Grossman Ensemble to Present Four World Premiere Works

The Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition's ensemble-in-residence, the Grossman Ensemble, is led by conductor Timothy Weiss in a concert of world premiere works by composers Ingrid Laubrock, Eric Nathan, Daniel Pesca, and Felipe Tovar-Henao. The performance takes place Friday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Logan Center for the Arts followed by an after-party where guests can meet the musicians and composers.

The CCCC's resident supergroup presents Unveiled by Ingrid Laubrock, a world premiere work developed over several weeks during a series of unique workshopping rehearsals with Grossman Ensemble musicians and the conductor. Originally from Germany, Laubrock is a saxophonist and composer based in Brooklyn since 2009. She is interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense, and often evocative sound worlds. Laubrock is the recent recipient of a 2021 Fromm Commission as well as other awards including the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2004, a Fellowship in Jazz Composition by the Arts Foundation in 2006, Rising Star Tenor Saxophone (2018), and the Herb Alpert/Ragdale Prize in Composition 2019.

Composer Eric Nathan's music has been called "as diverse as it is arresting" with a "constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "thoughtful and inventive" (The New Yorker). Nathan is a 2013 Rome Prize Fellow and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and currently serves as Associate Professor of Music in Composition-Theory at the Brown University Department of Music. His new work for the Grossman Ensemble, In Between, explores a newfound artistic space in Nathan's practice in-between areas of improvisation, controlled aleatory, spatialized gestural choreography, and detailed music notation. The players invent rustling, feathery sounds, the conductor "paints" gesturally through the ensemble in music filled with chorale-like singing, meditative stillness, and intricately vibrant musical textures woven through it all.

Daniel Pesca is a composer, pianist, and improviser whose interpretations of piano literature stand out for their creativity and dynamism. A fervent champion of contemporary music, Pesca is a member of several ensembles noted for their innovative approach to the development of new work, including the Grossman Ensemble and the Zohn Collective. He has performed the premieres of over one hundred pieces, many composed specifically for him. His new piece, New Examples of Confusion, will also be premiered at the March concert.

Felipe Tovar-Henao currently serves as the 2021-22 Postdoctoral Researcher in Composition at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition. As part of this position, Tovar-Henao is developing a new piece, Simulacra, to be performed by the Grossman Ensemble. Characterized by a strong interest in engaging the audience on multiple perceptual levels, the music of Colombian composer Felipe Tovar-Henaohas been consistently awarded and performed throughout his emerging professional career. His creative work is deeply rooted in aesthetic experiences with technology, philosophy, and cinema, and exists primarily within the realms of chamber, electro-acoustic, multimedia, choral, vocal, and orchestral music.

The concert will be conducted by Timothy Weiss, a conductor known for a vast and fearless contemporary repertoire including masterworks, recent compositions, and an impressive number of premieres, commissions, and recordings with multiple ensembles and artists. For more than two decades, Weiss has directed the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, bringing the group to a level of artistry and virtuosity in performance that rivals the finest new music groups. A committed educator, Weiss helped create and mentor the ensembles Eighth Blackbird and ICE. He also serves as a faculty member and conductor of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and he is music director of the Arctic Philharmonic Sinfonietta in Bodø, Norway.

The performance will last approximately 80 minutes, including an introduction to each piece by its composer. Guests are invited to join the artists for an after-party in the Gidwitz Lobby of the Logan Center for the Arts following the concert. Tickets are $20 and free for students with ID. Purchase at cccc.uchicago.edu or by calling 773.702.2787.

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