A foray into the intricacies and frustrations of human communication: micro-level intimacy binds together Mark Andre's iv 3, fragmented lines of conversation fracture the surface of Ray Evanoff's Narratives and Tim McCormack's RAW MATTER forces the performer into extreme levels of external physicality and power. Finally a new work for performer and electronics by Stefan Maier in which he "is primarily concerned with the tactility of unruly sound and interested in how we listen for speaking subjects: What is left out in this listening configuration? In what ways do various environments (digital, organic, inorganic) speak to us?

Program
Ray Evanoff | Narratives (2014)
Mark Andre | iv 3 (2008)
Tim McCormack | RAW MATTER (2015)
Stefan Maier | New Work (2016)

Fragments of flute sounds processed electronically in Francisco Castillo’s Desde un sueño espeso, suspiro inmovil, mar infinito create texturally foggy and airy moments. Three Burials by Pablo Santiago Chin uses a transcription from indigenous Peruvian chants and transforms them into complex sounds that are part of the melodic content of the piece. Monte Weber’s Augury blends a video and light component with the experimentation of the sound using water and electronics. A new work by Amadeus Regucera explores in depth his ideas of incorporating vocal and theatrical elements into the performance. This program is the result of close collaborations with all composers.

Program
Francisco Castillo | Desde un sueño espeso, suspiro inmovil, mar infinito
Pablo Santiago Chin | Three Burials for solo flute
Monte Weber | Augury
Amadeus Regucera | New Work

Pictures of an Exhibition presents works based on visuals, whether a painting (Richard Barrett), drawing (Pablo Chin), photographs (Louis Nielson) or sculpture (Bethany Younge). In Barrett’s Coigitum (based on a painting with the same title by surrealist Chilean Roberto Matta), the subject of social oppression tied to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the painter's home country inspired the troublesome figures in the visuals and the severe demands on the performers in Barrett's piece. Similarly motivated, former Oberlin faculty Lewis Nielson's new piece for Fonema will be informed by photographs from the build-up to the US civil war focusing on liberationists like John Brown, and twentieth century civil rights leaders like Patrice Lulumba and Malcom X. Chin's piece is derived from musical transcriptions of various segments from a drawing by New York-based artist Theresa Chong. The concert will also feature the premiere of a piece by former Nielson's and Barrett's student and Chicago-based composer Bethany Younge, whose work features deep-rooted feminist undertones.

Program

Richard Barrett | Coïgitum
Lewis Nielson | nos qui captivos duxerunt
Bethany Younge | bodyscape
Pablo Chin | A Rayas y Cuadros

This program explore banalities, absurdities, commodities, comedies, realities. It will feature [in order] poorly sample opera overtures, sounds beyond the auditory threshold, a misused YouTube video, the use of headphones, sheets of glass and metal. Its purpose is an attempt to survey various inaccessible, private, withheld, hidden, uncontrollable objects - those that are interpersonal, inaudible, digital, internal, mechanical.

Program
Tim Parkinson | Opus 1 (from Time with People)
Charlie Sdraulig | few
Jessie Marino | AUTOPROCESS :: RESOLVE :: DISSOLVE
Louis D’Heudieres | Laughter Studies
Michelle Lou | New Work

Curated by soprano Nathalie Colas, Standing Still explores the strong connection between poetry and music within the intimate setting of the traditional art song form, through the musical voice of XXth century composers. The program strives to cast different lights on the triangular relationship between voice, piano and poetry, through the eyes of an observer.

The observer is the poet, standing still and sharing his/her impressions of the world around him/her. The observer is the musician, noting the composer’s care in setting the poet’s words and giving it a musical voice. The observer is also the audience member who, still as he/she listens, receives the symbiosis of music and words.

Nathalie Colas, soprano
Joann Cho, piano

Program
After the Sandals of Summer (words by Iain Crichton-Smith) | P. Demopoulos (*1977)
New work (words by John Muir) | D. Grant (*1976)
Trois mélodies (words by O. Messiaen and C. Sauvage) | O. Messiaen (1908-1992)
Azur (words by Stéphane Mallarmé) A. d. Paolo (*1978)

Following the driving motivations of Fonema Consort, Of Tongues examines various roles and approaches to the voice embraced by contemporary composers, and pays homage to Webern’s vocal music, which even now is a decisive force in shaping the course of new music. The program travels from the thoughtful dissection of a Borges poem in Irene Quero’s Línea, to unbridled dramaturgy in the works of Pablo Chin and Francisco Guerrero; from the purely sonic understanding of phonemes without semantic content in two works by Jason Eckardt; to the spiritual texts that enabled Webern to formalize his use of the twelve-tone method in Drei Lieder. “Of Tongues” ultimately reveals that phonology and semantics are powerful tools to develop expressive musical possibilities. Fonema Consort is honored to perform as part of National Sawdust's inaugural season with curator Miranda Cuckson.

Program
Pablo Chin | Scene from (in)armonia
Pablo Chin | (in)armonia: retratos
Jason Eckardt | Equilibrium: Part II, of Tongues
Jason Eckardt | To be held...
Francisco Guerrero | Erotica
Irene Quero | Línea
Webern | Drei Lieder, Op. 18

Fonema Consort makes their debut in Wisconsin through a residency at UWW. Soprano Nina Dante and flutist Dalia Chin will present a concert with tour-de-force solo works with electronics by Milton Babbitt, Joan Arnau Pàmies, and Pablo Chin; as well as two classic duos of contemporary repertoire by Beat Furrer. Dante and Chin will also participate in a workshop with composition students from the studio of Professor Jeff Herriott and the residency will conclude with a performance of Pablo Chin’s flute concerto In the Form of a Shell with the UWW orchestra conducted by Chris Ramaekers featuring Dalia Chin.

