Nova Linea Musica presents Chicago!

Nova Linea Musica (NLM), an innovative local chamber music series and new-music incubator, closes its inaugural season with Chicago!, a concert with a salute to our great city featuring Chicago-based performers and composers. Chicago! presents In Triplicate, a pioneering and locally-grown string trio of internationally acclaimed musicians who compose, arrange, and perform all their own music, celebrated pianist Chelsea Wang, and NLM artist-in-residence violinist Rabia Brooke. The program includes the world premiere of NLM-commissioned Smooth Pluck Whirl by Shawn Okpebholo, named 2024 “Chicagoan of the Year in Classical Music” by the Chicago Tribune, and the world premiere of In Triplicate violinist and composer Jasmine Lin’s Sumpin’ About Chicago -composed specifically for this event. The program also features a work by Chicago-based composer Clarice Assad. The concert is Wednesday, June 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Guarneri Hall (11 E Adams St.) Tickets are $40 at novalineamusica.org with a limited number of discounted student tickets available. All tickets include access to a pre-concert discussion from The Society of Disobedient Listeners led by Doyle Armbrust at 5:30 p.m. and a catered post-concert reception with the artists.

The evening begins with acclaimed pianist Chelsea Wang performing Nikolai Kapustin’s jazz-infused Variations, then Wang and Rabia Brooke join forces in Avo Pärt’s Fratres for violin and piano. The program continues with Brooke performing Anthology of Emotions Suite for Solo Violin (2024) by Assad, the piece of music that first inspired NLM founder and Executive Director Michele Mohammadi to establish Nova Linea Musica. Anthology of Emotions explores the wide range and nuance of human experiences with movements like “Frantic” “Lachrimae” and an ebullient final movement “Joie de Vivre” written in the style of a Brazilian maxixe. The first half of the program closes with Brooke’s interpretation of Okpebholo’s work for solo violin Smooth Pluck Whirl (2025). Smooth Pluck Whirl unfolds in three distinct and contrasting sections utilizing the full range of the unaccompanied violin’s expressive abilities. “Smooth” is a lyrical section that emphasizes fluid movement and scalar melodies. “Pluck” introduces a rhythmic playfulness and driving pizzicato which leads into a frenetic climax in “Whirl.”

In Triplicate will perform three pieces each composed or arranged by one of the ensemble members. The first is the world premiere of violinist Jasmine Lin’sSumpin’ About Chicago (2025), which was written specifically for this concert. To write this piece, Lin first thought about the sounds she associates with her hometown Chicago from the music at Chicago’s Latin night clubs to the beat of the city as heard from the elevated rails. Each of these sounds is folded into melodic and rhythmic fabric of the piece. Next, In Triplicate will perform bassist Nate Farrington’s Lovesick Blues Across the Centuries with movements based on Donizetti’s Una furtiva lagrima, and Hank Williams’ Lovesick Blues, and cellist Clancy Newman’s Three Familiar Tunes Not Heard Before.