ACTC Presents: An Introduction to Eighth Blackbird at the Athenaeum
Jan
15

ACTC Presents: An Introduction to Eighth Blackbird at the Athenaeum

  • Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture: Paradiso (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

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!

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UGA Presents: Eighth Blackbird
Feb
20

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.

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Eighth Blackbird with UW Wind Ensemble
Sep
27

Eighth Blackbird with UW Wind Ensemble

  • Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall | Hamel Music Center (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

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

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Eighth Blackbird and OSU Wind Ensemble - Oregon State University
May
2

Eighth Blackbird and OSU Wind Ensemble - Oregon State University

  • Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts, Detrick Concert Hall (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

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.”

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Eighth Blackbird at University of Michigan
Apr
12

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.

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Eighth Blackbird with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Feb
12

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.

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Live Music Program at Art Gallery of New South Wales: Light and Dark
Jan
17

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.

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Aug
2

Karim Sulayman: Bluets

A rare, intimate evening with Grammy award-winning Tenor, Karim Sulayman. Ranging from Billy Bragg to Francis Poulence to Sam Cooke, this is music of innocence, age, reconciliation, catharsis and consolation. Sulayman is joined for this program by Eighth Blackbird artists Matthew Duvall and Lisa Kaplan.

The music performed during Bleuet is centered by a collection of disparate songs written by French composer Francis Poulenc during World War II. Together, the songs create a narrative arcing the trajectory of a life from young to old, from innocence claimed by war to reconciliation and consolation.

Sung in Arabic, Bleuet expands on these ideas by featuring Li Beirut, written by Fairouz in 1984 after the devastating civil war of 1975-1990, and echoing her reflections on the casualties of corrupt leadership ultimately being herself, her city, her people and her country. The evening also includes music by Gustavo Santaolalla, Sam Cooke, and Billy Bragg, Stacy Garrop and Frederick Rzewski.

 

FROM KARIM SULAYMAN

This set is conceived as a sort of mini-cycle in which we track Poulenc’s view of youth and innocence through his commentaries on war and the damages left in its wake. The humor in the first and last songs shows how they mirror each other as we start and end with long, absurd lists—the first to appeal to a horde of impossible children, and the last, a list of attractions, wild and sometimes smutty, in a landscape upended by fighting (also heralded in by a more direct commentary in the penultimate song, C.). Lune d’ Avril is a prayer from a child to end war and Bleuet is the memorial to a young, fallen soldier. While we may not today be at literal war, our country is in a war of ideas, ideals and dogmas.

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Jul
7

Night Out in the Parks: Place, Tree, Breath

Place, Tree, Breath features the music of ecoacoustic composer Matthew Burtner, whose body of work is generated entirely from ecologically-derived source material. Nature Performers: 8BB founders Matthew Duvall & Lisa Kaplan with featured guest artist, soprano Jocelyn Zelasko.

This is not a ticketed event and entry is free.

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Jul
5

Burtner: Stories, Vapor and Mist

Stories told through a syntax created by water, voice, stone, tree, shell and snow. Performed by soprano Jocelyn Zelasko and percussionist Matthew Duvall, these are stories both immutable and impermanent, and told through the composition of ecoacoustic composer Matthew Burtner.


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8BB w/ University of Alabama performing Vital Sines at CBDNA Athens
Feb
18

8BB w/ University of Alabama performing Vital Sines at CBDNA Athens

Eighth Blackbird will joining the University of Alabama Wind Ensemble to perform Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines at the College Band Directors National Assoc. Athens Conference.

This is not a ticketed event.

Lina Andonovska, flutes
Zachary Good, clarinets
Maiani da Silva, violin
Laura Metcalf, cello
Matthew Duvall, percussion
Lisa Kaplan, piano

More Information

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