Eighth Blackbird at Wheaton College
Hello Wheaton!
Last night we had dinner with Wheaton College composers Shawn Okpebholo and Xavier Beteta. They invited us to Fire+Wine and it was delish.
This is only one of so many reasons we’re having an amazing time here :)
You 🫵 are another! Thanks for being here this evening 🙏
❤️, 8BB
Ari Sussman: to no end (2023)
Joan Tower: Into the Night (2023)
Wenbin Lyu: Duck and Roll (2025)
Molly Joyce: Light & Dark (2018)
Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
Shawn E. Okpebholo: Fractured Water (2019)
Ned McGowan: The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures (2016)
to no end was commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for the Blackbird Creative Lab
Into the Night was commissioned for Eighth Blackbird by Harry Santen in honor of the birthday of his wife, Ann.
Duck & Roll was commissioned by Elemental Music and Eighth Blackbird.
Fractured Water was commissioned by The Fifth House Ensemble (5HE) for their Rivers Empyrean Concert Series.
The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures was commissioned for Eighth Blackbird by De Doelen Rotterdam.
Ari Sussman: to no end (2023)
Ari wrote to no end during his time spent with us at our Blackbird Creative Lab (look it up!). Eighth Blackbird was hosting The Lab at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin (look it up!). Imagine: An iconic center for the study of astrophysics, the largest refracting telescope in the world housed in a 10 story dome, and a building best described as Hogwarts Castle… all rolled into one. This is a setting for boundlessly unpredictable creativity and to no end is how Ari responded when prompted by the observatory itself. We got to premiere this composition in that observatory dome, with that telescope soaring above us, and our realization of Ari’s imagination lofted weightlessly into the unknown, and it was utterly magical.
Ari writes: While I am by no means religious, I do consider myself a proud cultural and spiritual
Jewish American. Naturally, I often gravitate toward and find fascination and solace in traditional Jewish music and chant. to no end paraphrases the cantillation chants of two excerpted verses of the Book of Genesis regarding the stars and celestial beings (the original Hebrew is translated below). While both verses are similar in tone, meaning, sentiment, and nature, the perpetual and unremitting chant-like melodies serve as the foundation for this work; it is constantly evolving by building, compressing, deconstructing, decompressing, “melting,” and mutating.
“Then God brought him (Abraham) outside and said: ‘Look up to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to number them.’ (Genesis 15:5)
Then God said...”
“’I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky, and I will give your descendants all of these lands. And through your descendants, all peoples and nations will be blessed.’” (Genesis 26:4)
Translation by Ari Sussman, via Bible Gateway
Joan Tower: Into the Night (2023)
Joan writes: “The title Into the Night was taken from the last movement of my cello concerto A New Day, which was dedicated to my husband who passed away in November of 2022. The decline and loss of a partner of fifty years creates a major and complex challenge of emotions that involve sadness, love, anxiety and too many other emotions to describe in words. I guess this piece has helped me go through a journey of those feelings through a musical expression - my beloved and supportive friend - which I am so blessed to have in my life. I want to thank Eighth Blackbird for playing my piece so very beautifully.”
This is no small thing, to take a work born from such a deeply emotive place - to take responsibility for it - and aspire to be the ambassador of an expression so personal. Eighth Blackbird and Joan began their relationship at a music festival in 1996, where Joan was a faculty member and Eighth Blackbird was a group of undergraduate students trying to figure out what this whole chamber ensemble thing is about. Joan knows Eighth Blackbird. She knows for whom she was composing, and we feel that connection in these parts formed from love. She believed in us then, and she believes in us now, and it means the world to us.
Wenbin Lyu: Duck & Roll (2025)
In the spring of 2025, Eighth Blackbird partnered with Elemental Music (Santa Monica, CA) to commission some composers. Elemental Music is a lovely youth music program and this partnership provided Eighth Blackbird with us an opportunity to participate in youth music education guided by an organization of extraordinary mentors for young artists. Six works were commissioned and the mandate to the composers was not to write music for a youth chamber music program. The mandate was to write chamber music playable by young artists. To write chamber music that would be programmed by any chamber ensemble, but is playable by younger artists.
