Bienen School hosts sixth biennial new music conference April 25-27
/sites/default/files/2025-04/0250402_NUNC6.jpgThe Institute for New Music hosts its biennial Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC! 6) from Friday, April 25 through Sunday, April 27.
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2025-02/May24_CME_WEB.jpg?itok=JOIT3jCu
Alan Pierson, Ben Bolter, and Yelisey Zelman, conductors; Donnacha Dennehy, guest composer
Composer Donnacha Dennehy visits the Bienen School for a performance of his twelve-movement work Land of Winter, a sonic exploration of Ireland’s seasonal changes.
Dennehy explains, “The Latin name for Ireland was Hibernia, which translates as ‘land of winter.’... In a way it is the quality of light that demarcates the seasons, from the shorter days of grey or piercing light in the winter to the much longer, warmer but mercurial light of summer. I like this play between light and time, and it inspires the connection between expanding and contracting temporal processes and harmony, often overtone-hued, in the piece... Comfort and regeneration are found in the circular recurrences and variations.”
Alissa Voth, desire paths
Donnacha Dennehy, Land of Winter
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music Recitals & Lectures Visiting Artists Part of NUNC! 6: the Northwestern University New-Music Conference /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2025-02/apr26_CME_WEB.jpg?itok=2iD1nDxs
Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter, conductors; Bec Plexus and International Contemporary Ensemble members, special guest performers; Ben Chaddha, jazz trumpet; George Lewis, guest composer
Bec Plexus, Letter to a Tardigrade
George Lewis, The Deformation of Mastery
Bec Plexus, Is that your arm?
Christian Quiñones, Hasta que no pueda
Pascal Le Boeuf (arr. Pascal Le Boeuf, Bec Plexus, and Alan Pierson), Mirror Image
Anthony Braxton, Ghost Trance Music
NUNC! is made possible in part by the Sorensen Jacobson Fund for New Music.
Is Featured 1231233 No On Tickets are $8 for the general public and $5 for students with valid ID. Off https://ci.ovationtix.com/36542/performance/11601686?performanceId=11601686 Yes No Off 1231233 Saturday, April 26, 2025 at 7:30pm CDT Galvin Recital Hall On https://www.music.northwestern.edu/live/galvinBienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music Visiting Artists /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2024-11/Feb_15_CME_WEB.jpg?itok=jIdtUMCp
Ben Bolter and Yelisey (Eli) Zelman, conductors; Nina C. Young, guest composer
Nina C. Young’s innovative works are highlighted by the Contemporary Music Ensemble: Tarnish, a haunting piece for saxophone quartet that literally breathes with life, and Kashchei, a spine-tingling exploration of the Russian folkloric menace. Also featured is Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s boundlessly textured Entropic Arrows and Ania Vu’s wondrously fluttering Feathered Beings.
Nina C. Young, Tarnish
Nina C. Young, Kashchei
Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Entropic Arrows (US premiere)
Ania Vu, Feathered Beings
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music Recitals & Lectures Visiting Artists /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2024-12/Mar8_CME%26TaniaLeo%CC%81n_WEB.png?itok=deAtl_-c
Ben Bolter and Yelisey (Eli) Zelman, conductors
Tania Leon, guest composer
Tania León, celebrated composer and 2023 winner of Northwestern's Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition, returns to campus for her second residency in March. Her visit culminates in a performance by the Contemporary Music Ensemble featuring her Rítmicas, inspired by the rhythms and grooves of Afro-Cuban music. Also on the program is a new work by student composer Megan DiGeorgio, Clint Needham's bustling Urban Sprawl, and Bienen School dean Jonathan Bailey Holland's The Clarity of Cold Air, evoking the icy stillness of winter.
Clint Needham, Urban Sprawl
Megan DiGeorgio, Tell me where you sit, and I'll tell you who you are
Jonathan Bailey Holland, The Clarity of Cold Air
Tania León, Rítmicas
Off https://ci.ovationtix.com/36542/performance/11550165?performanceId=11550165 Yes No Off 1219059 Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 7:30pm CST Galvin Recital Hall On https://www.music.northwestern.edu/live/galvin
Top 10 CME Performances from the Past 10 Years
/sites/default/files/2024-10/20241030.jpgFaculty members Ben Bolter and Alan Pierson share their 10 favorite Contemporary Music Ensemble performances from the past 10 years.
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2024-08/nov15_cme_web.jpg?itok=Q86_H1U4
Ben Bolter, conductor
Shawn Okpebholo, CryptOlogie
Philippe Hurel, Pour l’image
Chris O’Brien, Empathy (world premiere)
Kaija Saariaho, Io
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2024-08/oct18_cme_web.jpg?itok=-M6Poks9
Ben Bolter, conductor; Marc Mellits, guest composer
The ensemble welcomes guest composer Marc Mellits for a performance of his lively and charming 240 Weeks, inspired by the impending arrival of six new babies in his social circles. Also on the program is Katherine Balch's Chamber Music—in the composer's own words, "a very intimate, intricate music intended for close listening and made among friends"—as well as a new work by composition PhD student Cat Phang.
