Since its inception as the "Outer Ear Festival of Sound" from 2000-2009, Outer Ear has presented the most notable experimental sound artists, improvisers, composers, and ensembles in the world in remarkably intimate settings. Outer Ear was named "Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio" by the Chicago Reader in 2014. In 2017 Outer Ear went through yet another transformation in response to artist needs and became the Outer Ear Residency.
In the second iteration of ESS's residency exchange program with the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain, Spanish artist Clara de Asìs and Chicago artist Veronica Anne Salinas have been sharing ideas and processes across continents throughout this summer.
A musical performance and immersive art installation inspired by seismic data from an ailing iceberg.
As part of the Outer Ear Residency, Luftwerk presents an immersive sculptural exhibition at Audible Gallery, November 8th, 2019 - January 26th, 2020. Illuminated objects will fill the space with shadows and reflections creating a visual topography enhanced by amplified sounds mimicking the calving of glaciers, created by collaborator Katherine Young.
As part of the Outer Ear Residency, Luftwerk presents an immersive sculptural exhibition at Audible Gallery, November 8th, 2019 - January 26th, 2020. Illuminated objects will fill the space with shadows and reflections creating a visual topography enhanced by amplified sounds mimicking the calving of glaciers, created by collaborator Katherine Young.
Duo Duthoit/Hautzinger brings together two of Europe’s most creative improvisers into an intimate co-exploration of abstract music. They will be joined by Chicago musician and composer Michael Zerang.
The thirteenth annual Bridge brings French musicians Jean-Luc Guionnet and Pierre-Antoine Badaroux together with Chicago musicians Jim Baker and Jason Roebke for ESS's Outer Ear series.
Mabel Kwan will use PLAY as the central theme of her performance in ESS's 2017 Outer Ear series.
DOORS AT 7:30; MUSIC AT 8PM
$10 general / $8 students & ESS members
Juliet Fraser performs at ESS's 2017 Outer Ear series.
DOORS AT 7:30; MUSIC AT 8PM
$10 general / $8 students & ESS members
Swiss-based new music trio Gyre Ensemble develops new pieces and concepts using an unusual instrumentation: Alejandro Olivan (saxophone), Stefanie Mirwald (accordion), and Christian Smith (percussion).
DOORS AT 7:30; MUSIC AT 8PM
$10 general / $8 students & ESS members
John Chantler is a musician and organiser living in Stockholm, Sweden working with synthesizers, electronics and sometimes pipe organs to explore his own personalised compositional and improvisational strategies — working with and against the specific systems inherent in his chosen tools. (Photo by Micke Keysendal)
Hermann Hesse’s groundbreaking novel Steppenwolf treats the figure of Harry Haller, a man torn between the confining parameters of civilized life and his submerged instinctual self, as a symbol of the struggle between one's own often opposed aspects: those of both the exterior and culturally-predetermined human, and the obscured yet never-sleeping wolf. For their performance, Bill MacKay and Katinka Kleijn will draw on musical motifs from various experimental traditions to illustrate these polarities, their inevitable conflict, and the redeeming power of their eventual convergence. (Photo by Paul Crisanti)
Grykes is Shawn Decker and Mark Booth. Grykes utilizes analog modular synthesis, raw and processed field recordings, electronics, pre-composed ambient textures, violin, guitar, and audio collage in their live performances. Their open form works have a fixed progression and structure, and a closed set of materials, but are variable in the details of live performance. Grykes is named for the unusual fissures in the limestone pavements of the Burren, Ireland that support arctic, Mediterranean, and tropical flora in the same ecosystem.
Since its inception, the Spektral Quartet has sought out the discourse between the great works of the traditional repertoire and those written this decade, this year, or this week. Creating connections across centuries, the group further invites its listeners in with charismatic deliveries, interactive concert formats, an up-close atmosphere, and bold, inquisitive programming.
Named 'Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio' by the Chicago Reader in 2014, ESS's flagship live performance series returns in Spring 2015 for a series of five concerts showcasing an international roster of improvisers, artists, and composers all working at the vanguard of the sonic arts.
Named 'Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio' by the Chicago Reader in 2014, ESS's flagship live performance series returns in Spring 2015 for a series of five concerts showcasing an international roster of improvisers, artists, and composers all working at the vanguard of the sonic arts.