Duck & Roll is one of the six pieces and Wenbin was a perfect composer for this project. The ensemble Wenbin was assigned to write for had chosen to bestow themselves with the appellation “The Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies”. Wenbin applied his sense of humor to the task and gave the work an appropriate grounding, or as Wenbin says, he added “some duckie flavor”.
Molly Joyce: Light and Dark (2018)
We’ve known Molly for a while, transfixed by the trajectory of her career, an arc spanning depth and authenticity. An accident in her youth resulted in a left hand impairment which has since become the genesis of deeply reflective creativity, and an area of practice centered on disability advocacy.
Ambient and ephemeral, dichotomies such as left and right, and ability and disability, dissipate veiled in a slow animation, floating and suspended. She doesn’t presume that left and right need to reach some presumptuous equilibrium. Instead, imbalance become her canvas.
Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
We’re lucky to have so many adventures and one of those took us to Cincinnati for Bryce Dessner’s MusicNow festival. On this particular occasion, it was Philip Glass’s 75th birthday, and so Bryce had this idea to commission Nico to write music for Philip’s birthday that we would perform. Nico was a copyist for Philip as a precocious teenager (he’s still precocious). We’ve all performed together in different configurations, and recorded together (see: Eighth Blackbird, Grammy-winning Filament ;) and this is all just to say that this composition comes from a place of lots of friends having lots of fun together. Because Nico has such a personal compositional connection with Philip Glass, he reverently nods to him from within Doublespeak.
Nico writes: I wanted to point back to the 70's, when classical music perfected obsessive repetition. The piece begins by applying an additive process to a small cell on the solo violin. This is the defining gesture of the piece, and is subject to much variation. Occasionally, the busy textures give way to drones under which we begin to hear chords from Philip's insanely beautiful Music in Twelve Parts (1971-1974). The piece unfolds in similar episodes: fast music offset by slow, melancholic memories of the music of the late 1960's and 1970's (aren't those the intervals from Violin Phase? Was that a cell from In C?). Towards the end of the piece, the language of Philip’s Music in Twelve Parts becomes more dominant, and gradually overtakes all the busy material and the piece ends in a stylized dream-state.
Shawn Okpebholo: Fractured Water
FRACTURED /ˈfrakCHərd/ adjective: split or broken and unable to function or exist.
WATER /ˈwôdər / noun: Water; noun: a colorless, transparent, odorless liquid that forms the seas, lakes, rivers, and rain and is the basis of the fluids of living organisms.
“At a time when the environment is more threatened than ever with pollution and our life-giving waterways at risk, 5HE traces the life cycle of water from its metaphorical descent from the heavens as rain, to its long journey in streams and rivers informed by conservation experts and ecologists.” - Fifth House Ensemble,
About Fractured Water, Shawn writes:
“In Fractured Water, I attempt to bring awareness to pressing concerns about water pollution, conservation, and perseveration with a particular focus on the Chicago River. Living in the Chicagoland, this river has personal significance, not only for its beauty but also as a sustaining life-source for people and animals in this region. Perhaps the most famous aspect of the Chicago River is that in 1887, through innovative human-engineering, the flow of the river was reversed to deal with an environmental and sanitary crisis due to pollution and waste.
I have found that discussions on the topic of the environment and water pollution center on three distinct narratives: sincere concern (shedding light on a genuine life-altering issue); argument (working out how to solve these issues, often highjacked by diametrically opposed political debates); and hope. My interpretation of and engagement with these three narratives is the source of my musical expression. Because of the reversing of the Chicago River’s flow, throughout this piece, there are instances, some subtle, of musical retrograde. Despite the risks posed to vital waterways throughout the world, Fractured Water has elements of hope, as I reference in the spiritual, Down in the River to Pray.
Eighth Blackbird programmed this work a couple of years ago and have been planning to bring it back in our repertoire for a while. Since Shawn is a professor here at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, and since Eighth Blackbird is here… well, what more perfect time could there be to return to this work that so evocatively realizes the elemental characteristics of its inspiration, both turbulent and tranquil.
