Eighth Blackbird and OSU Wind Ensemble - Oregon State University
PRAx Presents: Eighth Blackbird + OSU Wind Ensemble
Four-time Grammy winners, the Eighth Blackbird sextet has been hailed as “one of the smartest, most dynamic ensembles on the planet” by the Chicago Tribune. These pioneers in creative contemporary music are the founders of the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab and the Chicago Artists Workshop. The second half of the program includes a special performance with the OSU Wind Ensemble of "Vital Sines," a 25-minute composition by composer Viet Cuong - whose work has been praised as “wildly inventive” by the New York Times and who was featured in the Washington Post’s 2021 list of “Composers and Performers Who Sound Like Tomorrow.”
Eighth Blackbird at University of Michigan
This finale concert of the 2024 season of the University of Michigan Symphony Band is filled with special moments. We welcome world renowned contemporary sextet Eighth Blackbird to perform Viet Cuong's dynamic and inspiring Vital Sines, which was composed for the ensemble. The concert will conclude with a 90th birthday tribute to Director of Bands Emeritus H. Robert Reynolds, who will conduct a set of classic music by the incomparable Percy Grainger.
Eighth Blackbird with Emory University Symphony Orchestra
In this Schwartz-Artist-in-Residence Program, the Emory University Symphony Orchestra performs Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Viet Cuong’s newly orchestrated Vital Sines featuring the Grammy Award-Winning sextet, Eighth Blackbird.
Eighth Blackbird at WCU
Spring 2024 Western Carolina University School of Music Catamount Concert Series
Eighth Blackbird with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
In his Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, Mason Bates uses a teeming array of sounds to portray sprites, sirens, a gryphon and other extraordinary beasts over 11 marvelously surreal movements. Einojuhani Rautavaara’s ethereal concerto for birds and orchestra features recorded bird calls from arctic Finland. Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines highlights the virtuosity of four-time Grammy Award-winning Chicago sextet Eighth Blackbird.
Tickets are free, $5 fee applies.
Live Music Program at Art Gallery of New South Wales: Light and Dark
Location: Kaldor Hall, ground level
Free, no bookings required
Eighth Blackbird musicians Lina Andonovska (flute) and Matthew Duvall (percussion) will team up with Ensemble Offspring artists Claire Edwardes (percussion) and Lamorna Nightingale (flute) to perform works by Andy Akiho, Brenda Gifford, Philip Glass, Molly Joyce, Ella Macens and Ned McGowan. The selected compositions reflect colour, shape, movement and shades of light and dark through sound, reflecting Kandinsky’s own interest in the abstract forms of music.
Night Out In The Parks: Connecting Bridges
Connection Bridges featuring performers 8BB founders Matthew Duvall and Lisa Kaplan with featured guest artist, Grammy-Award winning tenor, Karim Sulayman.
This event is not ticketed and is free to attend.
Night Out In The Parks: Connecting Bridges
Connection Bridges featuring performers 8BB founders Matthew Duvall and Lisa Kaplan with featured guest artist, Grammy-Award winning tenor, Karim Sulayman.
This event is not ticketed and is free to attend.
Karim Sulayman: Bluets
A rare, intimate evening with Grammy award-winning Tenor, Karim Sulayman. Ranging from Billy Bragg to Francis Poulence to Sam Cooke, this is music of innocence, age, reconciliation, catharsis and consolation. Sulayman is joined for this program by Eighth Blackbird artists Matthew Duvall and Lisa Kaplan.
The music performed during Bleuet is centered by a collection of disparate songs written by French composer Francis Poulenc during World War II. Together, the songs create a narrative arcing the trajectory of a life from young to old, from innocence claimed by war to reconciliation and consolation.
Sung in Arabic, Bleuet expands on these ideas by featuring Li Beirut, written by Fairouz in 1984 after the devastating civil war of 1975-1990, and echoing her reflections on the casualties of corrupt leadership ultimately being herself, her city, her people and her country. The evening also includes music by Gustavo Santaolalla, Sam Cooke, and Billy Bragg, Stacy Garrop and Frederick Rzewski.
FROM KARIM SULAYMAN
This set is conceived as a sort of mini-cycle in which we track Poulenc’s view of youth and innocence through his commentaries on war and the damages left in its wake. The humor in the first and last songs shows how they mirror each other as we start and end with long, absurd lists—the first to appeal to a horde of impossible children, and the last, a list of attractions, wild and sometimes smutty, in a landscape upended by fighting (also heralded in by a more direct commentary in the penultimate song, C.). Lune d’ Avril is a prayer from a child to end war and Bleuet is the memorial to a young, fallen soldier. While we may not today be at literal war, our country is in a war of ideas, ideals and dogmas.