Catherine Phang, Obsession
Katherine Balch, Chamber Music
Marc Mellits, 240 Weeks
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music Recitals & Lectures Visiting Artists /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2024-02/May17_CME_web.jpg?itok=vBobv7Vk
Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter, co-directors; Jason Gluck, graduate assistant conductor; Steven Kazuo Takasugi, guest composer
The Contemporary Music Ensemble's May performance features a new work by student composer Casey Weisman, James Tenney's microtonal 'Scend for Scelsi, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi's Sideshow for amplified ensemble and electronic playback. Takasugi's theatrical work, inspired by Coney Island's early-20th-century sideshow entertainment, examines the intersection of spectacle and sacrifice in the name of showbusiness. The composer explains, "The performers think of themselves as characters in a sideshow. The saxophonist is the Sideshow Giant...the violist is a sword swallower...the pianist is the Human Spider...the percussionist is the Sideshow Proprietor/Announcer. Each character...has his or her uncanny double, twin, imposter, accomplice, copycat, deformed clone."
Content Warning: Sideshow contains material that may be upsetting, including disturbing imagery and representations of screaming.
James Tenney, ‘Scend for Scelsi
Casey Weisman, All Adventurous Women Do (world premiere)
Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Sideshow
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2024-04/cme_harmoniemusik.jpg?itok=SfkjYy8A
Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter, conductors; Cassandra Miller, guest composer; staging direction by Alan Pierson
The Contemporary Music Ensemble presents an immersive, ritualized concert celebrating the residency of visionary Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, creator of “music that reminds us how to cry” (Alex Ross). At the heart of the event is Gérard Grisey’s iconic and beguiling masterpiece Partiels, based on cycles of human breath.
Cassandra Miller, O Zomer! (US premiere)
Mya Vandegrift, you do not have to be good (world premiere)
Gérard Grisey, Partiels from Les espaces acoustiques
Cassandra Miller, Perfect Offering
Bienen School warms up winter with a range of new music
/sites/default/files/2024-01/20240125_newmusic.jpegThis winter, the Institute for New Music presents a full slate of events featuring works by contemporary artists, including special guest performances and world premieres.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/01/bienen-school-of-music-warms-up-w…Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2023-11/mar8_cme.jpg?itok=SPM_o22Y
Ben Bolter, conductor; Jason Gluck, assistant conductor; Rena Maduro, mezzo-soprano
The ensemble’s second winter-quarter performance features Israeli composer Yotam Haber’s Estro Poetico-armonico III for mezzo-soprano and ensemble, inspired by recordings from the 1950s and ‘60s of liturgical traditions, stemming back centuries, from Jewish communities in Italy. The composer pairs portions of these recordings with poetry addressing the realities of modern life in Israel, while simultaneously grappling with its history. Also on the program is Stacy Garrop’s Frammenti—in the composer’s words, “a set of five miniatures in which each movement is based on one or more musical fragments"—and the world premiere of Bienen student composer Jonah Keoun’s Asphyxiation.
Jonah Keoun, Asphyxiation (world premiere)
Yotam Haber, Estro Poetico-armonico III (Chicago premiere)
Stacy Garrop, Frammenti (Fragments)
Bienen Ensembles Contemporary Music Ensemble Festivals & Series Institute for New Music /sites/default/files/styles/event_featured_image/public/2023-11/feb9_cme.jpg?itok=2JO1p9WJ
Ben Bolter, conductor
The ensemble’s first concert of the winter quarter features the Chicago premiere of Nina Shekhar’s Turn Your Feet Around. In the composer’s words, the work “brings the nightclub to the concert hall. Using deconstructed and warped fragments of the ever fabulous Gloria Estefan’s 'Get On Your Feet' (1989), musicians have a chance to reconnect with their own physicality by dancing to wild reimagined grooves and ‘80s-style drum-beats.” Wang Lu’s Cross-Around, commissioned by the Montreal-based group Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, explores the intersections of the many types of events in the universe and the ways in which they play off each other. Also on the program are two world premieres by Bienen student composers Apsara Balamurugan and Oliver Mann.
Apsara Balamurugan, Sumatra (world premiere)
Wang Lu, Cross-Around
Oliver Mann, Broken in Time (world premiere)
Nina Shekhar, Turn Your Feet Around (Chicago premiere)
Looking Back at 10 Years of the Institute for New Music
/sites/default/files/2023-05/20230518_institute_letter_collage.jpgHans Thomalla, director of the Institute for New Music, reflects on the first 10 years of the institute's impact on the Bienen School of Music and greater Northwestern communities.
