8BB-BONANZA AT CHICAGO’S MCA
 eighth blackbird's mini-festival, PowerFUL/LESS, at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, is fast approaching. John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune has made it one of his ten winter musical highlights. Come and see what all the fuss is about!
In these two concerts, 8bb explores the musical ramifications of Stravinsky's provocative quote, "Music is essentially powerless to express anything at all." 8bb will be joined by a whole host of renowned young artists from across the country, including Third Coast Percussion, the Meehan/Perkins Duo, mezzo soprano Katie Calcamuggio, Amy Briggs and Adam Marks.
PowerFUL
Saturday, January 22, 2011, 7:30 PM at the MCA
In PowerFUL, music is a call for political action. Frederic Rzewski's blistering Coming Together joins John Corigliano's settings of war-soaked texts by Bob Dylan in Mr. Tambourine Man and the fragility of John Luther Adams' The Light Within.
PowerLESS
Saturday, February 5, 2011, 7:30 PM at the MCA
In PowerLESS, music has no external "meaning". Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is an event: a monumental, pulsating, mesmerizing musical road trip. Bach's D minor Chaconne introduces Reich's work in a special arrangement for 18 musicians by violinist Matt Albert.
ARMORY PROGRAM ANNOUNCED!
 The complete program of the 8bb-curated festival at Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory's has been announced. The Tune-In Music Festival runs from February 16-20, 2011, and 8bb will be joined by the Argento Ensemble, red fish blue fish, Newspeak, Sympho and dozens of other amazing players for an amazingly diverse program.
Highlights include the New York premiere of John Luther Adams's monumental work for 72 percussionists, Inuksuit, an all-star performance of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, the Argento Ensemble's unmissable In Vain by GF Haas, and a version of Andriessen's Worker's Union that may raise the Armory's high, vaulted roof... We hope to see you there!
Another prominent New York performance this spring is our return visit to Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on January 31st. We will bring a wildly varied program that puts the pot-haze-zen of Philip Glass up against the runaway-freight-train of Philippe Hurel.
After our Armory extravaganza we will fight upstate New York snowfall to trudge into Rochester for a performance at the Eastman School of Music on February 22nd.
RECORDING NEWS
 Breaking news in 8bb-land: the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is starting its own new CD label, ASO Media, distributed by Naxos of America. The premiere recording will feature ASO Music Director Robert Spano conducting 8bb and the ASO in Pulitzer-winning composer Jennifer Higdon's new concerto, On A Wire. The recording will be released on February 22nd, and you can read more here. The production team included the amazing, long-time ASO collaborators Elaine Martone and Michael Bishop.
Also, 8bb's recording of Reich's Double Sextet was named as one of the best discs of 2010 by iTunes, Amazon.com, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Time Out Chicago, Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Jose Mercury News. You can get yourself a copy here.
And we hit the recording studio once more this winter to lay down pieces by two very different Philips: Hurel (...à mesure) and Glass. (Music in Similar Motion). This recording will complete a disc to be released next year sometime. Watch this space!
SUMMER ON LAKE GENEVA
 Who wouldn't want to spend summer on Lake Geneva!
Composers and performers, join us in the improbably beautiful Blonay, Switzerland, for Music11. You will have the rare opportunity to work intensively with members of eighth blackbird for two weeks of concentrated musical activity, June 20 to July 1, 2011. Participants will also study (and hang out) with three distinguished (and very different!) composers: Pulitzer-winner David Lang, Matthias Pintscher and festival organizer Joel Hoffman.
You can visit Music11's website for more information and to apply, and check out the festival poster here.
COMPETITION CONTEST BACKLOG
 We at 8bb were totally flooded with new musical love in the form of 503 entries to our competition contest. These ran the gamut, embracing all known and several unknown -isms, drawing influences from anywhere and everywhere and nowhere.
The downside of this unexpected, glorious tidal wave of scores and CDs (clogging our office/kitchen/rehearsal-room/new-music-lab) is that it has taken us longer than expected to narrow the field to three sterling applicants. We will announce the three finalists later than expected, on February 1st. Again, watch this space!
SLIDE MINI-TOUR
 Congratulations to the marvelous musical mind of composer Steve Mackey, whose Dreamhouse recording was nominated for several Grammy awards. We take his Slide on another mini-tour this spring, performing it at Stanford University on March 5th and at UT Austin on March 23rd.
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