Shawn is also just a lovely guy. How could we not?
Ned McGowan: The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures (2016)
It’s kinda hard to describe Ned. Composer, teacher, flutist, improviser and curator. But really an artist in a broadly encompassing conceptual scope. He’s known for rhythmic virtuosity and vitality. You’re as likely to find him in Bangalore as Rotterdam creating self-contained musical worlds through a process of cross-genre translation.
The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures is Ned’s aural imagining of Bosch’s super-weird “The Garden of Earthly Delights” interpolated through the metal band Meshuggah, south Indian Carnatic rhythms, Steve Reich, Colin Nancarrow, Frank Zappa, John Zorn, and George Crumb.
*Nerd-Alert: Ned says,
The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures has a recurring rhythmical spine composed of a series of groups with the lengths 7 7 5 5 5 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3. These groups are repeated, built upon and altered throughout, an influential rhythmic landscape on top of which much of the music travels. But wait, there’s more: The length of the groupings adds up to 60, which is neatly divisible by 3, 4, and 5 (plus a few other numbers), another source for composition material.
Yerkes Observatory: AREPO in the Great Refractor Dome
We kickoff our high season with the auditory voyages of AREPO in the Dome! Our Blackbird Creative Lab alums will perform new works including ones written at Yerkes with composers Arjan Singh Dogra and Harriet Steinke under the mentorship of Grammy winners Eighth Blackbird. Only 55 tickets available!
AREPO is cellist and vocalist Elizabeth Kate, guitarist Marco Slaviero, accordionist Noël Rubli, and clarinetist Madara Eleonora Mežale. The quartet travels headlong into a borderless wilderness by building their own standards for classic instrumentation thus creating a heretofore unheard Voice. They recently finished a lengthy project of Scandinavian-based composers which premiered in Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway. Their all-over-the-map works involve performative art, contemporary classical , and media mixed with style-transcendent sounds. Based between Norway and New York City, they are one of the most internationally-diverse ensembles on Earth. With members raised in Switzerland, Italy, the United States, and Latvia, AREPO hatch one another's cultures with a cross-dusting and reverence that's perfect for Yerkes' contemporary, spacey programming.
Yerkes' staff absolutely adored having them here last year as part of our beloved Eighth Blackbird's Blackbird Creative Lab. The two-week immersion of musicians, ensembles, and composers is unlike any existing sound symbiosis. It's our honor to have AREPO's curated and spotlighted performances be the bridge to our summer season of science and music dancing together.
Yerkes Observatory: AREPO in the Great Refractor Dome
We kickoff our high season with the auditory voyages of AREPO in the Dome! Our Blackbird Creative Lab alums will perform new works including ones written at Yerkes with composers Arjan Singh Dogra and Harriet Steinke under the mentorship of Grammy winners Eighth Blackbird. Only 55 tickets available!
AREPO is cellist and vocalist Elizabeth Kate, guitarist Marco Slaviero, accordionist Noël Rubli, and clarinetist Madara Eleonora Mežale. The quartet travels headlong into a borderless wilderness by building their own standards for classic instrumentation thus creating a heretofore unheard Voice. They recently finished a lengthy project of Scandinavian-based composers which premiered in Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway. Their all-over-the-map works involve performative art, contemporary classical , and media mixed with style-transcendent sounds. Based between Norway and New York City, they are one of the most internationally-diverse ensembles on Earth. With members raised in Switzerland, Italy, the United States, and Latvia, AREPO hatch one another's cultures with a cross-dusting and reverence that's perfect for Yerkes' contemporary, spacey programming.
Yerkes' staff absolutely adored having them here last year as part of our beloved Eighth Blackbird's Blackbird Creative Lab. The two-week immersion of musicians, ensembles, and composers is unlike any existing sound symbiosis. It's our honor to have AREPO's curated and spotlighted performances be the bridge to our summer season of science and music dancing together.
