FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Press Contacts: May 21, 2015 Eileen Chambers, 312.294.3092 Rachelle Roe, 312.294.3090 Photos Available By Request [email protected] MusicNOW CONCLUDES 2014/15 SERIES WITH PROGRAM FEATURING WORK BY AVANT-GARDE JAZZ ARTISTS JOHN ZORN AND MYRA MELFORD Program Also Includes Works by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Chicago-based Composer Marc Mellits June 1 Concert Marks Final MusicNOW Program Curated by CSO’s Mead Composers-in-Residence Mason Bates and Anna Clyne Monday, June 1 at 7 p.m. at Harris Theater CHICAGO — The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) acclaimed MusicNOW series— dedicated to showcasing contemporary music through an innovative concert experience— concludes its 2014/15 season Monday, June 1, at 7 p.m. in a program led by MusicNOW principal conductor Cliff Colnot at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park (205 E. Randolph Dr., Chicago). The June 1 concert marks the final MusicNOW program curated by the CSO’s Mead Composers-In-Residence Mason Bates and Anna Clyne, who have guided the vision and development for the concert series since their appointment by CSO Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti in 2010. The June 1 MusicNOW program is performed by musicians of the CSO and special guest musicians including composer, pianist and Chicago-area native Myra Melford. It features two works by Guggenheim Fellow Melford, as well as works by American avant-garde composer John Zorn, internationally-acclaimed composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and American composer Marc Mellits. The concert experience is enhanced by special visual elements created by the Chicago-based film making collective Cinema Libertad, as well as DJ sets from illmeasures before and after the concert. The program opens with Marc Mellits’ Octet, a rhythmic chamber piece for strings. Mellits, professor of composition and theory at University of Illinois in Chicago, is known as a miniaturist, often composing short, high-impact musical pieces for small ensembles. Mellits is also known for his commissions for the concert hall and for online audiences, with some performances of his pieces attracting thousands of views on YouTube. The second work on the program is Dichotomie, written for solo piano in 2000 by composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and performed at this MusicNOW concert by pianist Winston Choi. Originally imagined as an encore piece, Salonen developed the piece into a longer work with two contrasting movements. The opening movement, Mécanisme, takes its inspiration from the precise workings of a machine, but ultimately becomes a machine that Salonen says “could feel some sort of joie de vivre.” For the second movement, Organisme, Salonen uses the metaphor of a willow tree with its leaves and branches blowing in the wind. Similarly, the music flows continuously with a deep and steady undercurrent throughout. Goetia is a series of eight “incantations” for solo violin written in 2002 by the iconic and prolific American avant-garde composer John Zorn. A response to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the virtuosic solo work was written for violinist Jennifer Koh and is performed by CSO Assistant Concertmaster Yuan Qing Yu on the June 1 program. Goetia, a term which describes a system of black magic that can conjure demons, uses a sequence of 277 notes that unfold in unexpected ways in the eight brief movements of the piece. Capping this final season program for MusicNOW are two compositions by acclaimed composer, pianist and jazz innovator Myra Melford. She joins musicians from the CSO and special guests including Russ Johnson (trumpet), Mike Reed (drums) and Tomeka Reid (cello), who are making their MusicNOW debut with this performance. The Large Ends the Way was originally composed for Melford’s own sextet. Melford notes that the piece was “inspired by the Book of the Tiger by Kiichi Hogen, a Japanese martial artist, from which the title comes—I was a student of aikido and Zen at the time, and attempting to express the feeling of being centered in both movement and stillness.” The Whole Tree Gone, also written for one of Melford’s sextets, is inspired by poetry of the 12th century Sufi mystic Rumi. The piece takes its name from an idea in the poem that the power of devotion can create a fire that can destroy worldly concerns, or a tree in this case. Melford describes the piece as through-composed with moments of improvised play for the different voices in the ensemble. 