Bienen School hosts fifth biennial new music conference April 21-23
/sites/default/files/2023-03/20230322_nunc.jpgFor the first time in five years, the Institute for New Music hosts its biennial Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC! 5) in person from Friday, April 21 to Sunday, April 23.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/03/bienen-school-hosts-fifth-biennia…Bienen School announces new music concerts for winter and spring
/sites/default/files/2023-01/20230123_instute_winter_events.jpgTed Hearne’s SCOTUS-inflected choral cantata “Sound from the Bench” and NUNC! 5 are among the winter and spring offerings at the Institute for New Music at the Bienen School of Music.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/01/bienen-school-announces-new-music…Composer and performer Joan La Barbara visits Bienen School of Music
/sites/default/files/2022-09/20220923_la_barbara.jpgComposer and performer Joan La Barbara will visit the Bienen School of Music for an Institute for New Music residency Oct. 21–29.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/09/composer-and-performer-joan-la-ba…Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival to showcase Bienen School prominently
/sites/default/files/2021-09/20210909_eartaxi.jpgMore than 100 alumni, faculty, and current students of the Bienen School of Music will participate in Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival September 15 through October 4.
Experiencing the Live Remote Concert Space
/sites/default/files/2021-05/20210517_cme_stream.jpgUndergraduate cello student Annie Hyung describes her experiences performing remotely in the Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Bienen School hosts fourth biennial new music conference virtually on April 24
/sites/default/files/2021-04/20210406_nunc4%20copy.jpgThe Institute for New Music at the Bienen School of Music will host its fourth biennial Northwestern University New-Music Conference (NUNC! 4) in a virtual format on Saturday, April 24.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2021/04/bienen-school-hosts-fourth-bienni…Bienen Institute for New Music welcomes David T. Little and Judd Greenstein
/sites/default/files/2019-04/20190403_newmusic.jpgThe Institute for New Music welcomes contemporary American composers David T. Little and Judd Greenstein for an April 24-27 residency. Other new music events this spring include a Mivos Quartet residency and performances by the Contemporary Music Ensemble, Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble and University Chorale.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/04/bienen-institute-for-new-music-we…Bienen School hosts third biennial new music conference April 20-22
/sites/default/files/2018-04/20180403_new_music_0.jpgThe Bienen School of Music's Institute for New Music will host the third biennial Northwestern University New-Music Conference (NUNC! 3) April 20-22.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2018/april/bienen-school-hosts-third-bien…Ben Bolter is co-director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble. He is also associate director of the Institute for New Music at the Bienen School.
Learn MoreEar Taxi Festival to showcase Bienen faculty, students and alumni
/sites/default/files/2018-01/20160913_eartaxi.jpgThe inaugural Ear Taxi Festival, an upcoming celebration of contemporary classical music in Chicago, will include two Bienen School new music ensembles among its diverse lineup of performers. Several alumni, students and faculty members are also involved in the festival, which will take place October 5-10, 2016 in various Chicago locations.
Opening Year Celebration Events
/sites/default/files/2018-01/20160613_opening_year.jpgThroughout the 2015–16 academic year, special events celebrated the Bienen School of Music’s new Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for the Musical Arts, commemorating the transformative time in the school’s history.
New Music Thrives at Northwestern
/sites/default/files/2018-10/20160601_newmusic_recap.jpgThe Institute for New Music held its second new-music conference November 6–8. NUNC! 2 brought together composers, performers, theorists, and musicologists specializing in new music.
Bienen School Presents Spring Celebration Events
/sites/default/files/2018-01/20160407_celebration_events.jpgThe world premiere of a commissioned work by David Lang, a performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park, and a three-day Horn Festival will be performed in honor of the Bienen School’s new Ryan Center for the Musical Arts.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/04/bienen-school-spring-celebrationNorthwestern Hosts Second New Music Conference Nov. 6 to 8
/sites/default/files/2018-03/20151015_newmusic_conference.jpgThe Ensemble Dal Niente, a contemporary music collective, and Third Coast Percussion, a group that explores and expands the sonic possibilities of percussion, are among the guest ensembles participating in an early November new music conference on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/10/music-conferenceNorthwestern Spring Choral Season Combines Ensembles
/sites/default/files/2018-08/20150416_choral.jpgThe Midwest premiere of “Lost Objects” by three Bang on a Can new music composers -- and the world premiere of “Canticle” by composer Imant Raminsh during a concert commemorating the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War -- are among the choral and collaborative performances taking place at Northwestern University this spring.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/04/northwestern-spring-choral-season…Bienen School to Present a Variety of New Music Programs
/sites/default/files/2018-04/20150324_new_music.JPGPerformances by acoustic and electric cellist Maya Beiser, Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche; flutist Claire Chase, pianist James Giles and two of the Bienen School’s new music ensembles will be among the artists who will push the boundaries of contemporary instrumental and vocal sounds at Northwestern University this spring.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/03/bienen-school-to-present-a-variet…Bienen School Institute for New Music Hosts ICE
/sites/default/files/2018-04/20150305_BSM_hosts_ICE.JPGA concert combining the talents of the Contemporary Music Ensemble with the International Contemporary Ensemble and another program with flutist Claire Chase are among the diverse lineup of new music events at Northwestern University in winter 2015.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/02/bienen-school-institute-for-new-m…