FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES

CHICAGO
MAY 3–7, 2027

In 2027, we explore Music, Art and Nature: the landscapes that shape us and the patterns that connect us. Join us At the World’s Edge for our third festival in Chicago, with three concerts followed by two days of AWE+ performances in schools and communities.

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Three concerts. Three venues. One city.

An exploration of music, art and nature in some of Chicago’s most distinctive spaces, with AWE Artistic Director Benjamin Baker and festival artists.

The festival opens at The CheckOut with Intimate Voices, where landscape meets memory, solitude and belonging. Gareth Farr’s four musical postcards invite listeners to picture New Zealand’s southern lakes, and Paul Novak’s quartet, written during the isolation of the pandemic, follows birds in flight as they drift apart and find one another again. Sibelius’s deeply personal quartet turns inward to an inner landscape.

At the Arts Club of Chicago, Barroco takes its name from the irregular pearl linked to the origins of the Baroque. Handel, Rebel and Telemann meet contemporary voices from New Zealand and Chicago, from the turbulent birth of the elements to greenstone waters and the patterns of light in Chicago’s Tiffany dome, as the program explores how nature inspires art.

Whorl closes the festival at the Driehaus Museum, following musical ideas as they spiral, orbit and return. At its heart is Michael Norris’s Orbital, created in dialogue with Ed Cruikshank’s poetry and sculpture, in which a braille message hides in plain sight. Biber’s Passacaglia and Ravel’s quartet show the freedom and imagination that can flourish within a recurring pattern.

Following the concerts, festival artists take the music into Chicago schools and communities through AWE+, where students hear and work with internationally acclaimed artists, in performance and up close.

1 | INTIMATE VOICES

Monday, 3 May
The CheckOut

    • Gareth Farr (NZ) Four Postcards from the Lakes, for violin and cello, AWE 2022 commission

    • Paul Novak (Chicago) a string quartet is like a flock of birds, for string quartet

    • Jean Sibelius String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56, Voces intimae

    See below for more detail.

  • AWE Festival Chicago 2027 artists include AWE Artistic Director and violinist Benjamin Baker, with further artists to be announced.

  • 4116 N Clark Street

    Located in a transformed former 7-Eleven, the CheckOut is operated by Chicago-based nonprofit Access Contemporary Music.

Opening AWE Chicago’s exploration of art and nature, Intimate Voices considers how the places we inhabit and the times we live through shape our inner lives.

Gareth Farr’s four musical postcards invite listeners to match each movement to an image of New Zealand’s southern lakes.

Paul Novak’s quartet, written during the isolation of the pandemic, draws on birds in flight, as four players drift apart and find one another again.

The evening closes with Sibelius’s deeply personal quartet, whose restless energy and moments of stillness suggest an inner landscape.

Presented in partnership with Access Contemporary Music.

2 | BARROCO

Tuesday, 4 May
The Arts Club of Chicago

    • Michael Norris (NZ) Prolation Canon on a Theme by Hildegard von Bingen, for four string players

    • George Frideric Handel Concerto Grosso in A minor, Op. 6 No. 4

    • Michael Norris (NZ) Waipounamu, for solo violin and electronics

    • Jean-Féry Rebel Les élémens (selections)

    • Marcos Balter (US/Chicago) Vision Mantra, for violin, viola and cello

    • Georg Philipp Telemann Ouverture-Suite in B-flat major, TWV 55

    See below for more detail.

  • AWE Festival Chicago 2027 artists include AWE Artistic Director and violinist Benjamin Baker, with further artists to be announced.

  • The Arts Club of Chicago
    201 E. Ontario Street

Barroco takes its name from the Portuguese word for an irregular pearl, a natural form traditionally linked to the origins of “baroque”.

As the audience arrives, Michael Norris’s Prolation Canon unfolds a chant by Hildegard von Bingen at different speeds in halos of sound.

Handel’s lyrical concerto grosso sits beside the startling collision of notes that opens Rebel’s Les élémens, as earth, water, air and fire emerge.

Michael Norris’s Waipounamu surrounds the violin with recordings of taonga pūoro, and Marcos Balter’s Vision Mantra is inspired by the Tiffany dome of the Chicago Cultural Center.

Telemann, a passionate gardener who shared plants and bulbs with Handel, closes the program with a suite that might be heard as a musical counterpart to his beloved flowers.

Presented in partnership with The Arts Club of Chicago

3 | WHORL

Wednesday, 5 May
Driehaus Museum, Murphy Auditorium

    • Augusta Read Thomas (Chicago) Mansueto Tribute, “Double Helix”, for two violins

    • Michael Norris (NZ) Orbital, for amplified string trio and electronics, AWE 2026 Commission

    • Heinrich Biber Passacaglia in G minor, for solo violin

    • Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F major

    See below for more detail.

  • AWE Festival Chicago 2027 artists include AWE Artistic Director and violinist Benjamin Baker, with further artists to be announced soon.

  • The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Murphy Auditorium
    50 East Erie Street

A whorl is a spiral arranged around a common center, like a shell or leaves around a stem.

Whorl follows musical ideas as they intertwine, orbit and return. Augusta Read Thomas sets two violins winding around one another like the strands of a double helix.

At the heart of the program is Michael Norris’s Orbital, created in dialogue with Ed Cruikshank’s poetry and sculpture of the same name, in which a braille message hides in plain sight.

Four descending notes return throughout Biber’s Passacaglia for solo violin, and in Ravel’s quartet, themes return across all four movements, transformed each time.

Presented in partnership with the Driehaus Museum.

AWE+ in the Community

Following the three festival concerts, AWE Festival Artists will spend Thursday and Friday, May 6 and 7, performing for schools and community groups across Chicago. Through AWE+, students will hear and work with internationally acclaimed artists, in performance and up close, sharing the music and ideas of the festival beyond the concert hall.