For Immediate Release:
November 14, 2016
Press Contacts:
Eileen Chambers, 312.294.3092
Photos Available By Request
[email protected]
MusicNOW 2016/17 SERIES CONTINUES WITH 80TH BIRTHDAY
CELEBRATION FOR ICONIC AMERICAN COMPOSER STEVE REICH
Program Includes Reich’s Different Trains, Proverb,
and Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet
Post-Concert Lobby Installations Highlight More of Reich’s Early Works—
Pendulum Music, It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out
November 21, at 7:00 p.m. at the Harris Theater
CHICAGO—The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) MusicNOW series continues on
Monday, November 21, at 7:00 p.m. at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium
Park (205 E. Randolph Dr., Chicago). Curated by CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence Samuel
Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek, the November 21 program celebrates the 80th birthday of
American composer Steve Reich (b. October 3, 1936). It features musicians of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra performing Reich’s Different Trains, Proverb—with musicians from
Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music—and his Pulitzer Prize-winning work Double
Sextet. MusicNOW welcomes conductor Alan Pierson, co-director of the Contemporary Music
Ensemble at the Bienen School of Music, to the podium for this performance.
In addition to the performance, MusicNOW audience members can experience more of Steve
Reich’s work after the concert in the lower level lobby of the Harris Theater. Reich’s Pendulum
Music falls somewhere between performance art and what he calls “audible sculpture.” In this
work four performers release swinging microphones over speakers resulting in fasing feedback.
Beyond this live recreation, audience members can discover two of Reich’s early “tape pieces,”
including It’s Gonna Rain and a video screening of Come Out that features the work of
internationally acclaimed choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and filmmaker Thierry
De Mey.
Steve Reich, who has been called “...the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New
Yorker) and “...among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times), is a Grammy
Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. He is also the 2016 recipient of the prestigious
Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at
Northwestern University. Born in New York, Reich studied philosophy at Cornell University and
composition at the Juilliard School of Music and Mills College. During his musical studies, his
distinguished teachers included Hall Overton, William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti, Darius
Milhaud and Luciano Berio. Throughout his career Reich has devoted much of his time to
studies in non-Western and American vernacular music, such as African drumming, Gamelan
music, and Hebrew scripture chanting. Reich’s early compositions—such as It’s Gonna Rain
(1965) and Come Out (1966)—experimented with taped audio, a technique which would later be
utilized to profound effect in such works as his WTC 9/11 and the Grammy® award-winning
Different Trains. Reich’s cross-genre artistic collaborations have been numerous, with notable
projects including his digital opera Three Tales (2002) with video artist Beryl Korot, and his work
with choreographers Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jirí Kylían, Jerome Robbins and the New
York City Ballet, and Laura Dean.
The MusicNOW program opens with Different Trains which was premiered by the Kronos
Quartet in 1988, and later recorded by the group on an album which also featured Reich’s
Electric Counterpoint performed by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. The work was inspired by
Reich’s memories of childhood train trips from New York to Los Angeles visiting his separated
parents, and his reflection on the very different train trips he may have had to take as a Jew if
he were living in Europe at that time. The work is scored for string quartet and pre-recorded
audiotape that features 1930’s and 40’s American and European train sounds, as well as
spoken-word from Holocaust survivors, a retired Pullman porter, and Reich’s own governess
who accompanied him on his travels. Different Trains represented the beginning of a
compositional method Reich calls “speech melody,” in which a curated selection of spoken-word
recordings form the basis of the melodic material for a work.
Reich’s Proverb was written in 1995 and premiered in 1996 in New York by Steve Reich and
musicians under the direction of Paul Hillier, who presented Reich with the idea for the
composition. The music is scored for three sopranos, two tenors, two vibraphones, and two
electric organs, and sets the words of 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to music.
Reich’s structure for the piece was influenced by the 12th century western music of Perotin and
his three-part Organum. The short lyrics within the work, “How small a thought it takes to fill a
whole life!,” are from a collection of Wittgenstein’s writings published in 1977 titled Culture and
Value.
Reich’s Double Sextet is scored for chamber orchestra and pre-recorded tape and was
commissioned by the award-winning Chicago-based contemporary music ensemble eighth
blackbird, who premiered the work in 2008. Reich was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Double
Sextet in 2009.The piece can be performed in two ways—either 6 musicians playing against a
recording of themselves, or with 12 musicians performing the entire score as it will be presented
at MusicNOW. As with some of Reich’s early works such as Violin Phase (1967) and later works
such as New York Counterpoint (1985) or Different Trains, the instruments interlock to create
highly rhythmic passages. Unlike these previous works, Double Sextet utilizes a full palate of
instrumental sounds from winds, percussion and strings.
