Chicago Reader - Lily Glick Finnegan, drummer and OPTION series curator
Lily Glick Finnegan, 25, is a drummer, composer, improviser, and curator. A Chicago native, she returned to the city in 2022 after completing a master’s degree in music at Berklee. She manages the online record store for nonprofit artists’ collective Catalytic Sound, a job she took at the invitation of local reedist Ken Vandermark, who cofounded the collective in 2011.
Finnegan plays in Vandermark’s quartet Edition Redux, which has an album due this fall; the lineup also includes keyboardist Erez Dessel and tuba player Beth McDonald. She drums for saxophonist Sarah Clausen in her trio with bassist Katie Ernst, as well as in Thwartet with Clausen, Dessel, and bassist Tyler Wagner. She’s part of Christof Kurzmann & El Infierno Musical alongside Vandermark, saxophonist Dave Rempis, and cellists Lia Kohl and Katinka Kleijn, and that group has plans to record soon as well.
Perhaps most significant, Finnegan’s trio with Clausen and bassist Jakob Heinemann has an album coming in the fall that consists entirely of her own compositions—her first release as a bandleader.
This spring, Experimental Sound Studio invited Finnegan to come aboard as one of three curators for its Option Series, whose salon-style programming focuses on contemporary improvisation and composition. This year’s series runs every Sunday through September 3.