Album Notes

Chicago Sound Map began in 2007 as an annual new music festival taking place in multiple venues throughout the city of Chicago. Each year a selection of composers is invited to devise musical systems that focus on the dualism of composition and improvisation. A large ensemble of experienced improvisers interprets each composer’s proposal. In April of 2008 Chicago Sound Map presented four compositions on two evenings. This CD represents the first evening at The Chicago Cultural Center.

"Stop the Sound of the Big Bell" by Olivia Block mixes traditional and graphic notational techniques leaving open spaces for structured improvisation for each player at different times. It is designed so that the improvised segments fit within the larger framework of the piece, instead of driving the form of the composition.

"Heard Laboratories, performed" by Ernst Karel uses as its score an edited phonographic work consisting of recordings of scientific research environments at Harvard University: parts one and two are direct interpretations of tracks one and two of Heard Laboratories (and/OAR, 2009).

Recorded on April 8, 2008 in the Claudia Cassidy Theater at the Chicago Cultural Center.