2026 Program

February 24 2026

Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave, Chicago

8:30pm - $20, tickets here

Tristan Perich’s Open Symmetry
Tristan Perich's Open Symmetry is a fifty-minute work for 3 vibraphones and 20-channel 1-bit electronics. Perich's work, which spans the electronic/classical divide with explorations that pair acoustic instrumentation with custom-built 1-bit electronics, pares down the ensemble in Open Symmetry to just 3 musicians playing the resonant metal bars of 3 vibraphones accompanied by a glistening ensemble of 20 speakers, each playing their own separate musical part of the composition.

Ian Antonio is a percussionist who specializes in the creation, development, and realization of new and recent musical works. He is a co-director of the composer/performer collective Wet Ink and the percussion ensemble Talujon, and for many years was also a member of Yarn/Wire and Zs. With these ensembles and others, Ian performs around the world at venues both big and small. His playing can be heard on dozens of albums released by a wide range of record labels. Ian lives in Ypsilanti, MI and teaches percussion at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre & Dance.  

Xin Yi Chong is a percussionist known for expressive, confident performances across traditional, orchestral, and contemporary repertoire. She has participated in the Grafenegg Academy in Austria (2022, 2023) and Pulsations, a worldwide collaboration for the 2024 Paris Olympics led by Ibrahim Malouf. Her playing appears on John Luther Adams’ An Atlas of Deep Time, named one of the Boston Globe’s Best Classical Recordings of 2024 and awarded a five-star review from BBC Music Magazine, and on Michael Gordon’s upcoming Field of Vision (2025). An active orchestral musician, Xin Yi has performed with the Malaysian Philharmonic, Ann Arbor Symphony, Jackson Symphony, Traverse City Philharmonic, and Grafenegg Academy Orchestra. Born in Malaysia, she began music studies at age six and frequently returns to conduct research on traditional Malay music of Kelantan

Doug Perkins is a Grammy-nominated percussionist, producer, and conductor hailed by The New York Times as a “percussion virtuoso.” Known for his innovative artistry, he has performed on iconic stages including Carnegie Hall, the Barbican Centre, and the Alaskan tundra. A champion of contemporary music, Perkins has commissioned and premiered works by composers such as John Luther Adams, Steve Reich, Sofia Gubaidulina, Tristan Perich, and Michael Gordon. He co-founded So Percussion and the Meehan/Perkins Duo and has performed with Ensemble Signal, Eighth Blackbird, and others, while also collaborating frequently with leading choreographers including Lucinda Childs, Pam Tanowitz, and Annie-B Parson. His recordings on Nonesuch, Bridge, and Harmonia Mundi have earned widespread acclaim, including a 2023 GRAMMY nomination for Adams’ Sila: The Breath of the World. Perkins is known for creating immersive outdoor musical events and large-scale percussion works. He is Associate Professor and Director of Percussion at the University of Michigan.

Tristan Perich's (New York) work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics and code. The WIRE Magazine describes his compositions as "an austere meeting of electronic and organic." 1-Bit Music, his 2004 release on Cantaloupe Music, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. His follow-up release, 1-Bit Symphony, was called "sublime" (New York Press), and the Wall Street Journal said "its oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth." More recently, Drift Multiply (Nonesuch, New Amsterdam), for 50 violins and 50 speakers, was described by the New York Times as "a constantly evolving landscape where sounds coalesce and prism, where the violins both pull into focus and blur into a soothing ether." His work coupling 1-bit electronics with traditional forms in both music and visual art has been presented around the world, from Sonar and Ars Electronica to the Museum of Modern Art and bitforms gallery.

Jennifer Torrence is an Oslo-based percussionist/performer working internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, collaborative artist, improviser, composer, and artistic researcher. She is Associate Professor of Percussion and post-doctoral researcher at the Norwegian Academy of Music, a member of Pinquins, and percussion tutor at the Darmstadt Summer Course. She has enjoyed regular visits to the great city of Chicago, including performances with Beyond This Point and with Weston Olencki at LAMPOi. Her first appearance at Frequency Festival was in 2023, performing the music of Bethany Younge, Trond Reinholtsen, and Jessie Cox. 

