Constellation is delighted to announce the line-up for Frequency Festival 2024, which runs at Constellation and the Renaissance Society between Tuesday, February 20 and Sunday, February 25. The festival debuted in 2016 as an extension of the acclaimed Frequency Series, a weekly program of contemporary and experimental music at Constellation that has become an integral showcase for the city’s burgeoning new music community and touring international artists since it began in April of 2013. As with the 2023 edition of the festival, everything happens Constellation except for Friday’s Ellen Arkbro performance at Rockefeller Chapel.
The fest launches at Constellation on February 20 with the Chicago debut of the duo andPlay, a violin-viola duo with Maya Bennardo of Mivos Quartet and Hannan Levinson, playing a set of music composed in Just Intonation by Catherine Lamb and Kristofer Svensson. The evening is hedlined by BCMC, the expansive duo of Cooper Crain (Bitchin Bajas) and Bill MacKay. The following evening, February 21, New York trumpeter Nate Wooley gives the Chicago premiere of solo compositions by Martin Arnold and Sarah Hennies. The remarkable Berlin-based violinist Sarah Saviet (Riot Ensemble, Harmonic Space Orchestra) gives the US premiere of Bryn Harrison’s A Coiled Form. On Wednesday, February 22, vocalist Jessika Kenney and violist Eyvind Kang make their Chicago debut as a duo, performing music from their recent album Azure, released by SunnO)))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label. The evening begins with the Chicago premiere of Zarabanda Variations , “a speculative sounding of music from 16th- and 17th-century New Spain/Mexico.”
On Friday night, February 23, the Swedish composer and musician Ellen Arkbro makes her Chicago debut with a performance of her solo organ work Sculptures. The concert is co-presented with Renaissance Society at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of University of Chicago in Hyde Park. Admission is free.
Saturday night’s program at Constellation is headlined by the venerable Chicago new music institution Ensemble Dal Niente, with a program including a new large-scale work from Louis Goldford. The evening also includes work from Lei Liang, Kari Watson, and Carlos Carillo, The fest closes on Sunday night, February 25 at Constellation with a double bill featuring two former Chicago-area artists. Violinist Austin Wulliman, who made his name in Chicago as a member of Ensemble Dal Niente and Spektral Quartet, returns to play music from his stunning solo album The News From Utopia, along with a performance of the violinist’s piece Down Pat for electric guitar and electronics, written for the unique talents of guitarist and improviser Alec Goldfarb. who also performs Thursday with Zarabanda Variations, The evening begins with a rare Chicago solo performance from pianist/composer Cory Smythe, a keystone of International Contemporary Ensemble, a Grammy-winning accompanist of Hilary Hahn, and a fierce improviser who will play music from and adjacent to this stunning 2022 album Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
Frequency Festival 2024 is generously supported by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.
Festival logo: http://beta-field.org/
