How do you expand expectations of contemporary concert music? A collective of Midwestern musicians is bringing others together to dive deeper into this question and push perceptions.
Among them is Chicago-based musician Caroline Jesalva. At this year’s Ear Taxi Festival in Illinois—a celebration of experimental and contemporary music—she’s bringing play and uncertainty.
For 20 minutes, Jesalva will perform five single-page music pieces. Each contains a standard melody, then a solo section with space for improvisation.
In this space, she plans to invite the audience to help her determine the path to connect the pieces—minutes before she starts.
“My job would then be to puzzle out how to move in between that predetermined order,” she says.
Ear Taxi Festival has been providing stages for such experimental works since 2016. This year is its third iteration.
“I think it is fair for us to say that this is the largest festival of contemporary music in the Midwest,” says Ben Zucker, president of New Music Chicago (which is presenting the festival).
It is an entire month (October 3 – November 2) of concert music across Chicagoland—with over 700 performing artists in more than 60 show hours to boot. It proclaims: Out with the old clichés of classical music—and in with truly everything else.
“(Our) goal is to showcase ourselves to the world and make the world a better place through it,” Zucker says. “By demonstrating diversity, variety, surprise, and interest in things that push the boundary of what we might normally see in music being presented to the public.”
‘The Whole World is Open to You’
Ear Taxi’s curatorial director, Amy Wurtz, says music composition these days is incredibly diverse. Each piece, performer, and especially composer brings a fresh angle to the ear.
“There’s not one single school of romanticism or impressionism that we’re all following and subscribing to. And that is both freeing and daunting as a composer when the whole world is open to you,” she says—but there is a major parallel.
“I think what we’re all working on is expression, creativity, coming together with a shared purpose of art,” Wurtz adds. Contemporary concert music is always reinventing itself.
“Contemporary music is the impetus of everything new,” Jesalva says. “In more traditional forms of music . . . there isn’t the same type of adventurous spirit or drive to create new worlds.”
Jesalva hopes to help those very worlds come alive during her Ear Taxi performance.
“I want everyone to be able to breathe with me, to be present in this time where there’s a lot of noise and a lot of tension,” says the violinist. “We could enter some sort of flow state together that is peaceful and reflective.”