PROGRAM

Kelley Sheehan: A Series of Colors (2018)  (selected movements), for snare drum and tape

Kelley Sheehan: feed (2025), for percussion, generative video, & fixed media

Kari Watson: For Jen Torrence (2024/25), for percussion, electronics and video

Kelley Sheehan is a Chicago-based composer and electronic musician moving between electro-acoustic, multimedia, and performance art works. As of Fall 2025, she is Assistant Professor in Music Composition and Technology at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music.

Kari Watson (they/them) is a Chicago-based composer, performer, and intermedia artist. Their work explores the intersections of contemporary concert music, electroacoustic music, live performance, and interactive installation work. 

Lua Borges is a Brazilian filmmaker, visual artist, and photographer based in Chicago.

February 25. 2026

Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave, Chicago

8:30pm - $30, tickets here

أحمد [Ahmed] is: 

PAT THOMAS / piano

ANTONIN GERBAL / drums

JOEL GRIP / bass

SEYMOUR WRIGHT / alto saxophone 

أحمد [Ahmed] make music:

to listen, dance and think to. 

about the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik. Music of heavy rhythm, repetition and syncopation set deep into an understanding of jazz and the obscure depths of its history. 

that excavates, re-inhabits and uses a-new the now overlooked documents, and fragmentary plans, of his mid-20th century synthetic vision to produce a new jazz imagination for the 21st century. 

Across their numerous releases - beginning with New Jazz Imagination (Umlaut, 2017), and most recently Sama'a [Audition] (Otoroku, 2025) - the quartet of Pat Thomas, Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Seymour Wright work and rework the music of the late Ahmed Abdul-Malik to create stamping, swinging, relentlessly propulsive music, where profundity and physicality root right back to ecstatic feeling.

Abdul-Malik was a NYC bassist, oudist, composer, educator and philosopher who fused aspects of American, Arabic and East African thought, ethics, meanings and beliefs in open and experimental ways to make vital, forward leaning jazz. [Ahmed] reimagine the notes of Malik as they push for new ground. Melodies respirate, swell, escalate and combust in a driving jazz which yes is technical, yes is accomplished, but ultimately just foot-to-the-floor swings.

Rage Thormbones

 Weston Olencki and Mattie Barbier, trombones

RAGE Thormbones is a low-frequency duo whose work exists at the intersections of “fuck around” and “find out”. Both members, Weston from Berlin and Mattie from Los Angeles, are classically trained trombonists but abandoned that ship a while ago and have been performing as a duo since 2014. They mainly use trombones to produce sculpted masses of high-density sound, carving metallic resonance and subcutaneous tones to make rooms feel really heavy. They aim to shift the role of brass instruments away from vocal virtuosity and more toward their true selves as improvising organic air compressors - physically-modeled synthesis transcribed back into the acoustic domain.

RAGE has collaborated with a range of artists including Clara Iannotta, Kevin Drumm, Sarah Davachi, Michelle Lou, and British pop maverick Scott Walker. They’ve presented work everywhere from Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Darmstadt Summers Courses, Borealis Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage, and ISSUE Project Room to their favorite basements/living rooms/warehouses/ crypts, and more recently, as soloists with the Helsinki Philharmonic and the SWR Symphonieorchester.

February 26. 2026

Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave, Chicago

8:30pm - $20, tickets here

Olivia Block

Olivia Block will play new solo material--long form experimental songs for piano voice and electronics including sounds from custom sampler instruments she made by recording autoharp and piano on reel-to-reel tapes, then arranging and performing them on a keyboard.

Olivia Block is a media artist and composer. Her discography, spanning many years, is published on Another Timbre, Black Truffle, Erstwhile,  Glistening Examples, NNA Tapes, Room40, Sedimental, and Touch, among other labels. She performs live experimental music, where at any given concert she might be playing electronic instruments, piano, organ or amplified objects. Block also creates surround sound concerts, sound installations and scores. 

Block has performed, premiered and exhibited her work throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours in festivals and performance series including Incubate (Tilburg),  MoogFest, Festival del Bosque Germinal (Mexico City), Sonic Light (Amsterdam), Redbull Academy, Kontraste (Krems), Dissonanze (Rome), Archipel (Geneva) Angelica (Bologna), Sunoni per il Popolo (Montreal), and many others. Additionally, she has presented work at the ICA (London), MCA (Chicago), La Biennale di Venezia 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, The Kitchen (NYC), ISSUE Project Room, Experimental Intermedia  (Brooklyn),  and TIFF (Toronto).