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. MusicNOW Media Sponsors are WBEZ and RedEye. Tickets for all CSOA concerts can be purchased by phone at 800-223-7114 or 312-294-3000; online at cso.org, or at the Symphony Center box office: 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604. Discounted student tickets for select concerts can be purchased, subject to availability, online in advance or at the box office on the day of the concert. For group rates, please call 312-294- 3040. Artists, programs and prices are subject to change. # # # Symphony Center Presents Monday, June 1, 2015, 7 p.m. MusicNOW Musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Harris Theater for Music and Dance Mason Bates, Mead Composer-in-Residence 205 E. Randolph Drive, Chicago Anna Clyne, Mead Composer-in-Residence Myra Melford, piano Cliff Colnot, conductor MELLITS Octet SALONEN Dichotomie ZORN Goetia MELFORD The Large Ends the Way MELFORD The Whole Tree Gone Tickets: $26, General Admission $10, Students BIOGRAPHIES Featured composers for MusicNOW June 1, 2015 program Marc Mellits Esa-Pekka Salonen John Zorn Myra Melford Cliff Colnot, MusicNOW Principal Conductor One of few musicians to have studied orchestral repertory with Daniel Barenboim, Colnot has served as assistant conductor for Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Workshops for young musicians from Israel, Egypt, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries. Colnot has also worked extensively with Pierre Boulez and has served as assistant conductor to Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy. He regularly conducts the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with whom he recorded Richard Wernick’s The Name of the Game for Bridge Records, and he collaborates regularly with the internationally acclaimed contemporary music ensemble eighth blackbird. Colnot has been principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary MusicNOW series since its inception and is principal conductor of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, an orchestra he has conducted since 1994. Colnot also conducts Contempo at the University of Chicago, the DePaul University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, and orchestras at Indiana University. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, and Ancora Chamber Orchestra. Colnot is also a master arranger. His orchestration of Shulamit Ran’s Three Fantasy Pieces for Cello and Pianowas recorded by the English Chamber Orchestra. For the chamber orchestra of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, Colnot has arranged the Adagio from Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, Schoenberg’sPelleas and Melisande (both published by Universal) and Manuel De Falla’s Three Cornered Hat. For ICE and Julia Bentley, Colnot arranged Olivier Messiaen’s Chants de Terre et de Ciel for chamber orchestra and mezzo-soprano, also published by Universal. For members of the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Colnot arranged Shulamit Ran’s Soliloquy for Violin, Cello, and Piano, to be published by Theodore Presser. Colnot recently re-orchestrated the Bottesini Concerto No. 2 in B Minor for Double Bass, correcting many errors in existing editions and providing a more viable performance version. He has also been commissioned to write works for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Percussion Scholarship Group. His orchestration of Duke Ellington’s New World Coming was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim as piano soloist in 2000, and Colnot also arranged, conducted, and co-produced the CD Tribute to Ellington featuring Barenboim at the piano. He wrote music for the MGM/UA motion picture Hoodlum and has written for rock-and-roll, pop, and jazz artists Richard Marx, Phil Ramone, Hugh Jackman, Leann Rimes, SheDaisy, Patricia Barber, Emerson Drive, and Brian Culbertson. Colnot graduated with honors from Florida State University and in 1995 received the Ernst von Dohnányi Certificate of Excellence. He has also received the prestigious Alumni Merit Award from Northwestern University, where he earned his doctorate. In 2001 the Chicago Tribune named Cliff Colnot a “Chicagoan of the Year” in music, and in 2005 he received the William Hall Sherwood Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts. He has studied with master jazz teacher David Bloom and has taught jazz arranging at DePaul University and film scoring at Columbia College. He also teaches advanced orchestration at the University of Chicago. As a bassoonist, he was a member of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, Music of the Baroque, and the Contemporary Chamber Players. Myra Melford, pianist and composer For pianist, composer and Guggenheim fellow Myra Melford, the personal and the poetic have always been intimately and deeply connected. Raised outside Chicago in a house designed by the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Melford grew up literally surrounded by art. Where most of us find the beauty in our childhood homes through the memories and associations we make within its four walls, Melford saw early on that aesthetic expression could both be built from and be a structure for profound emotions. Over the course of a career spanning more than two decades, Melford has taken that lesson to heart, crafting a singular sound world that harmonizes the intricate and the expressive, the meditative and the assertive, the cerebral and the playful.