Altarpiece H. af K. is a study in the acoustics of complex sounds. Drawing inspiration from the radically abstract visual language of the visionary early 20th-century Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, the piece unfolds in a 25-minute wave of saturated resonance.

The supergroup of bassoonists Katherine Young, Dana Jessen, and Ben Roidl-Ward made their trio debut in May 2023 at Chicago’s Elastic Arts with an original evening-length work called Tendrils. Each considered a pioneer in the field of contemporary, experimental, electronic, and improvised music, their collective artistic output has significantly expanded the range and sonic possibilities of their instrument. Collectively, they have presented hundreds of performances and world premieres at international music festivals and concert series spanning prestigious concert halls to local community art spaces. Members of the ensemble hold teaching positions at Emory University, Oberlin College and Conservatory, and the University of Illinois.

Eric Wubbels is a composer and performer. Since 2004 he has been pianist and Co-Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, and he maintains ongoing collaborative projects with Charmaine Lee, TAK Ensemble (interbeing), and Erin Lesser and Ian Antonio (Second Nature).

AIRMW presents Drazek Fuscaldo with Tatsu Aoki feat. Jörg Schneider

Drazek Fuscaldo (formerly Mako Sica) is the dynamic, freeform duo Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (electric trumpet, mandolin, electric guitar) and Brent Fuscaldo (vocals, electric bass, harmonica, thumb piano, gong, percussion).  

The Dark Matter Series is pleased to present a With All Risk vinyl party!

On the heels of last year’s explosive Dutty House event comes a more introspective, communal vinyl experience featuring 9MagicForever1

Rising star guitar and composer Jessica Ackerley returns to Chicago for an evening of duo and quartet performances with Midwest collaborators, building on their acclaimed hybrids of free jazz and contemporary composition.

The Elastro series has an incredibly special event planned for March. agua viva is a collective performance by Elise Butterfield, Sofía Gabriel, Anna Johnson, Jonty Paul, and Veronica Anne Salinas that weaves together sound, movement, and live video processing. agua viva draws inspiration from the natural flow of water and the possibilities of the human body. Throughout the piece, the performers' improvisational movements and sound gestures are translated live into evolving visual projections. This interplay between movement, sound and visuals creates a dynamic conversation between performers and immerses the audience in an aquatic dreamscape.

We’ll also have a solo performance from Mauricio López F. and more TBA.

Elastic Arts, in partnership with Funkadesi & Strategic Inclusion Consulting,  through a generous #HealingIllinois grant, is hosting this FREE experiential 3-hour workshop. This guided session will curate activities to help participants find voice in sharing stories that reflect identity, experiences, and ancestral journeys. No previous writing/performing experience required - just a desire to further explore self-understanding and self-expression. Activities by gifted and caring facilitators will help identify and demystify the building blocks of creative expression. Co-led by emcee, educator, healer & spoken word artist PHENOM with comedian and storyteller Sonal Aggarwal, this is an empowering session that affirms each participant’s unique background and experience. The workshop will culminate with a collective spoken word piece to be performed collaboratively with participants and artists. Musical and facilitation support by Dr. Rahul Sharma. 

This month’s CLEAT Series features solo performances from Veronica Anne Salinas, Hugo Flores Garcia, Ishmael Ali. Ishmael will present solo cello and electronics in 4 voices. This project explores the relationship between acoustic and electronic sounds using interplay between cello, sp404 sampler, a synth voice, and radio automated through CLEAT's 16 channel system.

Hugo Flores García (he/they) is a Honduran computer musician, improviser, programmer, and scientist. Hugo approaches his craft with a deep curiosity for the interplay between natural and human-made sonic environments and interactions. Their hybrid research+creative practice centers around building new instruments for creative expression, focusing on artist-centered machine-learning interfaces for the sound arts. Hugo will perform with (un)sound objects, a co-creative neural musical instrument for constructing live environments comprised of sonic objects, both sound and unsound, in and at the rough edges of an AI model's learned distribution.

Veronica Anne Salinas is a Chicago-based sound artist, writer, editor, and Deep Listener. Her work explores artistic research through sound, text scores, performance, improvisation, geomancy, field recordings, archives, soundwalks, and experimental narratives.

Avreeayl Ra’s Dream Stuff is Avreeayl Ra (drums), Edward Wilkerson (reeds), Peter Maunu (strings), Jim Baker (keyboards), and Jason Roebke (bass).

Levi Dayan is an artist and music journalist who is interested in approaching the intersection of improvised music, electroacoustic music, and noise from a DIY perspective.

Worthlis is the improvising duo of laptop musician Derek Worthington and bassist and analog electronics performer Ben Willis.

