International Contemporary Ensemble
Pops concert
Katerina's; Sun 29
Time Out Chicago issue 13: May 26–June 2, 2005
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Everyone else plays pops concerts. So why don't we?" asks ICE's indefatigable founder and flutist Claire Chase. New-music groups like ICE don't usually invite the fading pop crooners who bring in the (equally fading) baby-boomer crowd, to which most pop concerts cater. Fortunately for us, there won't be a balding pop star headlining this show—just ICE playing standard classical pieces, which counts as a "pops concert" for a contemporary-music outfit. Instead of Neil Diamond covers, it's pulling out Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer and chamber works by Schumann and Brahms.
"I just wanted to play a gig where I could drink a beer during my rests," Chase says of the group's decision to play in the Lakeview club. Some classical musicians have been trying this route of hauling the music out of the concert hall: Cellist Matt Haimovitz has been playing Bach in bars for the past couple years, and the Kronos Quartet has, for all intents and purposes, moved the club atmosphere into the concert hall, with its hipster clothes, amplified sound and stage lighting.
ICE is still following its normal M.O. of presenting new music in new ways, but now it's playing old music in a new way, too. It's a chance to hear Bach's famously challenging keyboard part to the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto played on a piano in the back of a club—where you can get a drink when you feel like it.—Marc Geelhoed
