Grossman Ensemble Performs Four World Premieres In Season Finale Concert

The Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition's (CCCC) Grossman Ensemble premieres four new works by composers Jason Eckardt, Sarah Gibson, Kurt Rohde, and Augusta Read Thomas. The season finale performance takes place Friday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Logan Center for the Arts Performance Hall, conducted by Timothy Weiss. The evening features one hour of music, an introduction to each work by the composer, and an after-party with the artists.

The Grossman Ensemble is the resident supergroup at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition with a unique collaborative process focused on the interaction between composers, musicians, and conductors. World premiere works are developed over eight weeks during a series of workshopping rehearsals, allowing the music time to have time to grow in the mind of the composer and to fully inhabit the minds of the players.

A highlight of the performance will be the premiere of Augusta Read Thomas's Terpsichore's Box of Dreams. Thomas is the Founder and Director of the CCCC, yet this is her first work composed for the Grossman Ensemble.

"Collaborating with the Grossman Ensemble and Tim Weiss has been one of the most exhilarating experiences in my creative life. It is hard to find the words to express enough gratitude to the many extraordinary people who made this possible," said Thomas. "This partnership has been, and remains, pure magic, deeply rewarding, fun, and sincere."

Thomas shares her premiere with the premieres of three other acclaimed composers.

Sarah Gibson is a Los Angeles-based composer and pianist whose works draw on her breadth of experience as a collaborative performer. She has received a Copland House Residency and commissions from the League of American Orchestras and the Toulmin Foundation, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center, and Aspen Summer Music Festival & School, among others. She is Assistant Director for the esteemed Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellowship Program and Assistant Professor in Composition/Theory at the California State University, Long Beach Bob Cole Conservatory of Music where she also directs the New Music Ensemble.

Violist and composer Kurt Rohde is a recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Radcliffe-Harvard Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize, and commission awards from the Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, and Koussevitzky Foundations, and New Music/USA. He has received the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. Rohde is Artistic Advisor of and plays viola with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and Professor of Music and Graduate Advisor of Composition and Theory at UC Davis.

Jason Eckardt played guitar in jazz and metal bands until, upon first hearing the music of Webern, he immediately devoted himself to composition. He has been recognized through commissions from Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, New Music USA, Chamber Music America, and more. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. He has taught at Columbia, Illinois, New York, Northwestern, and Rutgers Universities, the Oberlin and Peabody Conservatories, and is currently on the faculties of the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

The ensemble will be conducted by Timothy Weiss, who has earned acclaim for his performances and bold programming throughout the United States and abroad. His repertoire in contemporary music is vast and fearless, including masterworks, very recent compositions, and an impressive number of recordings, premieres, and commissions. This is Weiss's second time working with the Grossman Ensemble.

Tickets for the concert are $20 and free for students with ID. Purchase at cccc.uchicago.edu or by calling 773.702.ARTS (2787).