~Nois Quartet 

~Nois Quartet presents the world premiere of Alex Mincek’s monolithic evening-length work, The Perpetual, Poly-Iterative, Multivalent, Transmodal, Vibe Maximizer. A Chicago new music luminary and saxophonist himself, Mincek embarks on his first work for a quartet of saxophones. The composer being a technician of the instrument they are writing for is no novelty in music history, however, the results of such a pairing often create a synergy that is rare and powerful.

Made in close collaboration with ~Nois Quartet over the past four years, these five Chicago new music saxophonists join forces to create an immense exploration into the instrument and ensemble in one of the most ambitious projects in the quartet’s history. 

Complete Lineup: 

Julian Velasco - Soprano Saxophone 

Natalia Warthen - Alto Saxophone 

Jordan Lulloff - Tenor Saxophone 

János Csontos - Bari Saxophone 

Take your preconceptions of ‘noise’ and toss them out the window. Equal parts “fiendishly good and fiendishly goofy” (Chicago Tribune), ~Nois Quartet is a “prolific, charismatic young ensemble that is swiftly becoming the American saxophone quartet du jour” (Musical America). Founded in 2016, the Chicago-based ensemble is dedicated to championing new music for saxophone and building community through innovative, inclusive, and exceptional musical experiences. 

Their 200+ performances have spanned 28 states, including invitations to perform at some of the top festivals, concert series, and academic institutions in the nation. At the core of ~Nois’ ethos is a fierce dedication to the commissioning of living composers, leading to over 120 world-premieres to date.

February 27. 2026

Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave, Chicago

8:30pm - $25, tickets here

Ensemble Dal Niente

Ensemble Dal Niente returns to the Frequency Festival with a program celebrating its 20th anniversary season, showcasing composers with unique and challenging voices from the ensemble's past, present, and future. 

This evening's program will feature the world premiere of a large new chamber work by Lei Liang (commissioned with the support of the Fromm Music foundation), along with music by Ayanna Woods, Chaya Czernowin, José Julio Diaz Infante, and Helmut Lachenmann. 

Program: 

Helmut Lachenmann, Dal Niente (Interieur III) for solo clarinet

Jose Julio Diaz Infante, Sin Palabras for soprano, violin, clarinet, piano, percussion

Ayanna Woods, Bloom Balloon for solo percussion

Chaya Czernowin, Manoalchadia for two sopranos and bass flute

Lei Liang, New Work* for two sopranos, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, harp, percussion

This program is made possible with the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

About Ensemble Dal Niente:

Ensemble Dal Niente performs, develops, and sustains new and experimental music for small to large chamber ensemble. We are dedicated to growing relationships with artists, composers, and listeners; advancing distinct and challenging musical voices; and sharing that work with our Chicago, U.S., and international communities.

Dal Niente’s roster of 26 musicians presents an uncommonly broad range of contemporary music. Audiences coming to Dal Niente shows can expect distinctive productions—from fully staged operas to multimedia spectacles to intimate solo performances— that are curated to pique curiosity and connect art, culture, and people.

The ensemble's name, Dal Niente ("from nothing" in Italian), is a tribute to Helmut Lachenmann's Dal niente (Interieur III), a work that upended traditional conceptions of instrumental technique; and also a reference to the group’s humble beginnings.

February 28.2026

Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th Street, University of Chicago

6pm - Free, RSVP here

Fredrik Rasten (solo)

Fredrik Rasten is a guitarist and composer based in Oslo and Berlin. He is primarily focusing on musical exploration of just intonation and related sound phenomena, and in his work he is reaching for an actively listening state wherein to intuitively explore the complexities of tone and harmony. On the guitar he is applying real time retuning of the instrument, vocal shadings and different preparations to create warm and fluctuating resonances.

As a composer he is mostly creating music for smaller ensembles and collaborative projects where the ongoing exploration of pitch relations is guiding the work, while also finding inspiration in early music, folk traditions and reductionist expressions. Other elements influencing his work include ideas of music as social, non-hierarchical practices, and essential philosophical conundrums, such as the elusive relationship between mind and matter.

