Up High by Zachary Good and Tonia Ko

Up High is an installation and concert-length work created and performed by clarinetist/ composer Zachary Good and bubble wrapper/composer Tonia Ko. Developed over a two-year long-distance collaboration, Tonia and Zach confront their mutual fear of heights by staging a physical and sonic cliff. The premiere takes place on the ninth floor penthouse of the Logan Center for the Arts, a somewhat monolithic tower in Hyde Park. The two perform on top of large isolated pedestals wearing bubble wrap jackets custom-made by Lia Kohl, juxtaposing the insecurity of height with the “protection” of air packaging.

With sound, Tonia and Zach construct a steep terrain of extreme lows and highs — from the lowest note on the contrabass clarinet (a pedal B-flat) to the white noise of rubbed bubble wrap and whistle tones of a sopranino recorder. Instruments are close-mic’d and amplified against a scaffolding of heavy electronics and shifting light to create an immersive experience, assisted by lighting/sound engineer Zach Moore. Small objects gradually begin to fall, traversing this emotional and literal space. Accumulating drops become a brilliant and percussive downpour. What emerges is a meditation on the dichotomies of fear and acceptance, distance and closeness, dyads and unisons.

 Up High is a visceral dreamscape.

About the composers

Together, Zachary Good and Tonia Ko are a creative duo interested in exploring improvisation, composition, and their shared fear of heights. They are pen pals creating new work through shared discoveries from their own lives and practices.

Zachary Good is a Chicago-based instrumentalist (clarinets and Baroque recorders), improviser, performer, and creator. He approaches his instruments in familiar and unexpected ways while working in a variety of settings—experimental, classical, historical, and other. Zachary is clarinetist in the sextet Eighth Blackbird, a founding Co-Artistic Director of the performance collective Mocrep, and one-third of the clarinet/percussion/cello trio ZRL. He frequently performs with International Contemporary Ensemble, Music of the Baroque Chicago, Manual Cinema, and Ensemble Dal Niente. He is an active freelance and touring musician, middle school band director, and improviser.

Born in Pittsburgh, Zachary studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and DePaul University. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music where he is researching the peculiarities of dyad multiphonics on the soprano clarinet. Alongside the musicians of Eighth Blackbird, he was Visiting Instructor at the University of Richmond during the 2019–20 academic year.

No matter how traditional or experimental the medium, Tonia Ko’s music reveals a core that is whimsical, questioning, and lyrical. She has collaborated with soloists and ensembles across a variety of media—from acoustic concert pieces to improvisations and sound installations. Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Tonia’s music has been lauded by The New York Times for its “captivating” details and “vivid orchestral palette.” Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Tonia served as 2018-19 Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition. She was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2020.

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Resistant Noise by Janice Misurell-Mitchell

Resistant Noise, for vocal and instrumental ensemble and electronics, uses a text from Jacques Attali’s Bruits (Noise). His thesis is that noise (unwanted sound) represents people and forces in a society that are excluded from the mainstream culture, and that cultural change will be heralded by musical change. 

The text is as follows:

With noise is born disorder and its opposite: the world
With music is born power and its opposite: subversion
In noise...the codes of life, les codes de la vie.
Clameurs, Mélodie, Dissonance, Harmonie *

The piece has had two earlier versions - Clameurs, Mélodie, commissioned by the MAVerick Ensemble for the 2016 Ear Taxi Festival, and Clameurs des voix, an expansion of the earlier piece, performed on a 6Degrees Composers concert in 2017. 

Resistant Noise is a musical representation of the conflicts and social forces in the US today. The text appears in various guises, from being a source for the transformation of words into sounds alone, to becoming a force for the dramatic involvement of the musicians themselves.  

The electronic soundtrack appears in two distinct places. The most sustained section develops from abstract vocal patterns that gradually combine with political chants and well-known voices, partially understood, in protest movements, mainstream media, and protests from the past. Many of the chants are from my recordings of protests I've attended since January 2017. 

The piece is dedicated to the memories of vocalist, pianist, composer and cherished member of our 6Degrees composers, Ann Ward; the brilliant baritone who could swing with the best and still soar in a Handel aria, Saalik Ziyad; and our son, filmmaker, artist and songwriter, Gabriel Mitchell, whose loud whistle honoring my performances still rings in our ears.

–Janice Misurell-Mitchell

*Used with permission

About the composer

Janice Misurell-Mitchell, composer, flutist, and vocal artist, teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For twenty-five years she was Co-Artistic Director of Chicago’s CUBE Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and she is now a member of the 6Degrees Composers. She has taught and performed in the US, Mexico, Europe, Morocco, Israel, Palestine, India, and China. Recently she received commissions from the Chicago Composers Orchestra and the Ear Taxi Festival, and an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council. Her CDs, Vanishing Points, music for solo, duo, quartet and Uncommon Time, music for flute, voice and percussion, are on the Southport Records label. Other music of hers is available through MMC Recordings, OPUS ONE Recordings, Capstone Records, Arizona University Recordings and meerenaishim.com; her videos After the History, Scat/Rap Counterpoint, Sermon of the Spider and others are available on Youtube.

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New work (for D-Composed) by Tomeka Reid
UPDATE: WORLD PREMIERE POSTPONED

About the composer

Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by the New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. She is a Foundation of the Arts (2019) and 3Arts Awardee (2016), received her doctorate in music from UIUC in 2017, and serves as the Darius Milhaud composition chair at Mills College.

Reid released her debut recording as a bandleader in 2015, with the Tomeka Reid Quartet. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in October 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as “fresh and transformative--its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid’s singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work.” She co-leads the adventurous string trio HEAR IN NOW, and in 2013 launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a semi-annual three-day international festival of cutting edge string players held in Chicago.