Come and join us as we collaborate with Emmy Bean and Beyond This Point on a new work centered around Emmy’s songwriting and storytelling. As We Go is an intimate experiment in how we describe ourselves to ourselves in music, story, and movement. Come sit by the fire with us (yes, there will be a real campfire!).

Performances will take place at Center Portion in Logan Square at 7 and 9pm.

Taking place at Evanston SPACE, Afterimage is a brand new program featuring saxophone works written by each member of the Kinds of Kings composer collective. Exploring themes of contemporary life including riotous nights out, street harassment, displacement and isolation, and living through moments of darkness, “this different blue space” is the first collaboration between Kinds of Kings and ~Nois. The concert will include two world premieres by members Susanna Hancock and Maria Kaoutzani, and special guest Taimur Sullivan of the Grammy-award winning PRISM Quartet will join ~Nois member János Csontos on her baritone saxophone duet Big Talk. In addition, ~Nois will give the world premiere of gossamer by Cassie Wieland. Get your tickets here!

Join ~Nois and the University of Wisconsin Wind Ensemble conducted by Dr. Scott Teeple for the Wisconsin premiere of Chen Yi’s Ba Yin: The Eight Sounds. This powerful concerto for saxophone quartet and wind ensemble features the ensemble emulating the sounds of traditional Chinese instruments. The concert is free and begins at 2pm in the brand new Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall of the Hamel Music Center. For more information, click here.

~Nois performs works by Finola Merivale, Emma O’Halloran, and Gemma Peacocke of the Kinds of Kings composer collective along with works by Georg Friedrich Haas, Pauline Oliveros, and Kelley Sheehan. The concert is free and begins at 6:30 pm in Collins Hall in the brand new Hamel Music Center. For more information, click here.

Taking place at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY, Afterimage is a brand new program featuring saxophone works written by each member of the Kinds of Kings composer collective. Exploring themes of contemporary life including riotous nights out, street harassment, displacement and isolation, and living through moments of darkness, “this different blue space” is the first collaboration between Kinds of Kings and ~Nois. The concert will include two world premieres by members Susanna Hancock and Maria Kaoutzani, and Kinds of Kings member Shelley Washington will join ~Nois member János Csontos on her baritone saxophone duet Big Talk. Get your tickets here!

Our season opens at the Frequency Series at Constellation on October 13 with a program featuring works by Chicago-based composers including three world premieres! Existing works by Clay Mettens and Mischa Zupko (a piece that we helped commission!) join world premieres by Jonathan Hannau, Sam Scranton, and Kelley Sheehan! Come and celebrate the incredible talent we have right here in our hometown!

Birdhouse presents ~Nois and the Dave Rempis Quartet at Fred Anderson Park in Chicago for an evening of paying tribute to Charlie Parker’s 99th birthday. Running tandem to the Chicago Jazz Festival, this concert is brought to you in part by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Thirsty Ears Festival, Chicago’s only classical music street festival, presents ~Nois on Saturday, August 10 at 8pm. Taking place in Ravenswood, delicious beer from Empirical Brewery, vendor booths, kid friendly activities, and food trucks will be present on both days in addition to the incredible lineup. Entrance to the festival is a $10 suggested donation and all proceeds support the ACM School of Music, a non-profit organization. Check out the festival’s website here for more information!

~Nois will present the music of Andy Akiho, Emma O’Halloran, Georg Friedrich Haas, Pauline Oliveros, and Gemma Peacocke at the Detroit Institute of Arts as a part of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. Also featured on the program will be the Furies, an incredible violin duo. For more information about the program, click here.

This concert will showcase ~Nois along with other Blackbird Creative Lab fellows Juxtatonal and the Furies alongside Eighth Blackbird. ~Nois will perform Gemma Peacocke’s Dwalm and alto saxophonist Hunter Bockes will join Juxtatonal’s Jocelyn Zelasko and Eighth Blackbird’s Lisa Kaplan for a performance of Nina Shekhar’s Food Fight. The entire company will perform Julius Eastman’s powerful Stay On It to close out the show. For more information about the program, please click here.

~Nois will perform Viet Cuong’s Prized Possessions on a shared program with James Tocco, Leila Josefowicz, Philip Setzer, Lawrence Power, Paul Watkins, Eighth Blackbird, Ivalas Quartet, and the Thalea String Quartet at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. For more information about the program, click here.

~Nois will perform David Ludwig’s Josquin Microludes on a shared program with the Callisto String Quartet and Eighth Blackbird at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. Brandon Quarles will perform Viet Cuong’s Electric Aroma with Eighth Blackbird for this performance. For more information about the program, click here.

Come and join ~Nois along with Eighth Blackbird and Juxtatonal for an afternoon of music at the Garfield Park Conservatory. A part of the Chicago Park District’s Night out in the Parks series, this concert is free and open to the public.

Come and join ~Nois along with Eighth Blackbird and Juxtatonal for an afternoon of music at the Hamilton Park Cultural Center. A part of the Chicago Park District’s Night out in the Parks series, this concert is free and open to the public.