ACTC and Eighth Blackbird Present: Puppeteer Tom Lee: Tomte
A Tomte is a Swedish gnome, a quiet and unseen caretaker who watches over the lives of humans and animals. On a cold winter night on a snow covered farm, Tomte teaches us about the importance of kindness and looking after living things.
Tomte is an intimate shadow puppet performance adapted from “The Tomten” by Astrid Lindgren and the poem by Victor Rydberg. The first part performance is created using live feed video of shadow puppets filmed through an overhead video camera and projected onto a transforming shadow screen. Puppetry, animal sounds and scenic transitions are all performed by Tom Lee with narration by storyteller Lisa Gonzales. Following the shadow portion of the piece, Tomte emerges from the screen to interact with the audience. During this portion, Tomte is presented as a kuruma ningyō (cart puppet) style figure inspired by Japanese traditions. The entire performance is 30 minutes long.
Following the performance, puppeteer Tom Lee greets the audience and reveals the technology and traditions behind the performance and the kuruma ningyō style. During select presentations of the piece, Mr. Lee conducts puppet workshops where viewers can make their own simple shadow puppets and try them out on the screen. The performance is intended for all ages.
ACTC and Eighth Blackbird Present: Puppeteer Tom Lee: Tomte
A Tomte is a Swedish gnome, a quiet and unseen caretaker who watches over the lives of humans and animals. On a cold winter night on a snow covered farm, Tomte teaches us about the importance of kindness and looking after living things.
Tomte is an intimate shadow puppet performance adapted from “The Tomten” by Astrid Lindgren and the poem by Victor Rydberg. The first part performance is created using live feed video of shadow puppets filmed through an overhead video camera and projected onto a transforming shadow screen. Puppetry, animal sounds and scenic transitions are all performed by Tom Lee with narration by storyteller Lisa Gonzales. Following the shadow portion of the piece, Tomte emerges from the screen to interact with the audience. During this portion, Tomte is presented as a kuruma ningyō (cart puppet) style figure inspired by Japanese traditions. The entire performance is 30 minutes long.
Following the performance, puppeteer Tom Lee greets the audience and reveals the technology and traditions behind the performance and the kuruma ningyō style. During select presentations of the piece, Mr. Lee conducts puppet workshops where viewers can make their own simple shadow puppets and try them out on the screen. The performance is intended for all ages.
ACTC and Eighth Blackbird Present: Puppeteer Tom Lee: Tomte
A Tomte is a Swedish gnome, a quiet and unseen caretaker who watches over the lives of humans and animals. On a cold winter night on a snow covered farm, Tomte teaches us about the importance of kindness and looking after living things.
Tomte is an intimate shadow puppet performance adapted from “The Tomten” by Astrid Lindgren and the poem by Victor Rydberg. The first part performance is created using live feed video of shadow puppets filmed through an overhead video camera and projected onto a transforming shadow screen. Puppetry, animal sounds and scenic transitions are all performed by Tom Lee with narration by storyteller Lisa Gonzales. Following the shadow portion of the piece, Tomte emerges from the screen to interact with the audience. During this portion, Tomte is presented as a kuruma ningyō (cart puppet) style figure inspired by Japanese traditions. The entire performance is 30 minutes long.
Following the performance, puppeteer Tom Lee greets the audience and reveals the technology and traditions behind the performance and the kuruma ningyō style. During select presentations of the piece, Mr. Lee conducts puppet workshops where viewers can make their own simple shadow puppets and try them out on the screen. The performance is intended for all ages.
ACTC & Eighth Blackbird Presents: Puppeteer Tom Lee: The Mirrored Pool + Fundraiser
Join us for a unique event featuring a performance of The Mirrored Pool followed by a moderated discussion. Your attendance and support will directly contribute to the success of the Blackbird Creative Lab and its mission to nurture new talent. The Blackbird Creative Lab is dedicated to supporting emerging artists — fostering creativity and entrepreneurship.
