This exhibition presents the Mexican artist Leslie García’s intervention in El Saturn Collection—an archive of around 600 tapes and cassettes by the jazz musician Sun Ra—through synthesizers, electronic processing and artificial intelligence.
In a one-time performance, Chicago-based composer and sound artist Lia Kohl presents the world premiere of her latest composition "Music for Union Station," a chamber work responding to the Great Hall of Chicago's central train station.
To celebrate what would have been Mars’ 70th birthday, and to launch the Mars Williams Archive now hosted at ESS, we’re glad to invite you to the third in a series of events: Mars Williams Toy Story featuring a new composition by Lia Kohl.
To celebrate what would have been Mars’ 70th birthday on May 29, and to launch the Mars Williams Archive now being hosted at Experimental Sound Studio, we’re glad to invite you to the culminating event of the weekend: This afternoon we invite the general public to come and check out Mars Williams’ extensive collection of recordings in every imaginable format, dating back to the mid-70’s.
The OPTION 2025 season kicks off with Potliquor, a new experimental duo with pianist Sharon Udoh and turnablist Allen Moore.
Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer Patrick Shiroishi performs on the OPTION stage for the first time.
Joe Westerlund performs electroacoustic percussion pieces from past and forthcoming records with improvisations.
Lula Asplund performs a solo set in her first appearance on the OPTION stage.
DoYeon Kim performs "Silk Echoes Beneath the Light," an improvisational work that explores the intricate resonance of the 12-string gayageum, weaving through light and space.
In this concert Bill MacKay and Cooper Crain visit where BCMC has been as a band and explores where they’re going, featuring work that is both composed and improvisational.
“Scratching” is an immersive multichannel soundscape created and performed by cellist and noise/performance artist Katinka Kleijn at the Chicago Athletic Association in their Tank, a former swimming pool at the club.
Veronica Anne Salinas guides a workshop in Deep Listening and sonic improvisation as a social experience.
Curated by flutist Sasha Ishov, Echoes and Influences is an evening of solos and duos featuring music by Joji Yuasa, alongside works by Isang Yun and Jo Kondō — figures in the postwar Japanese and Korean avant-garde whose works reflect distinct yet interwoven aesthetic trajectories.
Laura Ortman and Kari Watson discuss their collaboration to create a piece for ESS's Florasonic series at Lincoln Park Conservatory.
In the first of three spring Patchbent sessions, Lorelei d'Andriole teaches the basics of bringing audio from VCV Rack to TouchDesigner to explore the potential of audio reactive visuals.
Join us on Saturday, March 29, 2025 as the Creative Audio Archive collaborates with Asian Improv Arts Midwest to present a free, public Listening Party and Screening of rarely seen archival footage documenting a live performance by the Fred Anderson Trio in Osaka in 1999. The screening will be followed by a live discussion with Aoki.
Chicago Creative Machines presents Bryan Pardo’s Interactive Audio Lab, where they invent new tools to find, label, separate, modify, and generate sound. Pardo will discuss several projects illustrative of the work in the lab.
Chicago Creative Machines presents Caitlyn Min-ji Au in a talk about indeterminacy and her work-in-progress with roombas.
Chicago Creative Machines presents Ted Moore in a free FluCoMa workshop!
This workshop introduces participants to FluCoMa, a toolkit for making music with machine listening and machine learning within Max, SuperCollider, and Pure Data.
This Saturday, March 1st at Parachute HiFi join ESS for a Creative Audio Archive DJ set by CAA Archives Manager James Wetzel. Swing by from 7-11 PM for great food, drinks, and sounds!
Join us for an evening with the Patchbent community at Dark Matter Coffee’s Star Lounge. This meetup is an open time to hang out and see what others have been working on.
Intro to Microsound is a 4-session course introducing students to the Gen~ programming environment inside of MaxMSP.
Chicago Creative Machines presents human-robot interaction designer and researcher Patricia Alves-Oliveira.
This workshop address how robots can be used for unconventional tasks, such as being promotors of human creativity and artistic expression.
ESS launches a series of Virtual Happy “Hours” in 2025. These are curated 30ish-minute live Zoom events featuring special artist content, Creative Audio Archive selections, and a lively chat—no cameras required!
“Chicago Composers: the Next Generation” celebrates the work of composers in the Crossing Borders Music Young Composers Project. In the project, youth from music programs in North Lawndale and Garfield Park receive weekly composition lessons and write a piece for the Crossing Borders Music string quartet.
Learn how to map images onto audio signals and audio signals onto images in this PixelAudio Workshop led by Paul Hertz.
November 30th, 2024 7PM at The Fourtunehouse Art Center. A mute alien, who looks like an African American man, faces struggle when he is chased by two of his fellow aliens in order to bring him back to his planet.
Limited Seating Available
November 23rd, 2024 7PM at The Fourtunehouse Art Center. An interstellar traveler and musician lands on earth and duels with an evil overlord for the souls of people.
SUN RA is an audiovisual exhibition exploring the Sun Ra/El Saturn Collection archived by Experimental Sound Studio.
Richard Brasseale (saxophone) and Jonathan Hannau (piano) explore reflective musical works for saxophone and piano, including premieres by Brasseale and Hannau.
New Music Chicago presents a career development workshop series in collaboration with Resonator Arts , an NYC-based artist services organization dedicated to amplifying the voices of independent artists.
Paul Hertz presents new visual, audio, and intermedia works created with his new free, libre open source software library for Processing, PixelAudio.
Paul Hertz presents new visual, audio, and intermedia works created with his new free, libre open source software library for Processing, PixelAudio.
This ensemble performance in Bond Chapel assembles a group of musicians who appeared on the original recordings, playing through the new works live as compositions for the first time and taking them as launchpads for further improvisation.
In this presentation, Hara Alonso will share some of the work she has been doing during her residency at ESS, extending the piano through preparations and modular synthesizers.
Explore the synthesis of code, sound and moving images in this multimedia presentation and demo with Lisa Glenn Armstrong.
Join us for a garage sale of epic proportions featuring synthesizers, DIY and boutique noisemakers, records, vintage A/V equipment, refreshments, performances and camaraderie galore.
Visda Goudarzi will teach creative coding with audio. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop to follow along.
Composers Xavier Beteta (Guatemala), Josh Rodriguez (Colombia), and Richard Scofano (Argentina), will offer three world premieres – a rich sonic feast presenting eclectic aesthetics that draw inspiration from classical, contemporary, and Latin American dance and folk music. A celebration of music by Chicago-based composers from Central and South America, this concert of new piano trio music performed by Stephen Uhl, Brian Ostrega, and Brian Gaona will also feature the bandoneon.
Art as Civic Ritual is a Long-Table discussion, a participatory, non-hierarchical conversation for, with, and among the public about art making as a ritual for civic work, and a process for radical democracy. Featured guests — artists, activists, and civic leaders Tonika Lewis Johnson, Faheem Majeed, Bindu Poroor, and Gibran Villalobos join the conversation to thicken and galvanize our dialogue.
