Post No Bills
Chicago Reader
September 21, 2007
By Peter Margasak
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International Contemporary Ensemble @ various venues: This new music ensemble started in Chicago and now enjoys a split residency with New York. As this recent piece in the New York Times suggests, the group has quickly become an important presenter of contemporary classical music, encouraging young composers through commissions. They also ditch the rarefied air of classical music that bums out and alienates so many young people. Expediency and comfort guide their venue choices as much as the sound of the room. This weekend kicks off ICE’s fifth annual festival, with concerts all over the city—including the Velvet Lounge, Elastic, and Katerina’s—and it’s hard to imagine the opportunity to hear so much contemporary work in such a concentrated burst any other time of the year. The complete schedule is here.
