The ensemble was founded by graduates of Oberlin Conservatory.
Music lovers who are curious about the future will want to make a point of seeing Eighth Blackbird, an acclaimed ensemble with an innovative approach and a mission of showcasing living composers.
Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet,” the Chicago-based group was formed in 1996 by graduates of Oberlin Conservatory. Eighth Blackbird, which performs March 3 in Wisconsin Union Theater’s Shannon Hall, includes founding members Lisa Kaplan on piano, percussionist Matthew Duvall, clarinetist Michael J. Maccaferri and cellist Nicholas Photinos. Violinist Yvonne Lam joined in 2011, and flutist Nathalie Joachim in 2015.
Unless you’ve heard the group’s 2015 Grammy Award-winning Filament recording or its more recent Hand Eye recording, many of the program’s composers might be unfamiliar, but you’ll get to know their styles as the evening goes on.
“The program will provide a good chance to see the breadth of what classical music can be and what composers are writing today,” says cellist Nick Photinos, adding that the group is “pulling influences from indie rock and metal, but also from deep within the 20th-century music tradition. I believe there’s something to hook anyone on this show.”
Bryce Dessner’s folk-infused “Murder Ballades” opens the show with vibrant rhythms and soulful melodies that call to mind the Appalachian hills and the dark, mysterious hollows that lie between them.
The melding of folk with contemporary classical music continues with Dan Trueman’s “Olagón,” a piece that highlights the traditional music of Ireland. Then Ned McGowan’s percussion-driven “Garden of Iniquitous Creatures” changes the mood. Photinos describes “Garden” as raucous and “Meshuggah-inspired.” Meshuggah is a Swedish heavy metal band named after the Yiddish word meshuga, meaning“crazy” or “frenzied.”
The second half of the show begins quietly with David Lang’s “Wed,” an atmospheric piano piece, and continues with a diverse mix of styles from Eighth Blackbird’s Hand Eye recording and collaboration: Ted Hearne’s jazz-infused “By-By Huey;” Robert Honstein’s “Pulse,” a musical journey into the computer world that Honstein describes as “evoking that instantaneous moment when data passes from finger to screen” and finally, the dissonant fanfare and sweet melodies of Timo Andres’ “Checkered Shade.”
The program is brutally difficult to play, with chord clusters and polyrhythms that move at top speed. But the members of Eighth Blackbird seem unfazed. “I’d say it’s going to be a really good time,” says Photinos.