Upcoming Performances

I have been grounded in Chicago by borderline-apocalyptic rainstorms, but spirits undampened, I report on upcoming performances of my music around the country.

April 19 (aka, tomorrow) -- Second Return for soprano, harp, and violin on the debut concert of Providence Premieres new music project in Providence, Rhode Island. I am currently supposed to be on a plane to go hear this concert. If Chicago is not still underwater 24 hours from now, I will at that point be on a plane to go hear this concert. Wish me luck. The text is by the terrific Jamaican-born Cornell-teaching poet Ishion Hutchinson.

April 21 -- Ave Maria premiere with my much-beloved alma mater ensemble, the Illinois Wesleyan Collegiate Choir, in Bloomington IL. Dr. Ferguson is one of the most inspiring musician-teachers I've worked with, and I'm honored that he's conducting my piece this weekend.

April 23 -- This is the day you can hear the new Golconda! It's called By these limits were they circumscribed and of them were they locus. It's a huge step forward for my guitar playing and songwriting, and I really hope you like it.

April 26 -- Grant Wallace Band performs a piano-less set at Cafe Mustache in Logan Square, Chicago. We aired out this material at the Red Line Tap last night and had a great time, especially with CFL's new arrangement of "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground." Absurdist blues tweets galore. For this show we'll be joined by past co-conspirators and fellow classicalish, chambery folksters Elk, who have such a beguiling new EP for you to check out.

April 28 -- The choir of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Eau Claire, WI premieres Bring One Flower. They commissioned the piece, seeking music themed specifically for the "flower communion" service, which is this amazingly poignant and precious thing that only the Unitarians could come up with. Seriously, google "flower communion" sometime. I was so charmed by this tradition.

May 10 -- Spring for soprano, violin and viola at the Singers on New Ground concert at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. This is going to be a terribly heavy music show, with performances by Angela Tomasino, Alison Wahl, and the Chicago Q Ensemble. A big new song cycle by Brian Baxter anchors the program. Spring, perhaps the most succulent fruit of my VCCA residency, is based on two texts by Chloe Honum, and I couldn't be happier to pass it off to such great musicians for this concert. A studio recording will follow later in the spring.
 
May 11 -- Grant Wallace Band is back, this time with a piano, joining our awesome friends Ensemble Dal Niente at the National Pastime Theater in Chicago. This is going to be SUCH a great evening! Dal Niente has been bringing serious musicianship, soul, and energy to Chicago's new-music scene these last few years, and for the 5/11 show they're playing new music by my UT-Austin chum Robert Honstein.

May 13 -- Chicago's much-beloved Fulcrum Point New Music Project takes a trip through my 2011 string quartet We Stopped at Perfect Days as part of their Discoveries series. The concert is at the Merit School of Music. This piece has been in the drawer for a while, and I couldn't be happier that it's going to have a little spring sunlight splashed on its face. The title and theme come from a poem by Richard Brautigan, personal artistic hero of 2010-11.

May 26 -- Did I mention that I have a new Golconda record coming out? Oh yeah, yeah I did. Well, on 5/26 I'm going to play some of these tunes, as well as old favorites and covers, at Ward Eight in Evanston IL. If you haven't heard about Ward Eight, perhaps you haven't been reading any Chicago cultural publications, because the critics are going wild over this stylish-but-chill new bar with a genuine neighborhood vibe and fantastic cocktails. It's a tremendously pleasant hang and I hope to see you there!

May 28 -- This evening I'll swing by Northwestern University to perform Chris Fisher-Lochhead's brief & breezy piano piece leaping in place, which he has subtitled "four imagined genealogies and a ghazal on a theme from the Eroica symphony." CFL has superb titling chops.

May 30 -- Grant Wallace Band plays on the Comfort Music series at Comfort Station in Logan Square, Chicago. This room has a great acoustic, which we can't wait to slather in fifty-seven-dimensional sound waves.

And that, friends and neighbors, is the spring! I hope to see many of you at some of these performances.