Tonight from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. CST on 98.7WFMT Radio Chicago and via free streaming anywhere in the world at wfmt.com my guests are Chicago Symphony Orchestra 'cellist Katinka Kleijn and Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) artistic director Matti Bunzl.
We'll preview the CHF program that Matti and Katinka came up with a few months ago and which Katinka will be presenting at the Festival this Sunday afternoon, November 14: a new work for solo 'cello, Oil-Free Blush, made up of world première CHF-commissioned pieces by each of seven younger composers.
Netherlands-born and -trained, Katinka joined the CSO in 1995 and has enough additional interests and activities to make for several other careers, including sponsorship an direction of a competition and instrument loan program for young string players and membership in several types of performance groups including jazz, acoustic duos, progressive rock, and the dynamite New York-Chicago International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).
The composers, who were given an unusual challenge and context which we'll save for the broadcast, are an international lot all with strong connections to Katinka, ICE, and/or Chicago: Marcos Balter, Megan Beugger, Phyllis Chen, Pablo Santiago Chin, Nomi Epstein, Sebastian Huydts, and Du Yun. Several of them will join Katinka for Sunday's CHF performance and yours truly will moderate a discussion with them.
Matti Bunzl is the academic and in-person force of nature who was appointed this year to lead the artistic side of the venerable CHF. In a short period, he's helped to move the Festival in exciting directions and turned a spotlight on much that already goes on right here in Chicago. A professor of anthropology, history, Jewish studies, gender studies, and everything but the deep blue sea at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he's also been a guest on Critical Thinking in the past.
The recital and discussion is a ticketed event, this Sunday November 14 from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park on the North Side of Chicago and all details are here.
Our radio broadcast will then be posted later this week at wfmt.com/criticalthinking for free podcast/download/streaming.
See you on the radio!
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