“I am convinced that the music of G. I. Ustvolskaya will achieve worldwide renown, to be valued by all who perceive truth in music to be of paramount importance.”  (Dmitri Shostakovich)

 Galina Ustvolskaya’s music is unique and does not resemble any other. Her music was too far from the Soviet ideals to gain wide-recognition during her lifetime. Almost completely unknown outside of Russia until the fall of the iron curtain, Ustvolskaya’s music entered Western Europe/USA in more recent years and is said to ‘burn’ ‘with an inhuman intensity and a spiritual strength, as though it is broken away from musical substance and exists independently, like radiation or gravity.’

The first time a major festival of her music occurred outside of Russia (and possibly ever) was in Amsterdam 2011. We venture to take it even further.

 The Chicago Ustvolskaya Festival is a 3-day immersion into Ustvolskaya’s powerful and intense music,October 5-7, 2017. Named “the woman with the hammer, (Elmer Schonberger)” for her use of heavy, homophonic blocks of sound, Ustvolskaya’s music is rarely performed in Chicago, and never in a portrait festival. Our festival will feature 3 concerts of her solo, small and large chamber works, in addition to a 3-day musicological symposium open to the public. Concerts will be presented at The Logan Center for the Arts, the University of Chicago Music Department and PianoForte Studios.

The Ustvolskaya Festival and Symposium looks back to a previous generation to remember and celebrate the importance and inspiration of this great composer’s work for contemporary music. The festival gives us an opportunity to bring together our whole community to have a dialogue about this music. With the continued issue of male dominated new music programs, and the lack of current and earlier 20th century female composer’s presence, our festival will promote and explore this earlier generation 20th century female composer’s legacy. Lastly, the festival will allow important connections to be made between Ustvolskaya’s work and the music being created by today’s emerging composers.

Building on the momentum generated by fall 2016’s Ear Taxi Festival, the Chicago New Music Community has united again to form the Ustvolskaya Ensemble, which includes the city’s most prestigious musicians including Seth Parker Woods, Shanna Gutierrez (Collect/Project), Liz Pearse (Quince Vocal Ensemble), DePaul University’s Ensemble 20+ led by Michael Lewanski,  Kevin Harrison (Axiom Brass), Jeff Kimmel (a.pe.ri.od.ic), Andrew Rosenblum, Chris Jones, Ann Yi, Tara Lynn Ramsey, and more.

The accompanying symposium is hosted by The University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Chicago’s Department of Slavic/Baltic Languages and Literature and Music Departments, and will feature lectures by musicologists Richard Taruskin, (Berkeley), Marina Frolova-Walker, (University of Cambridge), and Julia Vaingurt (University of Illinois at Chicago) among other noted scholars.

This is a rare and important opportunity for a city’s artistic community to unify in the presentation and discussion of something new to the ears of Chicago audiences. Ustvolskaya’s music is presciently relevant in today’s climate of concerns regarding gender and artistic expression in a difficult political environment.