Norman W. Long (electronics) and Bill Harris’ (drums) collaboration goes back to 2020.

We’re back with another Sonic Celluloid at Elastic Arts, an annual event put on by Northwestern University’s WNUR radio program The Rock Show. The event highlights artists exploring the experimental and psychedelic sides of audio and film. This year each artist has chosen a selection of experimental films of the past to then compose / perform live scores for the evening. Tonight we’ll have BCMC (Cooper Crain + Bill MacKay), CHEER-ACCIDENT, and Lia Kohl.

The fantastic Erica Dawn Lyle returns from NYC followed by a trio led by the phenomenal Luke Polipnick.

Our February Pleiades Series features a trio of Paige Brown, Anaiet.Soul, and Carmani Edwards preceded by a duo of Jordan Wright and Adina Rose.

After the planned sets we’ll return to the classic Pleiades Open Jam where any/all femme/trans/nonbinary artists are invited to bring an instrument and get in on some improvisations.

Tone Glow is excited to announce “Simple Fascinations,” a 22-film retrospective highlighting the works of the late Amy Halpern (1953-2022). Throughout her decades-long career, the Los Angeles-based filmmaker created beguiling works filled with lyrical images. While she made one feature-length film with Falling Lessons (1992), the majority of her works are brief, seductive vignettes. Tone Glow will present 22 of these short films, which grapple with light, color, materiality, texture, and the sublime. In an interview with Sense of Cinema, she noted that one of her only works with dialogue, Cigarette Burn (1978), was not meant to be about the words themselves. The ostensible simplicity of her films always belied their depth. These works—19 of which will be shown on 16mm—have been structured in two separate programs, carefully sequenced to help audiences better understand their exacting craft.

Asian Improv aRts Midwest presents: Trio WAZ

For the last 23 years, Trio WAZ has performed together, making it one of the longest standing experimental music trios in Chicago.  Trio WAZ is an eclectic experimental group made up of the time honored members:  Edward Wilkerson Jr. - one of the great saxophone and clarinet players on the Chicago scene, Tatsu Aoki - a prolific artist, composer, musician, educator, and consummate bassist and Shamisen Lute player, and Michael Zerang - a percussionist focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms.  Each brings their own unique arsenal of musical savvy mixing it up with their distinct dispositions to interplay and an incomparable synthesis of musical actuality.  Come in and celebrate National Margarita Day with the musical triple sec of Trio WAZ . (please bring your own limes and tequila).

We are thrilled to once again bring together Dr. Rahul Sharma and the Rhythm Ambassadors of Funkadesi (Carlos Antonio Cornier, Kwame Steve Cobb, Rich Conti, and Maninderpal Singh) with Elastic Arts through this #HealingIllinois initiative. This immersive experience of learning to form a multicultural drum circle is designed to promote collective healing within and across communities.  No talent required - just a desire to deepen self-understanding and learn how to affirm our humanity while honoring our lived experiences as racial beings. 

This month’s Elastro features Yoshi, Synonym for Sound, and a Watson & Kleijn Duo.

Sharon Udoh and Kyle Gregory Price will be an anomalous tornado spiraling in and out, up and down, only to put all the houses back down gently via the caring hands of experience, hope, community and musical salvation. They will be joined by Lewis Achenbach painting live.

Percussionist Avreeayl Ra (he/him) and trombonist Jeb Bishop (he/him) will appear as the first duo configuration of Ra Bishop, a quartet (usually) anticipating a spring 2025 album release on the Amalgam label.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

CLEAT is proud to present an intimate evening of music by the internationally acclaimed composer Annea Lockwood. Included in this evening's concert will be the composition Thirst, which was commissioned in 2008 by Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, to be played back through a multichannel system nearly identical to the CLEAT system. The program also contains Lockwood's Spirit Catchers (1974), performed by Stephan Moore, Senem Pirler, Nevo Shinaar, and Kari Watson, with Lockwood herself live-mixing into the CLEAT system

“Survival is not the end goal for liberation. We must thrive. We must rest.”
― Tricia Hersey, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

The 2025 Dark Matter Series season kicks off with “Rest and Resist”: a powerful offering from 2024 Dark Matter alum sun Lynn Hunter.

The times ahead will require much of us—but we’ll need to take periods of respite in order to move forward. Rest and Resistance are not opposites—they work in tandem, and they are both essential to survive.

In the spirit of both, this event will be a casual gathering for a radical film screening followed by a sound healing session.

We’ll be kicking off the evening with a performance by 2023 Dark Matter alum Carissa Lee and soundscapes by returning Dark Matter Series artist Noise Shrine.

