Event Description
The CSO MusicNOW series returns for an evening celebrating today’s leading composers of contemporary art song. Vocalists Joelle Lamarre and Damien Geter illuminate works by Chicago-area composer Shawn Okpebholo alongside new arrangements by Ayanna Woods from her co-composed opera FORCE!* and the world premiere of a new piece by Geter. Dale Trumbore’s song cycle summons a chamber ensemble of CSO musicians to accompany Robin Myer’s poem about finding meaning in the coarseness of everyday life.
Arrive early to purchase a one-of-a-kind poem from the Poems While You Wait collective and take home your own souvenir from this evening’s celebration of poetry and music.
Program:
Ayanna Woods: I Dream [World Premiere Arrangement]*
Dale Trumbore: The Gleam
Damien Geter: The Bronze Legacy [CSO MusicNOW Commission, World Premiere]
Ayanna Woods: A Reckoning [World Premiere Arrangement]*
Shawn Okpebholo: Ballad of Birmingham from Two Black Churches [World Premiere Arrangement]
Shawn Okpebholo: Oh, Glory [World Premiere Arrangement]
*”A Reckoning” and “I Dream” are excerpted from FORCE! an opera in three acts, co-composed by Ayanna Woods, Anna Martine Whitehead, Angel Bat Dawid, and Philip Armstrong with words by Anna Martine Whitehead.