Program
Milton Babbitt | Phonemena
Pablo Chin | 7 Studies on Chapter 34
Beat Furrer | Invocation III
Juan Campoverde | basalto
Joan Arnau Pàmies | Produktionsmittel I

Fonema Consort is honored to be a part of the inaugural Frequency Series Festival, which celebrates Chicago's ever-richer contemporary music scene with events each day from February 23-28. For the full line-up and tickets, please visit http://www.frequencyseries.com

Inevitably recalling the life and career trajectory of Argentinian/German Mauricio Kagel, Ecuadorian-native Mesias Maiguashca established in Germany as a mature composer and teacher of composition and electronic music for more than five decades. Descendant from indigenous parents from the Andes and former student of Stockhausen, his musical language attempts to reflect the profound impact that the folklore and Andean cosmology surrounding his youth and the rigour and mediums of the avant-garde scene in Europe had on his perception of sound. With the support of the Goethe-Institut, and in collaboration with the Frequency Series and the Renaissance Society, Fonema Consort is thrilled to introduce the work of Maiguashca to Chicago by premiering a piece of his along complementary works by Kagel, Lachenmann and Chicago-based Ecuadorian Juan Campoverde.

Made possible by the generous support of the Goethe Institut and the Renaissance Society.

Program
Juan Campoverde | basalto
Mauricio Kagel | Atem
Helmut Lachenmann | Salut für Cauldwell
Mesias Maiguashca | 8 ejercicios para oír lo inaudible WORLD PREMIERE

Supported by a 2015 DCASE Grant, soprano Nina Dante presents a concert designed to carry on the beautiful tradition of song cycle into the 21st Century. Two new song cycles by Chicago-based composers Pablo Chin and Jonathon Kirk are accompanied by two works for soprano and cello by Shawn Jaeger, part of what was designed to become a larger cycle based on the poetry and folk music of the Appalachians. Accompanied by projected artwork by engineer/artist/poet Robert Grubbs, this evening of music will explore the universality of mankind's suffering and ecstasy, as all good song cycles aim to do. Emily Beisel, clarinet; Erin Rafferty, viola; Molly Rife, cello; Ryan Packard, percussion.

This project is partially supported by an Individual Artist Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Program
Pablo Chin | (in)armonia: Mythologies (part i and ii)
Pablo Chin music; Nina Dante, poetry | Como la leyenda de Tlön
Shawn Jaeger | In Old Virginny
Shawn Jaeger | Pastor Hick's Farewell
Jonathon Kirk | A Single Climb to a Line

Our first concert of this season with the Frequency Series at Constellation takes off from our last concert there in May, re-contextualizing works by Marisol Jiménez and Katherine Young with a duo by former Chicago composer Monte Weber, a full ensemble piece by Harvard graduate Sivan Cohen-Elias and a world premiere by NU faculty Chris Mercer performed by Ann Yi (piano). This program explores the role of auxiliary performers in questioning mediums that have historically been taken for granted. From Mercer’s Octoid for piano in which three performers also intervene inside the piano thus expanding the sound pallette and polyphonic capabilities of the solo instrument, to Jiménez’s Caro Cibus which displays a series of self-made objects to expand the mechanism of instrumental sound production, each other piece in the program also propose imaginative ways of redefining otherwise seemingly conventional chamber settings.

Program
Sivan Cohen-Elias | How Long is Now
Marisol Jimenez | Caro cibus
Chris Mercer | Octoid
Monte Weber | Mimesis
Katherine Young | Master of Disguises

Fonema Consort is honored to continue their collaboration with visionary Mexican composer Julio Estrada. The University of Minnesota presents Fonema Consort's Dalia Chin (flute) and Emily Beisel (clarinet) as part of Estrada's two-day residency. Dalia Chin reprises Estrada's searing Yuunohui'Ehecatl both as a solo and a duet with Emily Beisel; programmed with complimentary works by Giacinto Scelsi and Ray Evanoff.

Program
Julio Estrada | Yuunohui'Ehecatl version i for solo bass flute, version ii for flute and clarinet
Giacinto Scelsi | Ko-Lho for flute and clarinet
Ray Evanoff  | Narratives for solo E-flat clarinet

Embracing the operatic spirit of Sciarrino’s La perfezione di un spirito sottile, Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) presents Fonema Consort in an outdoor musical experience within the private atmosphere of the studio's garden. In this program, the ecstatic crescendo of James Tenney's Having Never Written a Note for Percussion* for solo tam-tam functions as an overture to the spellbinding atmosphere of Sciarrino's quasi opera. This program sound-paints the colors of the sky at sunset with an extensive but focused immersion in the sound properties of the instrumental medium. Featuring Nathalie Colas (soprano), Dalia Chin (flute) and Ryan Packard (percussion).
*Replacing Han's Thomalla's Percussion Counterpart, due to performer's injury

Program
Salvatore Sciarrino | La perfezione di un spirito sottile
James Tenney | Having Never Written a Note for Percussion