Frequency Festival: TAK Ensemble & Zachary Good

Name: Frequency Festival: TAK Ensemble & Zachary Good
Start: 2026-03-01T20:30:00-06:00
Location: 3111 N Western Ave Chicago IL 60618

Schedule

Sun, 01 Mar, 2026 at 08:30 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

3111 N Western Ave Chicago IL 60618 | Chicago, IL

8:30pm.

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.

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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.