Named 'Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio' by the Chicago Reader in 2014, ESS's flagship live performance series returns in Spring 2015 for a series of five concerts showcasing an international roster of improvisers, artists, and composers all working at the vanguard of the sonic arts.
Named 'Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio' by the Chicago Reader in 2014, ESS's flagship live performance series returns in Spring 2015 for a series of five concerts showcasing an international roster of improvisers, artists, and composers all working at the vanguard of the sonic arts.
Named 'Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio' by the Chicago Reader in 2014, ESS's flagship live performance series returns in Spring 2015 for a series of five concerts showcasing an international roster of improvisers, artists, and composers all working at the vanguard of the sonic arts.
Outer Ear, ESS's flagship live performance series, returns in Spring 2014 for a series of five concerts by an eclectic roster of acclaimed artists, ensembles, and composers working in Chicago and beyond.
Composer Sam Scranton's Detritivore is an evening length work in five movements for four performers. Central to the work's genesis is the idea developed by Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death that culture exists to protect and shield human beings from their own insignificance, contingency, and animal brutality. The sound world that makes up Detritivore is wholly derived from text: solar data tables, astrological charts, personal observation, lifecycle/business-cycle timetables, and meditations on (im)mortality. Though the work is text based, words are coded, performed, and mediated beyond intelligibility. One may catch glimpses of the speech-based network undergirding the whole, but mostly Detritivore is experienced as a ritualized performance at turns chaotic, atmospheric, expansive and claustrophiliac, that exists beyond the total comprehension of composer, performer or audience. The work will be performed by the composer with Bill Frisch, Diedre Huckabay, and Andrew Tham.
Outer Ear, ESS's flagship live performance series, returns in Spring 2014 for a series of five concerts by an eclectic roster of acclaimed artists, ensembles, and composers working in Chicago and beyond.
Outer Ear, ESS's flagship live performance series, returns in Spring 2014 for a series of five concerts by an eclectic roster of acclaimed artists, ensembles, and composers working in Chicago and beyond.
Outer Ear, ESS's flagship live performance series, returns in Spring 2014 for a series of five concerts by an eclectic roster of acclaimed artists, ensembles, and composers working in Chicago and beyond.
HARD R (Mike Junokas and Eddie Breitweiser) will perform TROUT (for Jonathan Harvey) (2012-2013) for laptops, electronics, and four loudspeakers.
Bay Area vocalist Laurie Amat leads a vocal laboratory on basic vocal use, breathing, posture and body attitude, voice/body integration, and listening techniques for solo and group improvisation.
For her Chicago premiere, Laurie Amat will perform AmatWorks—site-specific compositions and improvisations for solo and accompanied voice, featuring acoustic and altered vocals, electronic looping, and signal processing with computer music pioneer Max Mathews' tunable Phaser Filter system. She will be joined by Ed Herrmann on piano and electronics.
Ed Herrmann will perform Beneath the River, a ritual sonic immersion inspired by and created from the sounds of the Rockefeller Chapel carillon—one of the largest musical instruments in the world, comprising 72 bronze bells spanning six octaves with a total weight of over 100 tons —along with gongs, tam-tams, and scrap metal; presented through a four-channel sound system with live electronics, and vocals by Laurie Amat.
Syntjuntan make music especially composed for textile accessories. A tangled music with lace and long stitches, embroidered with electronic sounds, square waves and curled noise.
Volcano Radar is a fusion of ecstatic improvisational energy and Apollonian intellect. A power quartet with dual free jazz/noise/avant guitarists Elbio Barilari and Julia A. Miller, legendary bassist Harrison Bankhead and incendiary drummer Avreeayl Ra, Volcano Radar moves fluently through a stylistic range from noise-funk improvisation to structured sonic forms. This special concert will feature drummer Avreeayl Ra, and highlight his work with sonic cosmonaut Sun Ra.
NbN Trio (Nora Barton, Billie Howard, and Nomi Epstein) explores sonic textures through manipulation of acoustic instruments. While the three instruments of the ensemble—cello, violin, and inside of the piano—monopolize the sound space, there is extensive involvement of found sound, and/or percussive instruments by all three members of the trio. Their performance at ESS wil include four improvised sets, with some featuring film projection and lighting.
