Friday, October 20
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Epiphany Center For The Arts: Epiphany Hall
201 S Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60607
Doors: 5PM for Golden Hour
Showtime: 7:30PM
Tickets: $15 - Standing, $20 - At door | $25 - Seated, $30 - At door | $80 - VIP table for 2 | $160 - VIP table for 4
For this one night performance, musician and composer Macie Stewart has arranged her debut solo album Mouth Full of Glass for a large ensemble. Convened especially for this occasion, performers include: Mallory Linehan, Karlyn Gehring, Zara Zahareva (violin); Karlita Williams (viola); Zach Moore (upright bass); Lia Kohl, Olula Negre (cello); Sen Morimoto, Dustin Laurenzi (saxophone); Michael Hilger (keys/guitar); Rob Frye (multi-instrument).
Mouth Full of Glass (released in the US by Orindal Records; UK - Full Time Hobby). Written and recorded by Stewart while finding solace and strength in solitude, Mouth Full of Glass features eight lushly arranged songs that search for the meaning of self within and without partnership. The record explores loneliness as well as the growth and beauty that blooms from within it—through creating it, Stewart reassesses her own relationships in order to communicate with a singular voice.
The evening opens with a special guest performance by Damon Locks and Dana Hall.
About Macie Stewart
Macie Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist, composer/arranger, songwriter, and improviser based in Chicago, IL who Downbeat Magazine calls “a master of equilibrium.” Stewart’s instrumental work primarily includes piano, violin, voice, guitar, and synthesizers. From a very young age she found herself drawn towards music and sound; learning to communicate with music while simultaneously learning to communicate with words. As the child of a career musician (pianist Sami Scot), Stewart was encouraged to explore the piano and violin through classical training which led to teaching herself guitar and composing music for herself and others. After helping to found the Chicago bands Kids These Days and Marrow, Stewart broadened their interests and spent time in the avant-garde jazz scene, performing regularly at Chicago institutions Constellation and The Hungry Brain. It was in that scene Stewart distinguished herself as a go-to collaborator, co-founding the band Finom, (with Sima Cunningham); forming an improvised duo and longstanding artistic collaboration with cellist and sound artist, Lia Kohl (Macie Stewart & Lia Kohl); performing and improvising with Ken Vandermark’s Marker ensemble; and creating as the improvised trio, The Few (with guitar player Steve Marquette and bassist Charlie Kirchen). Stewart has toured as a multi-instrumentalist with bands such as Japanese Breakfast, The Weather Station, Chance The Rapper, Makaya McCraven, and Tweedy. Stewart has also spent years working as a string arranger, drawing on her varied background in classical, jazz, and Irish folk music to create unique arrangements for artists such as the band Whitney, SZA, V.V. Lightbody, Knox Fortune, and many others.
About Damon Locks
Damon Locks is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist/musician. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA in fine arts. Since 2014 he has been working with the Prisons and Neighborhood Arts Project at Stateville Correctional Center teaching art. He is a recipient of the Helen Coburn Meier and Tim Meier Achievement Award in the Arts and the 2016 MAKER Grant. He operated as an Artist Mentor in the Chicago Artist Coalition program FIELD/WORK. In 2017 he became a Soros Justice Media Fellow. In 2019, he became a 3Arts Awardee. He recently completed 4years as an artist in residence as a part of the Museum of Contemporary Arts’ SPACE Program, introducing civically engaged art into the curriculum at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy High School. In the spring of 2022, he taught his first semester in the Sound Department on improvisation at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Damon leads the Black Monument Ensemble and is a founding member of the band The Eternals.
About Dana Hall
Dana Hall has been an important musician on the international music scene since 1992, when he left aerospace engineering for a life in music. He has professional performance credits on six continents, and extensive concert, club, and festival experience throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, both as a bandleader and with the ensembles of others. Hall was a 2019 Camargo Foundation Fellow in Composition. His most recent commission, a multidisciplinary work commemorating the 75th anniversary of the publication of Richard Wright’s Native Son, had its premiere in the renowned Orchestra Hall at Chicago’s Symphony Center. Hall is also a Professor of Music and the Director of Jazz Studies at DePaul University. His scholarship is principally concerned with issues of ethnicity, identity, and temporality; popular musics of the world; music as protest and resistance; and musics of both the African continent and the African Diaspora. His dissertation is a historical ethnography of Philly Soul during the Black Power Movement.
About Epiphany
From dance to theater, literary arts, comedy and magic, performance art is curated to complement Epiphany’s live music programming offering several performances to choose from seven days a week. And, from ages 17 to 70… whether traditional, old school or alternative, Epiphany’s eclectic and ageless music offerings include… Jazz, Blues, Rock, Pop, Funk or Classical; R&B, Soul, Folk, House or Fusion, or, Indie, Hip Hop, Bedroom Pop, Lounge or Rap.
This concert is presented in partnership with Epiphany