Contemporary Music Ensemble
Saturday, May 23, 2026 at 7:30pm CDT
Galvin Recital Hall
Ben Bolter, Alan Pierson, and Shihan Jin, conductors; James Soto, narrator
Music by Bienen students Matthew Huang Mailman and Jianing Yang receives world premieres. Also featured is splitting to collapse by Bienen professor Kelley Sheehan, a work “once becoming aware of itself, it collapses in, exhausted.” Concluding the evening is Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together, a burning dive into the injustices of incarceration. Northwestern alumnus James Soto joins the ensemble as narrator for Rzewski’s powerful work, which employs the text from a letter by the late Samuel Melville, a prisoner at New York’s Attica Correctional Facility who was killed during 1971 riots over the facility’s horrendous living conditions. Soto himself was wrongfully incarcerated for 42 years, earning his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern in November of 2023, just before his December 2023 release, and he was recently accepted into several law schools.
Elijah Daniel Smith, Vermilion Glare
Matthew Huang Mailman, I met my family twice
Jianing Yang, 1/2 moon
Kelley Sheehan, splitting to collapse
Frederic Rzewski, Coming Together
Tickets are $8 for the general public and $5 for students with valid ID.
Buy TicketsMary B. Galvin Recital Hall
Address
70 Arts Circle Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
United States
About
Located in the Ryan Center for the Musical Arts, this 400-seat hall features a 40-foot glass wall offering views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline. Undulating walls of Forest Stewardship Council–certified wood, covered with a thin layer of African moabi wood, provide optimal acoustics, and the hall is equipped with state-of-the-art sound and video equipment for recording.