This performance marks Rasten’s US debut.

Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th Street, University of Chicago

8pm - Free, RSVP here

Alasdair Roberts & Fredrik Rasten

The Scottish/Norwegian duo of Alasdair Roberts and Fredrik Rasten fuses their respective work with traditional music, folk song and experimental minimalism. Their first encounter was in the septet ‘Alasdair Roberts og Völvur’, which released the LP «The Old Fabled River» on Drag City Records in 2021, featuring Roberts-originals and a blend of Scottish and Norwegian traditional songs. In duo, Roberts and Rasten have so far focussed on traditional Scottish narrative ballads, often with long durations, and where slowly evolving musical materials build up throughout the strophic verse-structure to emphasize the storytelling. The duo employs both field recordings and printed sources of traditional song as the basis of their interpretations, often evolving new original compositions and always resulting in a meeting point between time-honored and contemporary forms of musical expression. Roberts and Rasten choose ballads with care, favoring time-transcending narrative themes that both bear witness to the day and age of their origin and are relevant to our times, be it politically, culturally or ethically. Both musicians sing and play a variety of instruments, Roberts’ clear and unadorned vocal delivery blending with Rasten’s sensibilities of just intonation tuning and timbral qualities of sound.

This performance is the duo’s US debut, and the first US appearance by Roberts since 2013.

co-presented by Frequency Festival, Renaissance Society, and Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry.

March 1. 2026

Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave, Chicago

8:30pm - 20$, tickets here

TAK Ensemble

TAK Ensemble give the Chicago premiere of Weston Olencki’s when the great fires were lit on the other side of the ocean, a performance project engaging with the legacies of early scientific modernity and their relationships to experimental sound practices and archival preservation. Borrowing its title from the psychogeographical excursions of W.G. Sebald, when the great fires… takes its own journey through real and imagined histories of electricity, using myriad perspectives and mythologies around electrical force to re-enchant its ubiquitous presence throughout American industrial, spiritual, and vernacular narratives. The work posits an “almost-could-have-happened” scenario set in North America around the turn of the 20th century: when electricity, the very force that undergirds our current digitized reality, remained mysteriously nascent in a space of imagination and experimentation as a new unwieldy, yet magical phenomenon.

 - Laura Cocks, flute

 - Madison Greenstone, clarinet

 - Charlotte Mundy, voice

 - Ellery Trafford, percussion

 - Austin Wulliman, violin (guest artist)

Regarded as “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), TAK delivers energetic performances "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (The WIRE), and “impresses with the organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity” (New Sounds, WQXR). 

TAK is a mixed-quintet committed to musical exploration and experimentation and dedicated to commissioning new works and direct collaboration with composers and other artists. They have premiered hundreds of works to date since its founding in 2013. Recent highlighted collaborations include large-scale works by Eric Wubbels, Michelle Lou, Brandon López, Tyshawn Sorey, and Weston Olencki. The group has performed internationally at IntACT Festival (Thailand), Music Current Festival (Ireland), Cluster Festival (Canada), Harpa Concert Hall (Iceland), and the Delian Academy (Greece), among many others, and enjoys an active schedule of domestic touring in the U.S.

Zachary Good with Ian McEdwards

Zachary Good’s Lake Heritage (2019–2022) meticulously explores the contrapuntal and harmonic possibilities of quiet two-note multiphonics on the clarinet. The musical material, texture, and flow are inspired by the phases, characteristics, and multiplicities of water. Multiphonics evoke water’s liquid, vapor, and frozen states. Just as light refracts in water, simple harmonies are complicated by the unique acoustical experience of individual or concurrent multiphonics. Dedicated to Zachary’s late grandfather, Paco Gracia, each of the ten movements meditates on an aspect or memory of his life, forming an abstract biography. Joining Good in the debut of this duo version is clarinetist Ian McEdwards. 

Good is a Chicago-based chamber musician, composer, improviser, and music educator. He is a member of Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Honestly Same, as well as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Northern Illinois University. Lake Heritage was released on Good's own record label, Add Dye Editions.