Music for Trumpets and Trees by Dick Higgins (1:30pm on North side of The Cloud Gate sculpture)

What would it sound like if you could hear the visual patterns of the world, not the sounds of the wind or waves or a city street – that’s John Cage’s idea for 4’33” of ‘silence’ -- but the lines, colors and shapes, as if they were the notes? Music for Trumpets and Trees ( 1976) by seminal Fluxus Artist/Composer Dick Higgins, uses graphic notation as a guide for a group improvisation. What does the soft edge of a cloud sound like? Does a blue sky sound blue? How about the jagged edge of a leaf? A solid tree trunk? What about playing trees, or playing in trees? How about trumpets in trees?

Josh Berman, cornet

Stephen Burns, trumpet

Ben Lamar Gay, cornet

Chad McCullough, trumpet

Corey Wilkes, trumpet

Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman by Joan Tower (6pm open the concert on Pritzker Stage, Millennium Park)

Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman #5” (1993), features four trumpets in pairs exploring the trumpet's heroic, melodic and virtuosic character. The 4-minute work opens with a lone, laconic trumpet answered by others. The work gains momentum and new rhythmic impetus, only to return temporarily to its former, quieter nature. In the last quarter of the work, the “Fanfare” truly lives up to its name, releasing radiant, joyous, poly-tonal salvos of joy.

Burns, trumpet

William Denton, trumpet

Diana Lopez, trumpet

Rebecca Oliverio, trumpet


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