picture whimsies

​ thursday, may 8th, 2025, 7:30pm
fulton street collective
1821 w. hubbard street
​​$20/$15 for students
mycelium new music presents a performance which explores connections between music and poetry. The program centers the premiere of a new version of Bobby Ge's Picture Whimsies, which celebrates the intersection of visual art and music, paired with readings of recent work by Chicago-based poets Rob Macaisa Colgate, Nathan Hoks, John McCarthy, and Rachel J Webster. The performance will also feature works by Chicago-based composer Ania Vu and ensemble members Paul Novak and Jonathan Hannau.

The core ensemble is joined by guest artist vocalists Kristina Bachrach and Emily Price.

program 
a diagnosis for two voices and sextet - Paul Novak (preview)
Isolated Houses for sextet - Jonathan Hannau 
Strange Birds for soprano and sextet - Ania Vu
Picture Whimsies for sextet - Bobby Ge (premiere of new version) 
w/ readings by Chicago-based poets TBD

composers

Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator whose work, often collaborative in nature, focuses on themes of home, communication, and hybridity. Winner of the 2022 Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the U.S. Navy Band, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra, the Sioux City Symphony, Music from Copland House, the Bergamot, Tesla, and JACK Quartets, and Mind on Fire. He has created multimedia projects with the Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Cape May Bird Festival, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from UCBerkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.
​The "spellbinding" (Washington Post) music of Chicago-based composer/flutist Paul Novak immerses listeners in shimmering and subtly crafted musical worlds full of color, motion, light, and magic. His recent projects engage with dreams and memory, queer identity, climate change and the natural world, and psychosomatic illness. Novak’s recent commissions include projects with American Composers Orchestra, Balourdet Quartet, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Kinetic; other recent collaborators include the Austin Symphony, Orlando Philharmonic, Reno Philharmonic, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and DanceWorks Chicago. He has received awards from the Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, BMI,  American Academy of Arts and Letters, and more. Originally from Reno, NV, he completed his undergraduate studies at Rice University, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago.
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Ania Vu, a Polish-Vietnamese composer and pianist, delves into the intersection of sound, meaning, and energy in her music. Her compositions often feature her own text as a guide, weaving sonic and expressive narratives. Noteworthy premieres, like "small tenderness" at Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music, have earned acclaim for their artful vocal writing and rich textures. Recognized by esteemed institutions such as ASCAP, Tanglewood, and the American Opera Project, Ania has received fellowships and recognition for her innovative approach to music. She has held prestigious positions, including a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago's Center for Contemporary Composition and a composer fellow with the Composers & the Voice. Ania earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.M. from the Eastman School of Music. She has lectured in composition at the University of Texas at Austin and currently holds a lecturing position at the University of Chicago. 
Jonathan Hannau is a Chicago-based composer and pianist devoted to the surreal, minimal, abstract, and colorful possibilities of music. He actively embraces eclecticism and explores concepts of narrative, drama, and stark expression by evoking a kaleidoscopic range of timbres. A regular collaborator, he has performed most notably with Ensemble Dal Niente, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and the Chicago Wind Symphony, along with numerous artists throughout the city of Chicago and abroad. In early 2024 he made his Chicago classical music radio debut on WFMT (98.7) with violinist Hannah Christiansen. He is one half of the piano-percussion duo Flannau Duo, and is also the pianist in the newly formed chamber ensemble Mycelium New Music which will debut in 2024-2025. He looks forward to continuing his role as Associate Artistic Director of the Chicago Composers Orchestra. 

poets

Rob Macaisa Colgate (he/she/they) is a disabled bakla poet and playwright. A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts and 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, he is the author of the poetry collection HARDLY CREATURES (Tin House, 2025) and the verse drama MY LOVE IS WATER (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025). His work appears in Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, and Poets.org, among others, and has received support from MacDowell, Fulbright, Lambda Literary, Sewanee, and Kenyon Review. He serves as a reader for POETRY Magazine and managing poetry editor at Foglifter. The inaugural poet-in-residence at Tangled Art + Disability, he received an MFA in poetry and critical disability studies from the New Writers Project at UT Austin.
John McCarthy is the author of Scared Violent Like Horses (Milkweed Editions, 2019), which won the Jake Adam York Prize. His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Alaska Quarterly Review, Best New Poets, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, North American Review, Pleiades, and Quarterly West. He received his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. John is the Managing Editor of RHINO Poetry. 
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Nathan Hoks’ most recent book of poems is Nests in Air (Black Ocean). His fourth book, Moony Days of Being, is forthcoming in 2026. He teaches poetry at the University of Chicago and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his family. 
Rachel Jamison Webster is the author of four books of poetry and the nonfiction book, Benjamin Banneker and Us, which was chosen as a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker and picked as a Notable Book by the New York Times. Her book of poetry, Mary is a River, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her book of erasure poems, The Sea Came Up & Drowned, is being put to music by composer Nicholas Kline, and will be performed by Donald Nally’s choral ensemble, The Crossing, in 2026. Rachel is a professor of Creative Writing at Northwestern University. She lives in Evanston with her husband, the poet John McCarthy, and their daughter Adele.