This concert showcases the musical partnership of Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016) and Terry Riley (1935– ) through the lens of time-delay techniques. It features the world premiere performance of Oliveros’s The C(s) for Once (1966) for flutes, voices, trumpets and tape delay system, followed by Riley’s Keyboard Study #1 (1965), Oliveros’s piano solo dedicated to Riley, A Trilling Piece for Terry (2015), and correlated works by James Tenney and J.S. Bach. The program concludes with a performance using the digital version of Oliveros’s Expanded Instrument System (designed by Oliveros, 1965–2016).

The Illinois Modern Ensemble performs “stutter-step the concept” alongside other works by the winners of the Martirano Composition Award, Omer Barash and Daniel Fawcett. The concert will also include music by Sal Martirano, JJ Peña Aguayo, and Odaline de la Martinez.

I will be joining close friends/collaborators Jenna Lyle (voice) and Matthew Oliphant (horn) for Peter Maunu’s Splice Series at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago. Fully improvised sets with a slant towards noise and non-standard techniques in a casual atmosphere.

I will talk about my music and my recent portrait album, Wake Up the Dead, with composers at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.

Description from the EMPAC website:

To mark the release of his portrait album Wake Up the Dead (New Focus Recordings, 2023), composer-performer Christopher Fisher-Lochhead presents a lecture demonstration featuring the music on the album. A lecturer in the Rensselaer Arts Department, Fisher-Lochhead discusses his approaches to notation, instrumental technique, form, harmony, and collaboration. The demonstration will include musical examples from the album itself plus a full performance of grandFather played by the acclaimed bassoonist and long-time collaborator Ben Roidl-Ward. A question-and-answer session and reception will follow.

Wake Up the Dead showcases Christopher Fisher-Lochhead’s notated music and features performances by the JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ben Roidl-Ward, and Quince Ensemble. By turns raucous and tender, frenetic and still, the music on the album documents two fundamental pillars of Fisher-Lochhead's compositional process: intense and long-term collaboration with performers, and a thoroughgoing reimagining of musical materials and organization.

As part of an ongoing collaboration to develop a new piece for viola(s), I will be joining Doyle Armbrust and his two viola-playing siblings, Kyle Armbrust and Rose Armbrust Griffin, to workshop some material for four violas in alternate tunings. The rest of the program will feature music for solo viola and viola trios.

Music faculty from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute premieres The Earliest Seduction for improvisers and electronics. The program also includes works by Ellen Band and Stephanie Loveless.

Ellen Band: Minimally Tough
Ellen Band: Swinging Sings
Chris Fisher-Lochhead: The Earliest Seduction
Stephanie Loveless: A Tree You Have Known
Ellen Band: Portrait of Matthew

Ellen Band, violin
Matthew Goodheart, piano
Chris Fisher-Lochhead, viola
Stephanie Loveless, voice
Robert Whalen, percussion
Rob Hamilton, electronics