Night Out in the Parks: Place, Tree, Breath
Place, Tree, Breath features the music of ecoacoustic composer Matthew Burtner, whose body of work is generated entirely from ecologically-derived source material. Nature Performers: 8BB founders Matthew Duvall & Lisa Kaplan with featured guest artist, soprano Jocelyn Zelasko.
This is not a ticketed event and entry is free.
Burtner: Stories, Vapor and Mist
Stories told through a syntax created by water, voice, stone, tree, shell and snow. Performed by soprano Jocelyn Zelasko and percussionist Matthew Duvall, these are stories both immutable and impermanent, and told through the composition of ecoacoustic composer Matthew Burtner.
Eighth Blackbird at Unfiltered Music Festival 2023
Program
Andy Akiho: Giant’s Causeway (2022)
Valerie Coleman: Maombi Asante (2006)
Viet Cuong: Electric Aroma (2017, arr. 2018)
Eastman: Stay On It (1973)
Akiho: Erase (2011)
Jonathan Bailey Holland: The Clarity of Cold Air (2013)
Ned McGowan: The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures (2016)
GatherNYC presents: Blackbird IV
Program
David Lang: Wed (1992)
Lisa Kaplan: Whirligig (2013)
Christopher Cerrone: Double Happiness (2011)
Molly Joyce: Less is More (20176)
Andy Akiho: Giant’s Causeway (2022)
The Ohio State University Wind Symphony presents Vital Sines
Eighth Blackbird joins The Ohio State University Wind Symphony for the Contemporary Music Festival.
The festival will include clinics, masterclasses and panel discussions led by members of Eighth Blackbird, as well as a full-length evening program featuring the Ohio State Wind Symphony.
8BB w/ University of Alabama performing Vital Sines at CBDNA Athens
Eighth Blackbird will joining the University of Alabama Wind Ensemble to perform Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines at the College Band Directors National Assoc. Athens Conference.
This is not a ticketed event.
Lina Andonovska, flutes
Zachary Good, clarinets
Maiani da Silva, violin
Laura Metcalf, cello
Matthew Duvall, percussion
Lisa Kaplan, piano
University of Oregon Wind Ensemble Presents: Vital Sines
Program includes:
Viet Cuong: Electric Aroma (2017, arr. 2018)
Jonathan Bailey Holland: The Clarity of Cold Air (2013)
Viet Cuong: Vital Sines
Lina Andonovska, flutes
Zachary Good, clarinets
Maiani da Silva, violin
Laura Metcalf, cello
Matthew Duvall, percussion
Lisa Kaplan, piano
City Winery Chicago
Making an exciting return to City Winery Chicago, Eighth Blackbird is thrilled to perform an eclectic concert full of music by some of their favorite composers and friends.
The program will include the full-tilt, machine-like virtuosic assault eRaSe by Andy Akiho and Jonathan Bailey Holland's atmospheric The Clarity of Cold Air, inspired by many a cold, Northern Midwest day. The rest of the program will be made up of a suite of pieces by Nico Muhly, Pamela Z and Joan Tower among others. Please join us to share in this wonderful music while perhaps sipping a lovely glass of wine…or several!
Tickets go on sale Sept 29th at 3:00 pm CST
Midwest Clinic- The Making of a Commission
Captain Kenneth Collins, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Navy Band, will lead a clinic exploring the unique challenges involved with the commissioning and world premiere of Dr. Viet Cuong's new work "Vital Sines," featuring four-time Grammy Award-winning contemporary chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird. The composer will discuss aspects of the new work and select excerpts will be performed by the U.S. Navy Band and Eighth Blackbird.
Ticket Information:
A day pass for the Midwest Clinic is required to attend this performance.
More information can be found at Midwest Clinic’s event page
Vital Sines w/ US Navy Band
The Sextet is delighted to once again be teaming up with The United States Navy Band for two electric performances of Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines at The Midwest Clinic.
Performances at 6pm and 8pm
Ticket Information:
A day pass for the Midwest Clinic is required to attend this performance.
More information can be found at Midwest Clinic’s event page
Vital Sines w/ US Navy Band
The Sextet is delighted to once again be teaming up with The United States Navy Band for two electric performances of Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines at The Midwest Clinic.
Performances at 6pm and 8pm
Ticket Information:
A day pass for the Midwest Clinic is required to attend this performance.
More information can be found at Midwest Clinic’s event page