New to MusicNOW in 2016/17 is a partnership with the Chicago-based collaborative design
practice, Thirst. Inspired by the music on each of the four MusicNOW programs, Thirst artist
John Pobojewski creates an original artwork for each program that will be available as a
complimentary commemorative poster for up to 150 audience members at each performance,
while supplies last. Pobojewski notes that his second piece for the November 21 Concert
utilizes a composition which is “polyrhythmic, inspired by Reich’s technique of slowly modifying
a repeated rhythmic passage over time.”
Each MusicNOW concert includes special elements such as video introductions to each work on
the program and an opportunity to meet with the CSO musicians and composers in an informal
setting during post-concert receptions with complimentary food and beverages.
The CSO’s 2016/17 MusicNOW series continues with the third program, Illuminating Boulez,
which honors the legacy of Pierre Boulez on Monday, April 3, 2017 at 7:00 p.m., with
performances of the composer’s Memoriale, 12 Notations, and Messagesquisse, as well as two
MusicNOW commissioned world premieres from composers Marcos Balter and Pauline
Oliveros. The final concert of the 2016/17 MusicNOW series explores the 21st Century Concerto
on Monday, May 22, 2017 at 7:00 p.m., and includes the world premiere of a MusicNOW
commissioned work from Mead Composer-in-Residence Elizabeth Ogonek.
Special thanks to Helen Meyer and Meyer Sound for graciously donating sound equipment
support for MusicNOW.
The November 21 MusicNOW program is presented in collaboration and with support from
Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
MusicNOW receives funding through a leadership challenge grant from Irving Harris
Foundation, Joan W. Harris. Major support is provided by Cindy Sargent and the Sally Mead
Hands Foundation and the Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust. MusicNOW Media Sponsors are
WBEZ and Chicago Tribune.
Tickets for all MusicNOW concerts can be purchased by phone at 800-223-7114 or 312294-3000; online at cso.org, or at the Symphony Center box office: 220 S. Michigan Ave.,
Chicago, IL 60604.
MusicNOW concerts for the 2016/17 season take place on Mondays at 7 p.m. at the Harris
Theater for Music and Dance located at 205 E. Randolph in Chicago.
Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.
###
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
MusicNOW
Harris Theater for Music and Dance
205 E. Randolph Drive, Chicago
Monday, November 21, 2016, 7:00 p.m.
Musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Alan Pierson, conductor
Musicians from the Bienen School of Music of
Northwestern University
Samuel Adams, Mead composer-in-residence
Elizabeth Ogonek, Mead composer-in-residence
REICH
REICH
REICH
Different Trains
Proverb
Double Sextet
Tickets: $27
CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence:
Samuel Adams
Elizabeth Ogonek
Featured Conductor for November 21, 2016 Program:
Alan Pierson
Read more about this program on CSO Sounds & Stories - Steve Reich Reflects on ‘Different Trains,’
‘Proverb’ and ‘Double Sextet’
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: www.cso.org and www.csosoundsandstories.org/
Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest
orchestras in the world. Since 2010, the preeminent conductor Riccardo Muti has served as its 10th
music director. Yo-Yo Ma is the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant, and Samuel Adams
and Elizabeth Ogonek are its Mead Composers-in-Residence.
From baroque through contemporary music, the CSO commands a vast repertoire. Its renowned
musicians annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago and, each
summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. They regularly tour nationally and internationally. Since 1892,
the CSO has made 59 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents.
People around the globe listen to weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings on the WFMT
radio network and online at cso.org/radio. Recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards,
including two in 2011 for Muti’s recording with the CSO and Chorus of Verdi's Messa da Requiem. Find
details on these and many other CSO recordings at www.cso.org/resound.
The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which also includes the Chicago
Symphony Chorus (Duain Wolfe, Director and Conductor) and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training
ensemble for emerging professionals. Through its prestigious Symphony Center Presents series, the
CSOA presents guest artists and ensembles from a variety of genres—classical, jazz, world, and
contemporary.
The Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO offers community and education programs that annually
engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds. Through the Institute and other
activities, including a free annual concert with Muti and the CSO, the CSO is committed to using the
power of music to create connections and build community.
The CSO is supported by thousands of patrons, volunteers and institutional and individual donors. The
CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family
Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the
Negaunee Music Institute.