts a selection of haunting vocal works by the Scottish composer with works by Mexican composer Julio Estrada his former student, Iván Sparrow. These pieces ultimately converge through the emergence of ritualistic elements as the core of musical expression.

The concert features James Dillon's solo piccolo work Diffraction and two of his sensuous vocal chamber works: Come Live with Me and selections from L'évolution du vol. Both feature rich instrumentation, texts that breathe natural magic, and mind-bending complexity that results in the lushest of musical environments.

In Julio Estrada's Miqi'Nahual for double bass, the instrument(s) (a second bass lying on a table is played with two bows) represents the corpse of Juan Preciado in his opera Murmullos del Páramo, based on Juan Rulfo's classic novel "Pedro Páramo." The search for a jarringly expressive soundworld in this piece deviates from the delicate textures of Sparrow's "Entre las grietas" (written for Fonema Consort for our debut at the International Festival of Chihuahua 2014); in this piece, the timbral explorations of Dillon's music appear in an intermediate state, constantly flowing from the sensual to the vernacular.

Program
James Dillon: Come Live with Me
James Dillon: Diffraction
James Dillon : A Roaring Flame
James Dillon: L'évolution de vol, selection
Julio Estrada: Miqi'Nahual
Iván Sparrow: Entre las grietas

Kathryn Schulmeister performs two works for solo double bass that culminate three years of collaboration with Catalan composer Joan Arnau Pamies. [d(k_s)b] (2011) is a virtuosic tour de force which serves as precursor to [k(d_b)s] (2012-13), a work concerned with parametrical deconstruction as a means to structural complexity. The program also features the world premiere of Sound Portrait (2014) by Enric Riu, an early mentor of Pamies.

Soloists from Fonema Series is a sponsored project of High Concept Laboratories at Mana Contemporary, 2014-15.

Program
Ein Hauch von Unzeit VII: (Plainte sur la perte de la reflexion musicale), by Klaus Huber
[d(k_s)b], by Joan Arnau Pamies
[k(d_b)s], by Joan Arnau Pamies
Sound Portrait, by Enric Riu WORLD PREMIERE

The last stage of a collaboration between Chicago-based Fonema Consort and French vocal ensemble Voix de Stras' features works by living composers based in both cities, including Pablo Chin, Morgan Krauss, Clara Olivares, and Ivan Solano. This project is funded in part by the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music (FACE).

Percussion music post-Vinko Globokar and Mauricio Kagel has often turned towards balancing the absurd, the culturally referential, and the downright problematic in a cluster chaos-filled soundworld that is tangled in its own semantically-charged web. This concert pairs one of the important works of modern percussion repertoire, Globokar's ?Corporel, with newer works for percussion that have pushed percussion repertoire into a new frontier of musical theatrics.

The Fonema Soloists Series is a sponsored project of High Concept Laboratories at Mana Contemporary, 2014-15.

Program
Vinko Globokar: ?Corporel
Vinko Globokar: Au dela d'une etude pour percussion
Oxana Omelchuk: STAAHAADLER AFF

Fonema Consort makes its debut on the Sounds of the South Loop concert series, featuring soprano Nina Dante, flutist Dalia Chin and clarinetist Emily Beisel who lead the audience through an exploration of the pieces and composers throughout the concert.

Program
Giacinto Scelsi: Ko-Loh
Michael Finnissy: Moon's Goin' Down
Beat Furrer: Invocation III

The New Music Miami Festival is one of Florida's leading events showcasing contemporary music. Fonema will present a main stage concert as part of the festival, as well as leading a forum with composition students at Florida International University.

Program
Basalto, by Juan Campoverde
(in)armonia: motets, by Pablo Chin
entre michigan y jefferson, by Orlando Garcia
New Work, by Shawn Lucas
VIvox^3, by Joan Arnau Pamies

The interest in the origin of music shared by the composers featured in this concert converge in this program through the emergence of ritualistic elements as the core of musical expression.

Program
Time Lag Zero, by James Dillon
Come Live with Me, by James Dillon
Yuunohui'Ehecatl, by Julio Estrada
Okanagon, by Giacinto Scelsi
Three Echoes Before Full Moon, by Ondřej Štochl
,that..!, by Jan Trojan

In tangible, suggestive or evocative ways, this program calls for distinct aspects and nuances of the subject of love through the music itself, their extramusical sources or their titles. This concert welcomes new Fonema members Elisa Sutherland (mezzo) and Weston Olencki (trombone).

Program
Aaron Cassidy: Song only as Sad as their Listener
James Dillon: Time Lag Zero
Francisco Guerrero: Erotica
Joan Arnau Pàmies: Per ser plagat de ta dolca ferida
Zesses Seglias: Lonesingness

Fonema's third appearance on the multifaceted Latino Music Festival of Chicago will showcase the wide range of musical languages of Chicago's community of hispanic composers. From South and Central America to Spain, composers of a common heritage may diverge in musical concepts as revealed by this program thus challenging the traditional concepts (or misconceptions) of identity.

Program
New Work, by Andres Carrizo
Halo incruste, by Francisco Castillo Trigueros
Como la leyenda de Tlon, by Pablo Chin
New Work, by Gustavo Leone
Palimpsestus, by Joan Arnau Pamies
Gestural Procedure, by Enric Riu

As an extension of the Visiones Sonoras festival, Mexico City’s MUAC presents Fonema Consort.

Program

Basalto – Juan Campoverde
Como la leyenda de Tlön – Pablo Chin
Yuunohui’ehecatl – Julio Estrada
Abismo azul, floreciente – Francisco Castillo Trigueros
[VIvox]^3 – Joan Arnau Pàmies

Microscopica puts aspects of sound and form under an "aural microscope" to reveal the substance and minute fabric of the works.

Program
A rayas y cuadros by Pablo Chin
Miniatures by Marc Codina
Tandem by Chris Fisher-Lochhead
100 Watt Tungsten Incandescent by Ryan Packard
Postludes by Joan Arnau Pamies
Drei Kleine Lieder by Anton Webern
Three Little Pieces by Anton Webern

Fonema Consort premeires works by graduate composers as part of the Festival Internacional de Chihuahua.

This August, Fonema Consort travels for a second time to Mexico as a featured ensemble in the International Festival of Chihuahua. Fonema will workshop and premiere new pieces by young composers, in addition to presenting a main stage solo concert.

Program

Umbrales, Juan Campoverde
Boschiana, Pablo Chin
Yuunohui'ehecatl, Julio Estrada
Quattro Voci mvt III, Stefano Gervasoni
Mort d'Antigone, Hector Parra
Adjö, Kaija Saariaho