Chicago Modern Orchestra Project Performers Likened to Musical Cardiologists
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Seasonal Concert Features Exceptional Compositions Using Graphic Scores to Maximize Improvisation.
- Chicago, IL (1888PressRelease) November 16, 2010 - The Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP) announces an exclusive concert event at the historic South Shore Cultural Center (7059 S. South Shore Dr., Chicago) on Wednesday, December 8 at 7:00 PM. The holiday concert will feature "Available Forms I" by influential experimental composer Earle Brown. Guest performers include flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell, and vocalists Steward Wilson and Yoseph Henry. Admission is free.
Unlike traditional forms of Western art music that is precisely notated through a standard use of written symbols, graphic musical notation uses non-traditional symbols to convey information about the performance for the interpretation of the musician. The experimental notation is strikingly visual, the musical cues often taking on the forms of colors, pictures or diagrams, and text to guide the performer through the composer's musical idea or inspiration. Brown's "Available Forms I" and Renée Baker's "Chamber Divertimento Roja" represent the modern notation that suggests a chain of musical events from which the CMOP musicians will create. Both compositions will allow the performers and audience to share in the first-time music-making experience, hearing the composer's work unfold as each performer creates sounds from uncustomary visual cues. The division between the written and the improvised remains as blurred as the musical notation from which the artists will create.
Founder and director Renée Baker has been at the extreme forefront of creative and avant-garde music while developing this unique ensemble since 1991. Utilizing some of the finest musicians that cross the classical world as well as jazz greats, the composer, conductor, violinist, and violist has crafted a group of the best traditionalists and married them to dedicated improvisors. A true genre bending experience, her skills as a conductor and musician coordinator have been used by some of the finest musical organizations in Chicago including Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings. Baker's musical affiliations have include Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Orchestra, David Boykin Expanse, Orbert Davis w/Strings Attached, Doug Carn, Karl Siegfried's Galaxy String Quartet, Great Black Music Ensemble (AACM), Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, and Chicago Jazz Orchestra. Ms. Baker is also the Artistic Director of the Chicago Sinfonietta Chamber Ensemble as well as Mantra Blue Free Orchestra.
The program also includes George Walker's harmonically rich and most popular work "Lyric for Strings", Frederick Tillis' intimate "Spiritual Fantasy", Yoko Ono's surprising "Wood Piece", and holiday favorites performed in nontraditional ways.
The Chicago Modern Orchestra Project is a partner of the highly successful Mantra Blue Free Orchestra (MBFO) and is dedicated to commissioning, performing and recording contemporary creative and classical music of many new composers.
More than 10 events will take place in 5 venues across Chicago from September 2010 through April 2011. chicagomodernorchestraproject.org
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