According to composer Marcos Balter:

Last week, WFMT presented “The Party,” based on a six-hour contemporary music concert presented by Chicago’s award-winning Ensemble Dal Niente with Italian pianist, conductor and curator Marino
Formenti.

The presenters filled the Logan Square Auditorium with sofas, comfy chairs and lots of mood lighting. Participants were encouraged to listen to the music how they wanted; be it sitting, standing, walking around or lying down. It was a fun experiment in concertizing and listening. Besides the food pairings and lighting, however, what was just as unusual about this concert was the fact that the audience could interact with many of the composers (no, they’re not dead). The composers touched on a couple of themes:

1) Don’t come with any expectations

2) Give yourself permission not to like something

Brazilian-born Chicago composer Marcos Balter urges people to listen to new music without any preconceptions. Conductor Michael Lewanski suggested there’s “no wrong reaction to a piece of music.” He urges audience members to engage with composers and musicians, and to be honest with performers.

2005 Pulitzer Prize winning composer Steven Stucky excels at convincing skeptical audiences that listening to new music can be deeply satisfying and enriching. In a keynote address to Florida State University’s New Music Festival, he offered similar advice: “give yourself permission to dislike what you hear.”

But Steven Stucky’s advice comes with one caveat:

“…please — don’t explain your dislike by claiming that ‘it isn’t music.’ History is strewn with rash talk about what is and isn’t music: even Beethoven was regularly declared an antimusical lunatic by critics hearing his radical new symphonies for the first time. The boundaries of music have been expanding for centuries, and, inexorably, they will continue to widen. But since Mahler, Bartók, and Shostakovich have already become accessible (at least to our beloved 4% market share), perhaps someday soon the composers whose music we are about to hear will be too. We owe it to ourselves to hope for – no, to work for that day.”

Read all of Steven Stucky’s address, called “Listening to Contemporary Music.”

Listen to the broadcast:
The Party

Photo courtesy of Old Town School of Folk Music

On the morning of Tuesday, January 10th civic leaders, community members and local politicians, including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Old Town School of Folk Music’s brand new, $17 million, 27,000 square foot East Building. More room for music and dance classes, performances and more. WFMT’s David Polk called in this live interview with Executive Director Bau Graves and faculty members Jimmy Tomasello and Chris Walz made some music for WFMT listeners.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.

For this last week of our Arts After School series, WFMT producer Noel Morris visited the Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, whose youth program participants are requires to complete both dance and writing assignments.

Listen to the entire program Sunday, May 29 at 5PM and Tuesday, May 31 at 10:30 pm, and always available online at wfmt.com/artsafterschool.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.

For this final week of our Arts After School series, WFMT’s program director spoke with some people at the youth program of About Face Theater, whose mission it is to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity through live theater in Chicago.

Listen to the entire program Sunday, May 29 at 5PM and Tuesday, May 31 at 10:30 pm, and always available online at wfmt.com/artsafterschool.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.

Joffrey Ballet's Pierre Lockett teaches a ballet class at Gallery 37 in downtown Chicago.

program offered by the Joffrey Ballet.  He learned a few ballet moves himself, and saw how the company uses both Giselle and Sister Sledge (“We are Family”) to pass on the art form.

Listen to the entire program Sunday, May 29 at 5PM and Tuesday, May 31 at 10:30 pm, and always available online at wfmt.com/artsafterschool.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.

Facets Multimedia hosts an annual childrens' film festival and more

The third of our four-part series on arts education aired this week, and you can listen to it in its entirety above.  This week, our focus was on some of the city’s media programs: Cinema, video production and even video game design!  We start with a profile of Street Level Youth Media, where David Polk met some budding science-fiction filmmakers, then Noel Morris profiled the cinema programs of Facets Multimedia and finally, Matt DeStefano visited the Girls Got Game program of Urban Gateways.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.

The "Girls Got Game" program at Urban Gateways teaches girls the art of video game design.

This week’s Arts After School explores some of the city’s media programs, including WFMT producer Matt DeStefano’s profile of the Girls Got Game program at Urban Gateways, a program teaching the arts of video game design to students in Chicago.  Urban Gateways is celebrating 50 years of arts education this year.

Here’s a preview of the program, which airs Sunday, May 22 at 5PM and Tuesday, May 24 at 10:30 pm, and always available online at wfmt.com/artsafterschool.

This program has been created in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust, our region’s community foundation for more than 95 years. Please visit their website at www.cct.org for more information on the Arts Learning Initiative and to learn how you can help.