Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago Announces 2019 Collaborative Works Festival

Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago's 19/20 season will open with the 8th annual Collaborative Works Festival, held in venues around Chicago September 5, 7 and 8, 2019. The 2019 Collaborative Works Festival, The Living, will explore a diverse array of today's leading composers, and the work these composers are doing in the field of song.

The festival will open on September 5 at Ganz Hall, with a focus on the internationally renowned women composers who call Chicago home, Augusta Read Thomas, Stacy Garrop, Shulamit Ran and Lita Grier. A highlight of the opening concert is the American Premiere of Thomas' song, Your Kiss, a setting of e.e. cummings' poem 'may i said he'.

Zooming out geographically, the second concert (September 7 at The Poetry Foundation) features songs of noted American composers Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jake Heggie, Philip Glass and one of the great scions of American art song, Ned Rorem. Featured songs on this program include regional premieres of Gabriela Lena Frank's Iberian Songs, Caroline Shaw's And So and Nico Muhly's Lorne Ys My Likinge, as well as a rare performance of Rorem's iconic song cycle of Sylvia Plath poems, Ariel.

Continuing its geographical journey, the festival closes with a matinee performance at the Logan Center for the Arts on September 8, with an international program featuring songs by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, British composers Jonathan Dove and Ian Venables, French composer Nicolas Bacri and Belize-born composer Errollyn Wallen. Highlights of the program include the US premiere of Nicolas Bacri's song cycle, Drei romantische Liebesgesänge.

"The work of living composers often gets short-shrift within the context of the vocal recital, yet there are so many composers of today continuing to build upon the incredible tradition of song that Schubert began," says CAIC artistic director Nicholas Phan. "By having this year's entire festival focus on the songs of living composers, we will see how this form continues to be relevant to audiences today and how these composers can reflect the emotional complexities of the diverse world in which we live."

As in past seasons, the festival features a stellar lineup of artists, including soprano Lauren Snouffer, star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, Grammy Award winning pianist and founder of eighth blackbird Lisa Kaplan, pianist John Arida, principal clarinetist of the North Carolina Symphony Samuel Almaguer, assistant principal cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Kenneth Olsen and internationally acclaimed tenor and CAIC artistic director Nicholas Phan.

Tickets for CAIC's 2019 Collaborative Works Festival are now on sale. Tickets, additional programming information, and information about CAIC's complete 19/20 season are available at: www.caichicago.org.