“A superb contemporary music collective”
“Exuberant vitality and expressiveness”
“ Dal Niente keep their fingers firmly on the pulse of living music. ”
“[dal niente has] built provocative programs and a striking international reputation by rendering unapologetically difficult music—oftentimes, the sort that other so-called new music ensembles will not or cannot try—with unguarded ardor and commitment.
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Ensemble Dal Niente performs, develops, and sustains new and experimental music for small to large chamber ensemble. We are dedicated to growing relationships with artists, composers, and listeners; advancing distinct and challenging musical voices; and sharing that work with our Chicago, U.S., and international communities.
Dal Niente’s roster of 27 musicians presents an uncommonly broad range of contemporary music. Audiences coming to Dal Niente shows can expect distinctive productions—from fully staged operas to multimedia spectacles to intimate solo performances— that are curated to pique curiosity and connect art, culture, and people.
Dal Niente is the 2019 recipient of the Fromm Music Foundation Prize and the 2012 recipient of the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis Darmstadt.
PERFORMANCE TYPESLarge-scale works for 20+ players
Georg Friedrich Haas: In Vain
Hans Abrahamsen: Schnee
Composer portraits and curated concerts (5-13 players)
Hilda Paredes: Demente Cuerda
Andile Khumalo: Shades of Words
Erin Gee: Mouthpiece 32
George Lewis: Assemblage
Anthony Braxton: Ghost Trance Music
Small Chamber Concerts (3-5 players)
Carola Bauckholt: Oh I See for clarinet, cello, piano, and performers
Gerard Grisey: Talea for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello
Mikel Kuehn: Between the Lynes for flute, cello, and piano
George Lewis: The Mangle of Practice for violin and piano
THEATRICAL AND DANCE COLLABORATIONS
Tomás Gueglio: Proa (with Delfos Danza, Mazatlán)
Simon Steen-Andersen: Black Box Music
Katherine Young: When Stranger Things Happen
Eliza Brown: The Body of the State
We work with presenters, universities, and concert series to craft unique performance and residency programs, including concerts, workshops, composer reading sessions, panels, and masterclasses.
RECENTLY COMMISSIONED COMPOSERS
Roscoe Mitchell
Carola Bauckholt
Igor Santos
Ted Hearne
Erin Gee
George Lewis
Raphael Cendo
Katherine Young
Greg Saunier
Anthony Cheung
Eliza Brown
Natachia Diels
Tomás Gueglio
UPCOMING AND PAST PERFORMANCES
Theatro San Pedro, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Big Ears Music Festival in Knoxville, TN
National Sawdust NYC
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
Radialsystem.Berlin
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
The Foro Internacional de Música Nueva in Mexico City
The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The Art Institute of Chicago
MusicArte Festival in Panama City
Ecstatic Music Festival, NYC
The Darmstadt Summer Courses
UPCOMING AND PAST RESIDENCIES
Stanford University
Northwestern University
University of California San Diego
University of Pittsburgh
Howard University
Illinois State University Red Note Festival
Carleton College
Peabody Conservatory
San Francisco State University
Brown University
Brandeis University
University of Washington
Florida International University
University of Northern Iowa
Images
Group Photo - Color
Photo: Alexander Perrelli
Photo: Aleksandr Karjaka / Karjaka Studios
Photo: Aleksandr Karjaka / Karjaka Studios
BIO
Ensemble Dal Niente performs, develops, and sustains new and experimental music for small to large chamber ensemble. We are dedicated to growing relationships with artists, composers, and listeners; advancing distinct and challenging musical voices; and sharing that work with our Chicago, U.S., and international communities.
Dal Niente’s roster of 27 musicians presents an uncommonly broad range of contemporary music. Audiences coming to Dal Niente shows can expect distinctive productions—from fully staged operas to multimedia spectacles to intimate solo performances— that are curated to pique curiosity and connect art, culture, and people.
Since 2004, Ensemble Dal Niente has performed concerts across Europe and the Americas, including appearances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC; The Foro Internacional de Música Nueva in Mexico City; Radialsystem Berlin, MusicArte Festival in Panama City; The Library of Congress and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival; Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; Big Ears Music Festival; The Americas Society; and the Darmstadt Summer Courses in Germany. Dal Niente is the recipient of the 2019 Fromm Music Foundation prize, and was the first-ever ensemble to win the Kranichstein prize for interpretation in 2012. The group has recordings available on the New World, New Amsterdam, New Focus, Navona, Parlour Tapes+, and Carrier labels; has held residencies at The University of Chicago, Harvard University, Stanford University, Brown University, Brandeis University, and Northwestern University, among others; and collaborated with a wide range of composers, from Enno Poppe to George Lewis to Hilda Paredes to Roscoe Mitchell.
The ensemble's name, Dal Niente ("from nothing" in Italian), is a tribute to Helmut Lachenmann's Dal niente (Interieur III), a work that upended traditional conceptions of instrumental technique; and also a reference to the group’s humble beginnings.
MORE PRESS
“Dal Niente is a model of what contemporary music needs, but seldom gets, to reach and engage a wider public.”
“gifted young ensembles like Dal Niente are giving us an exhilarating way to experience the music of our own time. ”
“Dal Niente’s contribution is [to bring] hard-core Modernism up to date, with contemporary and even pop culture invited to the table, as long as the results are structurally rigorous and original.”
“What I saw and heard at Dal Niente’s performance last Thursday was, for me, more than a political statement. It was more than a treatise on intonation. It was more than any metaphor could have prepared me for.”