
Full Schedule
The Ear Taxi Festival 2025, themed "The Composer’s Voice," is a landmark event showcasing contemporary concert music across Chicagoland from October 3 through November 2, 2025. ETF ‘25 will highlight over 500 artists in over 50 hours of programming, including large-scale Anchor Performances, Composer Showcases, Taxi Performance Series, and Accent Concerts.

Hard Music, Hard Liquor
cosmia opera collective presents "moth songs ii: thresholds", a continuation of our fundraiser concert series premiering art songs written by northwestern composers for northwestern vocalists. these works, written for voice, piano and/or electronics, have the option of using an original text written by the composer/singer/both, or a public domain text that resonates with both artists and fits this year's themes of thresholds and liminality.

Fulcrum Point New Music Project
A 75-minute celebration of Argentinian American composer Gustavo Leone featuring works for trumpet, electronics and string quartet with Artistic Director trumpeter Stephen Burns

Rising
Performers
Mary Kothman, Violin
Lisa A. Williams, Violin
Nora Frisk, Viola
Elizabeth J Start, Cello
Program
She Rises
Caroline Shaw | Entr'acte
Elizabeth J Start † | Verdisimilitude
Elizabeth J Start † | Rising
Augusta Read Thomas † | Rhea Enchanted
Florence Price | String Quartet #2 in a minor
*World Premiere Performance
^ Midwest Premiere Performance
† Illinois-based Composer
This ensemble of midwest-based women (Mary Kothman and Lisa A. Williams-violins, Nora Frisk-viola, Elizabeth J Start-cello) formed to elevate composers who might be underrepresented & whose voices need to be heard. They rose to share this common vision.

Alarm Will Sound
“Überhip” (Entertainment Weekly) 20-member band Alarm Will Sound takes on music from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced. Committed to innovative performances and recordings of today’s music, Alarm Will Sound has been associated since its inception with composers at the forefront of contemporary music, premiering pieces by the likes of Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, and David Lang. The group itself includes many composer-performers, giving them an unusual insight into the creation and performance of new works. This “stylistically omnivorous” (The Log Journal) ensemble returns to Logan Center this October to perform and record two works by UChicago Professor of Composition, Hans Thomalla.

6 Degrees Composers
Vox femina - The Woman's Voice, presents works that reflect ideas and images of particular women but have a universal view. Regina Baiocchi's pieces, Nourish, Things Change, and I've Got a Mother, reflect African American culture and traditions. Kyong Mee Choi's video, Quietly, is based on a poem by the composer on the death of her father. Janice Misurell-Mitchell's O Sapientia, for flute/alto flute and electronics uses a recording of the antiphon by Hildegard von Bingen to reflect on humanity's loss of wisdom. Patricia Morehead's Altered Reality,for oboe, bass oboe, and electronics uses visual images created by her late sister, Sheryl Ann Noonan, a talented painter and sculptor. Her piece will also feature Alex Klein, former principal oboe in the Chicago Symphony. Ester Hana's piece, Untitled is brings a jazz inflection to our program. Our guest composer Africa Brown presents an upbeat celebration of womanhood through song and percussive dance.

Bienen Contemporary/ Early Vocal Ensemble (BCE)
The first concert of the 2025 Dunbar Festival of Early Music. The Festival celebrates the works of Orlando Gibbons and John Dowland. In addition to works by these two composers, BCE offers contemporary riffs on their music, including a world premiere by Chicago composer Stacy Garrop.

Ryan De Ryke and Daniel Schlosberg
This concert follows the September 12 release of the CD Myths and Accidents by Divine Art/Diversions Records. It features three Lofstrom song cycles, Myths and Accidents, All Must End and Three Sandburg Songs, the last of which will be a world premiere. Several of the songs are based on lyrics by Alan Robert Day, a longtime Lofstrom collaborator and Chicago native. Other songs are based on poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Thomas Traherne, Herman Melville and of course, Carl Sandburg.

pNeXT Ensemble
Enjoy all-new repertoire for our trio, the pNeXT Ensemble. New music outside of the academic mold is performed by a trio of horn, cello, and piano. The performers studied at DePaul and New England Conservatory.

Daniel Baer
Performers
Daniel Baer, piano
Program
Robert Savage Piano Works
Robert Savage | Cowboy Nocturne
Robert Savage | Prelude and Chaconne
Robert Savage | AIDS Ward Scherzo
Robert Savage | Dance of Avoidance
Robert Savage | Piano Sonata No.1

moth songs ii: thresholds
cosmia opera collective presents "moth songs ii: thresholds", a continuation of our fundraiser concert series premiering art songs written by northwestern composers for northwestern vocalists. these works, written for voice, piano and/or electronics, have the option of using an original text written by the composer/singer/both, or a public domain text that resonates with both artists and fits this year's themes of thresholds and liminality.

Chicago Bagatelles Project
The world premiere of Chicago Bagatelles Project features twelve short works for solo saxophone performed by Phil Pierick and commissioned by Chicago-based composers who have drawn inspiration from the arts, science, nature, and the city itself. Contributing composers are Carlos Bandera, Baldwin Giang, Jonathan Hannau, Molly Jones, David Clay Mettens, Osnat Netzer, Paul Novak, Shawn Okpebholo, Phil Pierick, Sean Shepherd, Augusta Read Thomas, and Ania Vu. Alongside the Bagatelles, the program is completed with chamber works featuring soprano Kristina Bachrach (the Chicago premiere of Rädda mig ur dyn by Karin Rehnqvist), flutist Sasha Ishov (in Marcos Balter’s Strohbass), and the other half of Isotope Duo, percussionist Kyle Flens (in Amy Williams’ Child’s Play) as well as an audience-participation "sing-along" version of Luciano Berio's Sequenza VIIb filling acoustic of the museum’s Hall of Mortals.

Benjamin Sung and David Kalhous
Loyola University Chicago has the pleasure of inviting you to a concert featuring pianist David Kalhous and violinist Benjamin Sung on Friday, October 31, 2025, at 7:00 PM at Skowronski Music Hall, Mundelein Center for Fine and Performing Arts.
The program will include works by JS Bach, Franz Schubert, György Kurtág, alongside the world premiere of The Ci(r)cadian Tree by Dongryul Lee, commissioned by Sung and Kalhous. Inspired by the rare 2024 dual emergence of periodical cicadas in Illinois and the dazzling Northern Lights, Lee’s piece explores cycles of nature, life, and impermanence through vivid musical storytelling, through a Borgesian narrative.

Threads of Time
cosmia opera collective presents "moth songs ii: thresholds", a continuation of our fundraiser concert series premiering art songs written by northwestern composers for northwestern vocalists. these works, written for voice, piano and/or electronics, have the option of using an original text written by the composer/singer/both, or a public domain text that resonates with both artists and fits this year's themes of thresholds and liminality.

Trio Accord
Trio Accord (oboe, viola, piano) explores repertoire for different combinations of their instruments and are featuring Accord by Chicago-area composer Zae Munn. Also included are works by Tann, Glinka, and Loeffler.

Northwestern University Chorale
University Chorale presents a program confronting the calculated devastation wrought by war and violence through a collection of powerful choral works by Judith Weir, Toivo Tulev, Ted Hearne, Heinrich Schütz, Caroline Shaw, and Veljo Tormis.

Mucca Pazza
Mucca Pazza performs selections from its ever-evolving repertoire in a theatrical performance at Evanston's SPACE. Chicago's most colorful composers collective will present works from Mucca Pazza's stylistically eclectic and extensive 21-year catalog (composed by the band) in perhaps the only Ear Taxi concert featuring cheerleaders.