By Adela Skowronski | August 21, 2024
Midweek evening concerts of contemporary classical music are soon coming to Chicago’s downtown. Nova Linea Musica, Chicago’s newest chamber music series, begins its very first season in the fall of 2024.
Founder and president Michele Mohammadi heads the initiative alongside artistic director Desirée Ruhstrat. Both artists harness their extensive classical music backgrounds to support contemporary music.
The path to releasing new music is often littered with obstacles. From recording studio time to paying musicians and finding a place to perform, emerging composers face many challenges that limit their ability to premiere music. Nova Linea Musica will seek to accelerate the process by commissioning composers’ new works and connecting them with musicians who are itching to premiere new pieces.
The inaugural 2024-2025 season contains four concerts, each taking place on a Wednesday night at Guarneri Hall (11 E. Adam St) in Chicago’s Loop. There will be six world premieres across those concerts; of those, five works will be NLM-commissioned pieces. Each concert will be preceded with a pre-concert discussion led by violinist and writer Doyle Armburst and will be followed by a post-concert reception.
The series premieres with a concert by the Dover Quartet called Celebration of America! on October 23, 2024. The concert pays tribute to a diverse number of American composers, from Jessie Montgomery’s Strum to Mason Bates’s From Amber Frozen. The second movement from George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 will also be on display, prior to the concert finale of Antonín Dvořák’s American Quartet.
On January 15, 2025, Nova Linea Musica will put their artists-in-residence on display. The NLM Trio, comprised of Rabia Brooke on violin, Lam Wong on piano, and Sarah Chong on cello, will perform a piano trio by Armenian composer Arno Babajanyan. NLM soloists-in-residence Samuel Rosenthal (viola) and Alexander Hersh (cello) will play the music of Errollyn Wallen, Giovanni Sollima, and Hersh, as well as a premiere for solo cello by Chicago composer Paul Novak.
A concert titled Letters from Home eases the concert series into spring. Special guests Nois Saxophone Quartet and Black Oak Ensemble take to the stage on March 12, 2025, to perform various works by living composers. This includes a Black Oak-commissioned work by Conrad Tao called A Series of Interdependencies. For the finale, Nois and Black Oak will join forces to perform the world premiere of a piece written by Chicago composer Stacy Garrop: Jarba, Mare Jarba.
Nova Linea Musica will conclude its inaugural season with a program all about Chicago on June 4, 2025. The concert — Chicago! — features Chicago-based artists In Triplicate, Rabia Brooke, and Clare Longendyke for a celebration of all things Chicago. In Triplicate will perform pieces written and arranged by the ensemble. The program features NLM-commissioned premieres by Chicago composer Shawn E. Okpebholo and Australian composer Elizabeth Younan, plus music by another celebrated Chicago composer, Augusta Read Thomas.
For ticketing and information, visit novalineamusica.org.
