Concerts
MUSIC’S OVER

Listening with Peter Ablinger

Sun, 01/19/2020 -
Mon, 01/27/2020 Various Locations

For decades, Peter Ablinger’s work has been forcing open fault lines in the topography of the audible. His vast output of scores, electronic pieces, installations, and conceptual works consistently finds ways—funny, pointed, disturbing—to put the ear’s organization of reality in doubt. Is that a voice, and what is a voice? When is something newly or no longer music? Noise? Information? In Ablinger’s cunning scramble of sonic categories, listening loses its lay of the land. Concepts come unmoored from sounds, and the land changes shape.
 
The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is thrilled to kick off the inaugural week of Gray Sound with Ablinger’s first visit to Chicago. The residency will thread a series of talks, composition seminars, and experimental discussions in between multiple performance events featuring world premieres and internationally renowned ensembles, who will render Ablinger’s work alone and alongside other artists who enjoy his influence. Running throughout the week at the Gray Center Lab will be the world premiere of MUSIC’S OVER, one of the most ambitious of Ablinger’s Quadraturen (“Squarings”) series: a computer-controlled piano performs a clangorous, spectrally derived “phonorealist” transcription of a raucous live Doors performance from 1970. Come by and press the red button on the piano, and prepare to lose and refind your way.

Experience performances by Fonema Consort, Wet Ink Ensemble, and  a•pe•ri•od•ic, featuring two world premieres by Ablinger as well as works by Chiyoko Szlavnics, Fernanda Aoki Navarro, Sam Pluta, and others in a variety of locations.

Tuesday, January 21–Saturday, January 25, 10am–5pm daily
INSTALLATION:
World premiere of MUSIC’S OVER for computer-controlled piano, running all week
Location: Gray Center for Art and Inquiry, University of Chicago, 929 E. 60th St. Free admission

Sunday, January 19, 8:30pm
PERFORMANCE:
Wet Ink Ensemble performs Peter Ablinger and Sam Pluta
Location: Constellation, 3111 N Western Ave. 15 USD general / 10 USD for students

Tuesday, January 21, 5pm
SEMINAR:
Peter Ablinger leads the University of Chicago Composition Seminar (open to public)
Location: Performance Penthouse, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago, 915 E 60th St. Free admission

Wednesday, January 22, 6pm
SIDEBAR:
Music/Language/Thought/Noise
Peter Ablinger and Winfried Ritsch in conversation with UChicago professors Alan C.L. Yu & Itamar Francez (Linguistics) and Jennifer Iverson (Music), moderated by Gray Center Director Seth Brodsky (Music). 
Location: Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, 929 E. 60th St. Free admission

Thursday, January 23, 5pm
SEMINAR
Peter Ablinger leads the Northwestern University Composition Seminar
Regenstein Hall of Music, Master Classroom, 60 Arts Cirle Dr, Evanston
Free admission, open to the public

Thursday, January 23, 8pm
PERFORMANCE:
Eric Wubbels (piano) performs Peter Ablinger’s Voices and Piano (includes world premiere)
Location: Experimental Sound Studio, 5925 N Ravenswood Ave. 10 USD general admission, 8 USD students/ members

Friday, January 24, 8pm
PERFORMANCE:
Fonema Consort performs Peter Ablinger (includes world premiere), Chiyoko Slavnics, and Fernanda Aoki Navarro
Location: Performance Penthouse, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago, 915 E 60th St. Free admission

Saturday, January 25, 7:30pm
PERFORMANCE:
a•pe•ri•od•ic performs Peter Ablinger’s 3 Orte/3 Places in Chicago
Location: Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, 929 E. 60th Street (the concert will begin here and then move to two other locations within the Logan Center) | Free admission

Monday, January 27, 4pm
ARTIST TALK:
Peter Ablinger, “Complementary Art”
Location: Columbia College, 623 S Wabash Ave, Room 109 (Hokin Lecture Hall)

Named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times, the Wet Ink Ensemble is a collective of composers, performers and improvisers dedicated to adventurous musicmaking. Since the group’s first concerts in 1998, Wet Ink has moved fluently along a continuum of composition, improvisation, and interpretation, from early collaborations with Christian Wolff, George Lewis, and ZS to pioneering portrait concerts of Peter Ablinger, Mathias Spahlinger, Anthony Braxton, and the AACM composers, and deep, long-term collaborative work by members of Wet Ink. Wet Ink is co-directed by Erin Lesser (flutes), Alex Mincek (saxophone), Ian Antonio (percussion), Mariel Roberts (cello), Eric Wubbels (piano), Josh Modney (violin), Kate Soper (voice), and Sam Pluta (electronics). 

Eric Wubbels is a composer and pianist, and a Co-Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble. As a performer, he has given U.S. and world premieres of works by major figures such as Peter Ablinger, Richard Barrett, Beat Furrer, George Lewis, and Mathias Spahlinger, as well as vital young artists such as Rick Burkhardt, Erin Gee, Bryn Harrison, Clara Iannotta, Darius Jones, Cat Lamb, Ingrid Laubrock, Charmaine Lee, Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Katharina Rosenberger, and Kate Soper.



fonema : (Spanish, phoneme) the smallest unit of speech, which distinguishes words according to their sonic quality.
These concepts define the essence of Fonema Consort as they commission, perform, and record new music that explores the possibilities of the human voice in an avant garde chamber setting. Known for their “enthusiastic embrace of daring new music” (Chicago Reader) Fonema is driven by a fascination with pieces that foster rich interplay of voices and instruments. The ensemble is highly committed to presenting works by Latin American composers to US audiences and encouraging musical exchange between these regions.

Founded in 2010, a•pe•ri•od•ic‘s repertoire explores the indeterminacy of various musical elements including instrumentation, structure, pitch, and/or duration. Drawn to works of sparseness, contemplation, and quietude, this group has a history of interpreting distinctive pieces using a collaborative rehearsal process, deriving meaning and intention from oblique prose scores with great sensitivity.


Peter Ablinger was born in Schwanenstadt, Austria in 1959. He began studying graphic arts and was enthused by free jazz, but completed his studies in composition with Gösta Neuwirth and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati in Graz and Vienna. Since 1982 he has lived in Berlin, where he has initiated and conducted numerous festivals and concerts. In 1988 he founded the Ensemble Zwischentöne. He has been guest conductor of 'Klangforum Wien', 'United Berlin' and the 'Insel Musik Ensemble’. Since 1990 Peter Ablinger has worked as a freelance musician. 2012 he became a member of the Academy of Arts Berlin. 2012-2017 he was research professor at the University of Huddersfield.