Zhou Brothers

Over the past 30 years, the Zhou Brothers have developed a collaborative creation technique that is completely unique and visionary. The concept of the “Dream Dialogue” being the primary means of communication between two artists during the act of creation is one that has implications outside the act of art creation in and of itself. It inspires a curiosity in what such collaboration could mean for other areas of the human experience.

Chicago Composers Forum recognized that though this form of collaboration may be realized through visual media or described in literature, the aural medium of music, with its time dependence and rigid structures, can pose difficulty in this form of collaboration. However, with new technologies that allow sound to be manipulated in real time, the possibilities become much more interesting for two or more improvising musicians to work together to create a unified sound. Using these methods, CCF composers and ICE musicians are able to work together in a way that is analogous to the Zhou Brothers collaboration. Because the Zhou Brothers often use their creative powers to give live performances of art creation set to music, it seemed only natural that these events occur together. On March 9th at 7pm the resulting collaboration will be to witness the creative act—in sound and in images—through a simultaneous juxtaposition of both live art and live music for a live audience.

ABOUT THE COMPSERS

Nathan Davis

CCF member Guillermo Gregorio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and became an American citizen in 2003. With his Chicago-based trio and other ensembles, Gregorio has performed his own compositions in Europe and the US and has released several CDs for the labels hatART, New World Records, and Atavistic. In addition, he has worked and recorded with various improvisational groups. In 2001, he founded the Madi Ensemble of Chicago, which performs original and historical scores that draw from the conceptual foundation of the 20th century Argentinian avant-garde. As a composer and improviser, Gregorio has collaborated with Vinko Globokar, Stephen Dembski, Enrique Gerardi, Steffen Schleiermacher, Ran Blake, Jim O’Rourke, Ken Vandermark, Axel Dörner, George Graewe, Franz Koglmann, Le Quan Ninh, Akikazu Nakamura, Ab Baars, Sebi Tramontana, Mats Gustafsson and Mary Oliver, among others. “What affects my music more than any other thing,” Gregorio explains, “is my involvement in visual arts, and my architectural and design experience.” In his compositions, a reinterpretation of the fundamental and structural concepts of Constructivism converges with the historical experiences of Argentinean Conceptualism, Fluxus, intermedia synthesis, and graphic music. In addition to the acceptance of sound as material, constructive and geometrically generated ideas are used in scores ranging from conventionally notated statements to graphs, including planimetric projections of spatial structures.

Ryan Ingebritsen

Chicago-born composer Christopher Preissing is the founder and director of Is Performance Group, a multimedia collaborative performance ensemble, and is currently the Executive Director of the Chicago Composers Forum. He has received awards and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, Illinois Arts Council, Arts Midwest, American Composers Forum, Ruthmere Foundation, and Indiana Arts Commission. His music has been performed at DISCOVERIES XXXI in Scotland, SEAMUS National Conferences, International Electronic Music Plus Festival, and more at home and abroad.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE - ICE is a uniquely structured chamber music ensemble comprised of thirty dynamic and versatile young performers who are dedicated to advancing the music of our time. Through innovative programming, multimedia collaborations, commissions by young composers, and performances in nontraditional venues, ICE brings together new music and new audiences.

Claire Chase, flutist, is active as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and arts entrepreneur. As a soloist, Chase has received top prizes in the National Young Artist Competition, the International Chamber Orchestra Young Artist Competition and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Competition. She has performed concertos with orchestras in the US, Canada and Mexico, and was recently featured at the National Flute Association Convention, performing a new concerto by Harvey Sollberger. Chase founded ICE in 2001, and has served as the ensemble's Executive Director since its inception. She has been honored for her work in the field of contemporary music with awards from the Theodore Presser Foundation, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, Chamber Music America, and ASCAP.

Award winning violinist, composer, and ICE member Jennifer Curtis appears regularly as featured soloist and as collaborative chamber musician across the United States and abroad. Her compositions have been performed in New York City, at The Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondiin Italy, and at the Verbier Festival de Musique in Switzerland, among others.

Saxophonist David Reminick received Masters Degrees in Saxophone and Music Theory from the University of Michigan as well as a BM in Saxophone Performance and a BA in Psychology from Oberlin Conservatory and College. He is the singer/guitarist for the Chicago-based band Paper Mice, and has performed improvised duets with trumpeter Peter Evans for the past six years. Reminick currently teaches music theory and saxophone at Columbia College Chicago and will begin teaching saxophone at Northeastern Illinois University this fall.

Joshua Rubin (clarinet) is a founding member of ICE. Rubin has recently been featured at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, Cal Performances (Berkeley, CA), at Massachusetts MoCA, on WFMT radio in Chicago and internationally at festivals in Poland, Norway and Mexico. Rubin can be heard on upcoming recordings with the Tzadik, Bridge, Cedille, Focus Recordings and Naxos labels. He is also a member of the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, and the clarinet and percussion duo Breekbaar.

As a soloist, chamber musician, and founding percussionist of ICE, David Schotzko has premiered over 75 new works by composers from around the world. He has worked closely with established composers such as Steve Reich, Julio Estrada, David Lang, Martin Bresnick, Evan Ziporyn, Tan Dun, and James Wood, as well as continually championing the works of young and emerging composers such as Dai Fujikura, Du Yun, and Suzanne Farrin.

For more information on the he Chicago Composers Forum, visit their website at www.chicagocomposers.org.