Hosted by Brandon Quarles (Executive Director of the Chicago-based saxophone quartet, ~Nois, and the Membership Chair of New Music Chicago), Kuang-Hao Huang (Artistic Director of Make Music Chicago), and members of Eighth Blackbird, this concert at the Chicago Cultural Center will provide a sneak peek of the ninth annual Make Music Chicago. Alumni of Eighth Blackbird’s Blackbird Creative Lab will be featured alongside some of Chicago’s most exciting contemporary ensembles. The ninth annual Make Music Chicago, which takes place all day on June 21st, is a free, citywide, DIY celebration of the musician in all of us. Come and join us at the Cultural Center for a fun and engaging kickoff to the festival!

~Nois performs at the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound Festival. The program will feature the work of Pauline Oliveros, Gemma Peacocke, and David Reminick. Get your tickets here!

~Nois returns to the Frequency Series at Constellation to perform new works written for the quartet by members of the Chicago Composers' Consortium. To find out more about CCC, visit their website.

The culmination of ~Nois' residency with the University of Chicago's composition students, Spaces Inside Spaces will feature world premieres by Ted Moore, Tonia Ko, Yuting Tan, Jack Hughes, Rodrigo Bussad, Gabriel Novak, and Austin Simonds. The concert will connect music and performance to the design and architecture traditions of Chicago. By creatively staging the multiple works throughout the Hairpin Arts Center gallery in the historic Morris B. Sachs building at Logan Square, the composers and musicians engage with physical space and architecture as a compositional parameter. Commissioned lighting design accentuates the space and sonic qualities of the music, both of which lead the audience through a continuously flowing, immersive aesthetic experience.

For more information, click here!

~Nois will be featured on New Music Chicago’s Impromptu Fest at Guarneri Hall on Saturday, March 30 at 7:30pm. Impromptu Fest is a series of 8 concerts, showcasing members of New Music Chicago.  Now in its second year, Impromptu Fest is a platform to hear all that is going on with our members, from freshly composed acoustic music, to works with electronics and film, all by performers based in the Chicago area.

~Nois will present recent commissions including works by Gemma Peacocke and Chicago’s own Darcy Copeland alongside Saxophonquartett by Georg Friedrich Haas, one of the new masterworks of the saxophone quartet repertoire. The quartet will also highlight its recent experiments with modified and deconstructed saxophones through a unique improvisation.

The concert will also feature Aviary, a bassoon/cello duo.

Tickets are $20 and $10 for students one show with festival passes available for purchase as well. For more information and tickets, please click here.

Tune in to Chicago’s WFMT to hear the fellows from the Blackbird Creative Lab including ~Nois!

~Nois will be featured along with other Blackbird Creative Lab alumni at a free, public concert at the Ace Hotel.

~Nois will present new works composed for the quartet by Nathan Hudson, Howie Kenty, and Ed Rosenberg as well as music by Georg Friedrich Haas, Pauline Oliveros, and Gemma Peacocke. This performance is free.

Come and join ~Nois for our first shows in New York! Featuring world premieres by New York-based composers Nathan Hudson, Howie Kenty, and Ed Rosenberg as well as music by Georg Friedrich Haas, Pauline Oliveros, and Gemma Peacocke, this show will be on Stage 3 of Manhattan’s Rockwood Music Hall at 4:30pm. Tickets can be found here and are $15 for general admission and $10 for students (discount code is noisny).

Come and join ~Nois for our first shows in New York! Featuring world premieres by New York-based composers Nathan Hudson, Howie Kenty, and Ed Rosenberg as well as pieces by Georg Friedrich Haas, Pauline Oliveros, and Gemma Peacocke, this performance will take place at Brooklyn’s Areté. The show begins at 7:00pm and tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students. All tickets must be purchased at the door.

~Nois will perform for the Manhattan School of Music Composition Seminar.

~Nois will join the Chicago-based Zafa Collective for an evening of collaborative duos and large ensemble works by composers with strong ties to Chicago. The first half of the concert will pair each member of ~Nois with a member of Zafa, while the second half will see ~Nois members performing in a chamber setting with Zafa members. The concert will feature works by Luis Fernando Amaya, Drew Baker, Marcos Balter, Eliza Brown, Lee Hyla, Alex Mincek, and Augusta Read Thomas. Both founded in 2016 at Northwestern University, ~Nois and Zafa have been friends for years and are thrilled to showcase the incredible music being made here in our hometown. The concert will take place at the beautiful Fulton Street Collective and tickets will be available at the door — $20 for general admission and $10 with a valid student ID or Civic Orchestra ID. Doors at 7:00pm and show at 7:30pm.

Elastic Arts’ longstanding Improvised Music Series will host ~Nois and fellow Chicago-based Fat Pigeon for an evening of fully improvised sets on Thursday, January 24th. The series presents performances that explore improvisation from a variety of vantage points, ranging from jazz-based approaches, to new music-influenced ones, to completely non-idiomatic forms of improvisation. ~Nois will take the stage at 9pm with Fat Pigeon beginning at 10pm. The concert will also see the two ensembles join forces for the first time to improvise a unique and exciting set. This will be a truly one of a kind performance that you certainly don’t want to miss. Tickets are $10 and more information can be found at Elastic Arts website.