Commissioned by the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and premiered in 2023 in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Civic Fellowship Program, Umbral Dust by Civic Fellow Alumnus Zachary Good is an experimental work for solo bass clarinet and live, interactive electronics.

The Smart Dog is a film score written for the silent comedy, A Little Hero, directed by George Nicholas and distributed in the Netherlands under the name De Schrandere Hond. The aim of this score is to capture the playful interaction between a cat, a dog and a bird under the nose of their owner, ...

Rush Hour paints the busy hustle-bustle energy of city traffic that Lee found herself missing during the pandemic. When you are in traffic you anticipate getting to a certain destination. Whether you are on your way to attend a beautiful concert, meeting up with friends, or even just getting home...

Laberinto de Sueños (Dream Labyrinth) is a suite in four short movements whose narrative creates a mysterious atmosphere that develops two types of rhythmic and melodic cells throughout the work.

SPONSORS
The 2022–23 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by the Julian Family Foundation...

Intuitive Geometry is a response to painter Mokha Laget’s rhapsodic work, “Moroccan Capriccio.” The piece was commissioned by Copland House for their 2021 Cultivate Fellowship.

SPONSORS
The 2022–23 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by the Julian Family Foundation, which also provid...

Like Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Childhood Memories is a collection of short character pieces that recreate different snapshots from the composer’s childhood. Each movement is self-contained. Yet there are recurring themes in both the music and the poems that thread through the entire work, m...

At any rate II. “what remains” was selected in a national call for scores by the Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 2023. This work investigates the first record of traditional Persian music ever published: Volkstümlicher Gesang – Persia, released in 1931. The singing string quartet an...

To continue our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we honor Colombian American conductor Lina González-Granados, who made her Civic debut in February 2022 at Kenwood Academy High School conducting the orchestra in Rimsky- Korsakov’s Sheherazade and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American ...

Members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago perform Jeff Scott’s Startin’ Sumthin’, an ingenious reimagining of ragtime music scored for woodwind quintet.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civic Orchestra of Chicago season is generously sponsored by The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.
Major funding for the Civ...

String Quartet in E-flat Major highlights Fanny Hensel’s (née Mendelssohn) raw and exploratory approach to the string quartet, a distinct departure from the composition style traditional of the time. Her musical genius demonstrated here was severely undervalued during her lifetime, with no record...

Members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago perform Martinů’s mysterious and thoughtful Piano Quintet No. 2. Composed in 1944, this work displays the tension and uneasiness Martinů felt before emigrating to the United States in 1941 to avoid the German invasion of France.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civ...

LIgNEouS, meaning “made, consisting of, or resembling wood”, titles this energetic and percussive piece for marimba and string quartet by Andy Akiho, performed by members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civic Orchestra of Chicago season is generously sponsored by The Eliz...

A nod to both John Adams and Duke Ellington, members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago perform Tyshawn Sorey’s atmospheric Sentimental Shards.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civic Orchestra of Chicago season is generously sponsored by The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.
Major funding for the Civic Orchest...

Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago perform Nicole Mitchell’s improvisational and experimental Symbology #3 for open instrumentation. The Fellows rehearsed the piece entirely over Zoom and were joined by the composer for one session before finally meeting in person to record this video.

SP...

Composed in 2020, figgis-vizueta’s Form the Fabric weaves together strands of improvised material in a mixed ensemble. The title is inspired by an archaeologist’s phrase describing the Inca Road as “threads interwoven to form the fabric of the physical and spiritual world.”

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 ...

Born out of a global call for scores by the Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 2020/21, Nina Shekhar’s compelling string quartet Above the Fray unspools familiar melodic threads and questions uniqueness and identity in the world of classical music.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civic Orchestra...

Born out of a global call for scores by the Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 2020/21, Tonia Ko’s Escape-Landscape depicts the transformation of an image when it is viewed from a distance versus up-close, like looking through the threads of woven material.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civic O...

Born out of a global call for scores by the Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 2020/21, Kyle Krause’s Recycled Effervescence connects real world sounds with the concert hall through the inclusion of glass bottles as percussive instruments.

SPONSORS
The 2020/21 Civic Orchestra of Chicag...

Led by Principal Conductor Ken-David Masur, 44 musicians of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago come together to play former CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), a bright and energetic piece evoking the image of a solar system being flung recklessly into spac...