ACTC & Eighth Blackbird Presents: Puppeteer Tom Lee: The Mirrored Pool
The Mirrored Pool is a mask and puppetry performance created by puppet master Tom Lee. In a wordless dream space at the edge of a shallow pool of water, Puppeteer and Puppet are presented as evocatively designed characters who switch back and forth between perceived identities as lovers, rivals, and caretakers. The performance is an exploration of virtuosic puppetry and mask performance, but also of the audience’s perceptions and prejudices about character and gender.
The piece has its roots in Tom Lee’s two decade long relationship to traditional Japanese puppetry through his teacher Master Koryū Nishikawa V. In traditional Japanese performance, character and gender are strictly prescribed for the audience. However, this is not a traditional performance in either design or performance. It leans into Mr. Lee’s personal investigations about how a viewer “reads” a puppet figure through design, hair, costume and manipulation.
Eighth Blackbird enters into this collaboration from their own deep musical explorations and experiments with puppetry. Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall will help create a soundscape that is manipulated by touch and gesture and channels the materiality of the shallow pool of water and mirrored moon that create the setting for the piece. At some points, each musician will become a puppeteer, mask wearer and conjurer for this deeply experiential performance.
UGA Presents: Eighth Blackbird
UGA Wind Ensemble
Nicholas Williams, conductor
Presented in partnership with the Hugh Hodgson School of Music
“It proved a charmed collaboration — it was hard not to be, when working with music as charismatic as Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines. Commissioned for the Eighth Blackbird and the U.S. Navy Band…the 15-minute piece is a smiling tribute to Cuong’s upbringing in wind bands, and to his late father.”—Chicago Tribune
Eighth Blackbird is a four-time Grammy Award-winning contemporary music group that has been hailed as “one of the smartest, most dynamic ensembles on the planet” (Chicago Tribune). Through performances in its Chicago home base and at venues across the U.S. and around the world, Eighth Blackbird has brought innovative presentations of works by living composers to tens of thousands of music lovers. The group’s UGA Presents debut includes a performance of Atlanta composer Viet Cuong’s exhilarating Vital Sines in collaboration with the University of Georgia Wind Ensemble.
ACTC Presents: An Introduction to Eighth Blackbird at the Athenaeum
Join us for an unforgettable evening as the Grammy-award winning sextet Eighth Blackbird kicks off their 2025-2026 Artist-in-Residence program at the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture. This inaugural concert promises to be a captivating blend of music and conversation, offering a unique insight into the ensemble’s identity, and their vision for this extraordinary partnership with the Athenaeum.
The evening will feature performances to include previews from two of Eighth Blackbird’s upcoming Athenaeum productions: Composition as Explanation featuring the Grammy-nominated score by David Lang, and Imaginary Lovers, their collaborative concert with the brilliant My Brightest Diamond.
Eighth Blackbird comprises the multifaceted talents of Lisa Kaplan, Matthew Duvall, Zachary Good, Maiani da Silva, Lina Andonovska, and Aaron Wolff, each bringing their exceptional artistry to the stage.
This premiere event will be held in the Paradiso. For those interested, VIP tickets are available, which include a cocktail hour from 6:30-7:30 PM with Eighth Blackbird. They eagerly anticipate the opportunity to connect with you during this special meet and greet. The concert will begin at 7:30 PM.
Don’t miss this unique chance to engage with both the music and the musicians in an intimate setting. We look forward to welcoming you to an inspiring and celebratory evening!
The Schwob School of Music presents: Blackbird Duo Concert
The Joyce and Henry Schwob School of Music presents Blackbird Duo Concert. Please join us on November 8 at 8:00pm in Legacy Hall.
Eighth Blackbird with UW Wind Ensemble
Guided by a spirit of collaboration, a deep commitment to education, and, most importantly, an unwavering optimism about the future, the chamber music collective Eighth Blackbird teams up with the UW Wind Ensemble to provide a unique educational opportunity at the University of Wisconsin. Students will learn from and perform alongside professional musicians at the top of their field leading up to this culminating concert event. Hear the groundbreaking new work for wind ensemble Vital Sines by Viet Cuong, whose work has been described as “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times in a concert that is sure to defy expectations. Other works to be announced.
Conducted by Scott Teeple, Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the Mead Witter School of Music
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.