Doors at 7:30PM, program begins at 8

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

This month’s CLEAT Series is packed with unique approaches to spatial audio, featuring four performances from a diverse range of composers.

Please join us to celebrate Jeff Kimmel and Jack Langdon’s release “The other side of the air” on the ambient label Dinzu Artefacts.

Followed by an open jam session.

IMS brings the double trio trouble — up-and-coming players bring a fresh spin on the piano trio format, followed by a chamber trio whose amplifications promise to push their instruments to the edge.

It's melodic and harmonic. It's percussive and smooth. It's old as hell, and sometimes, it's just furniture. We're talking about one of the most versatile instruments out there, the piano. Hosted by composer Sharon Udoh, a pianist of 40 years, the series "A Pianist and a Partner Perhaps" highlights 3 or 4 genre-spanning musicians for whom the piano has been a long-time love. Each pianist can choose to bring one additional musician in a duo offering, if they wish (thus, "a partner perhaps"), or, they can go at it solo. Piano players, lovers, and nerds everywhere, come join us as we celebrate this magnificent instrument!

At this second edition of PPP we have Justin Dillard w/ Anisha Rush, Anaiet Soul, Julian Davis Reid w/ Tramaine Parker, Angelo Hart, and hosted by the one and only Sharon Udoh. Sharon will perform a short set with experimental turntablist Allen Moore to open the night!

It’s always a pleasure to have our friend Allen Moore present audio work in our space, so it’s a great pleasure to host his exhibition Sunday Mourning throughout February in celebration of Black History Month. His recent body of work investigates both the audio and visual element of black death and black grief. His conceptual premise is to analyze the signifiers of Blackness through performative Improvisation and experimentation. Moore is driven to nurture and expand the agency of the Black Imagination.

We’ll open doors at 7pm and Allen will present an audio/visual performance at 8pm.

Shake Shook Shaken is a theater/movement workshop series produced by Julie Meckler. The series is designed for people to gently bring body awareness, allowing participants to open up, explore outside of their comfort zone, bond with each other, create and show. By playing with these concepts using our bodies, voices, words, and each other, we will explore our own awareness and sensitivity as artists and people. 

Shake Shook Shaken is a dream of what a safe space could allow. A vision of a place for everybody to gather, look at each other, play and create in a non judgmental, trauma-informed way. It’s an invitation, a journey within and out, a surprise. Each workshop is unique. This month we’ll have Joey Meland and Julie leading on the topic of CONVERSATION.

No prior dance or acting experience is necessary, just willingness to move and exhale. This workshop series is for anyone and everyone.

Presenting two bands crafting the perfect high-intensity balance of jazz and rock energy!

Join us for one last chance to see the beautiful exhibition The Intimacies of a Clover from Lee Romero! The show brings together the intricate webs and weavings of Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist and sewist, Lee Miko Romero. Through drawings, quilts, and functional objects, Lee’s works present a timeless story of their own, of slowing down and rest, of slow labor, of interconnectedness. Framed by moments of catching oneself getting lost in thought, or dreaming of a flourishing spring in the dead of winter, the show is meant to capture the feeling of a cunning fox prancing through moss covered rocks to find a gem long-lost in the thicket.

Join us for this closing reception on Sunday, January 26th, from 2pm-5pm. We will have light snacks and refreshments.

Elastro is back with an exciting first event of 2025 featuring Chris Pitsiokos, Anti-Soul Organization, and BAKUDI SCREAM! Chris will present a piece titled Irrational Rhythms and Shifting Poles which is an evolving project for saxophone and laptop that explores 4-channel audio, subjective listening, rhythms generated by irrational numbers, and polarity shifting. Aesthetically, the project is hard to pin down, but draws on minimalism, noise, free jazz, ambient music, and dance music.

Rohan Chander (a.k.a BAKUDI SCREAM)’s work considers questions of postcoloniality in the diaspora through hindoo historical research and speculative fiction. Built on the creative practices of DJs and long form composition, his work manifests as cyberpunk performance art pieces with costumes, dance, music, and light.

Anti-Soul Organization is an industrial noise and techno trio based in Chicago, Illinois. Join us!

Unique collaborations abound tonight, in the style of the uniquely Chicago blend of free jazz and rock: First, Three Grebes (Kalamazoo/Chicago) and Floating Cave join forces to create a mixture of improvised songs and drones, expanding a singular guitar and tuba-driven rock sound with exploratory electronics. Then, a quartet assembled by saxophonist Gabriel Heinemann combines up-and-coming forces in Chicago jazz with some of its’ most stalwart legends.