don't say a word

sunday, nov. 24th, 2024, 8:30pm
constellation chicago - 3111 n western ave.
$20/$15 for students
In its debut performance, mycelium new music presents a program of new and recent works which center identity and experimentation. Composer and avant-folk vocalist Annika Socolofsky, praised for her “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) music, joins the ensemble in a performance of her song cycle of "feminist-rager lullabies for a queer era." The program also features new and recent works by emerging composers Seare Farhat, Grace Ann Lee, and Christian Quiñones.

program 
ASMR Music for sextet – Christian Quiñones
Arrival for sextet - Seare Farhat 
Amplified for sextet - Grace Ann Lee
Don’t say a word for mezzo-soprano and sextet - Annika Socolofsky 

guest artist
Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant folk vocalist who explores corners and colors of the voice frequently deemed to be "untrained" and not "classical." Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads and unapologetically joyous Dolly Parton covers. Annika writes extensively for her own voice, including composing a growing repertoire of “feminist rager-lullabies” titled Don’t say a word, which serves to confront centuries of damaging lessons taught to young children by retelling old lullaby texts for a new, queer era. Annika has taken Don’t say a word on the road, performing with ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, New European Ensemble, Albany Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Latitude 49, and Contemporaneous. Her follow-up feminist rager-lullaby song cycle in collaboration with ~Nois, titled I Tell You Me, was recognized by the Chicago Tribune as “grotesquely gorgeous… among the most captivating compositions heard the whole festival [Ear Taxi 2021]” and was included in their “Chicago's Top 10 for classical music, opera and jazz that defined 2021.” Recordings of her music are available on New Amsterdam, Bright Shiny Things, Carrier, Naxos, and Innova record labels. Her research focuses on contemporary vocal music, using the music of Dolly Parton to create a pedagogical approach to composition that is inclusive of a wide range of vocal qualities, genres, and colors. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado Boulder, and is the recipient of the 2021 Gaudeamus Award. She holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University. www.aksocolofsky.com

composers

Seare Ahmad Farhat strives to create music that connects a listener to the visceral imagination, energy, and transformation within narrative forms. Starting out his musical endeavors in Afghan folk music, he later built on these valued experiences in the western classical tradition combined with other interests, such as mathematics. Seare has received commissions from the JACK and Flux Quartets, IU New Music Ensemble, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Quintessence Wind Quintet, and the Oberlin Sinfonietta, and served as the young composer-in-residence of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings in 2019. Seare has also held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Banff Evolution: String Quartet, and with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music as a Balhest Eeble Composer Fellow for the 2021-23 cycle. He has also received prestigious awards such as the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a BMI Composer Award. Seare holds a B.M. in Composition and B.A. in Mathematics from Oberlin College and Conservatory, a master’s degree from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he held the position of Assistant Director of the New Music Ensemble, and is currently pursuing a D.M.A. at Cornell University studying with Elizabeth Ogonek, Kevin Ernste, and Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri.
The music of composer Grace Ann Lee (b.1996) is based on everyday sounds, imageries, and experiences like raindrops, refracting light, and traffic jams, recreated into dynamic and emotive soundscapes. Her recent collaborators include, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Buffalo Chamber Players, Front Porch, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, among others. She holds commissions from New World Symphony, Sound Mind, United States Air Force Heritage of America Band, and Michael Karsher’s Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, and the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. Winner of the 2023 ASCAP Morton Gould Award, Lee has been a composition fellow at the 2024 Tanglewood Music Center and was previously a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program. A graduate of Indiana University and Rice University, she is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Michigan.
Christian Quiñones is a Puerto Rican composer who explores personal and vulnerable stories through the lens of cultural identity. From sampling to auto-tune, interactive multimedia, Christian is interested in interacting with existing music to create intertextual narratives. His music has been performed by leading ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Jack Quartet, the New York Youth Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, American Composer Orchestra, Yarn-Wire, TAK Ensemble, the icarus Quartet, the Bergamot String Quartet, Hub New Music, and Dal Niente.  

Recently Christian was selected as a fellow for the 2024 MATA Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and as a composer in residence at the Copland House. Other fellowships include Cabrillo Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Earshot Underwood Orchestra Readings and the Eight Blackbird Creative Lab. He has received commissions from the New York Youth Symphony, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, Transient Canvas, the icarus Quartet, the Bergamot String Quartet, and the Victory Players where Christian was the 2018-2019 composer in residence. Christian graduated from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico (B.M.) and the University of Illinois (M.M), where he was the recipient of the Graduate College Master’s Fellowship. Currently, Christian is a Ph.D. President’s fellow at Princeton University.