In Une ligue d’un: Black Testament

Une ligue d’un: Black Testament

The Catacombs

May 5, 2023, to June 3, 2023

Renée Baker

In Une ligue d’un: Black Testament, composer, music director, and artist Renée Baker showcases a surrealist view of the possibilities of black artistry. 

This exhibition Une ligue d’un, which translates to “a league of one,” includes large paintings on paper, sculptures, and an experimental film that create unexpected and dramatic entries into the audio-visual arena. Having created a system of visualizing and interpreting musical information and scores, a system she calls CCL (Cipher Conduit Linguistics), there is no distinguishable decision between her visual and audio worlds. This technique uses semantic concepts and gestures of composition to influence the perception of an image as not just an image, but as partner to the chosen score sounds.

Baker’s devotion to recontextualizing boundaries within her work also contains a twist of social détournement, as she addresses the often less-than-honest portrayal of people, especially the lives of African Americans in the 1900s. Listening to and seeing new soundscapes gives the audience a different way to view “otherness,” enacting a form of social justice without overt protest and presenting positive narratives of cultural life without changing a frame.

Her unique juxtaposition of styles, rhythms, and moods creates new meanings in the listeners' relationship with sound art. Reinterpreting, reevaluating, and reimagining the merging of images and sound brings another level of analysis and appreciation. Nothing is easily packaged. Subtle ruptures between imagery and sound achieve an edge of experimentation that drives the images towards a narrative not controlled by either the viewer or the creator. Her intent is to convince the viewer’s mind to marry the two elements and encourage a flow that at first glance appears mismatched but that ultimately creates a comfortable dissonance that allows the viewer to take their interpretation to a new “anywhere” without losing sight of the historical sources that interrogate what lies beneath.

RSVP for the opening reception on Friday, May 5th, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the link below:

About Renée Baker

Renée Baker is a visual artist, film artist, composer, and recontextualist. She is the founding music director and conductor of the internationally acclaimed Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP). This polystylistic orchestral organization grew from the plums of classical music and jazz. A member of the world-renowned collective Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Baker has received critical acclaim for her graphic score novels from performances in Berlin, Poland, London, Scotland, and as far-reaching as Vietnam.

Baker developed the Mantra Blue Free Orchestra (Chicago), PEK’ Contemporary Project (Berlin), and Twilight Struggles (Berlin) as well as being involved in over 20 cutting-edge new music ensembles. Baker was Principal Violist for 24 years of the acclaimed Chicago Sinfonietta. Her conducting language, CCL (Cipher Conduit Linguistics), is an advocate language for linguistic autonomy in sonic graphic scoring. She has composed over 2000 traditionally notated contemporary classical works for ensembles and has written scores for over 220 silent films, as well as crafted 100+ of her own experimental films. Her ability to embrace traditional compositions as well as various creative parameters in her work has led to commissions from the Chicago Sinfonietta, Berlin International Brass, PEK’ Contemporary Project, Joffrey Ballet Chamber Series, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, among many others, and she serves as an Artistic Consultant for many classically oriented organizations.

"Soundscape Tapestry" Spirit Lake A Composition By Reggie Nicholson

"Art is Business" #DCASEgrants 

The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) announces the Neighborhood Access Program. This program aims to support the cultural vitality of every Chicago neighborhood via grant programs and partnerships designed to be responsive to the complex needs of individual communities. This program offers direct grants for community-based arts and culture activities.

AIR 2022 Reggie Nicholson @ Phantom Gallery Chicago

We’re excited to announce Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape "Sound Scape Tapestry," The funds will create a dynamic platform for large-scale installations, moving image works, and sound performances. 

What is a Soundscape? Close your eyes and listen to the space you are in.

What is the meaning of soundscape in music?

Definitions for soundscape sound·scape. A soundscape composition - an electroacoustic musical composition creating a sound portrait of a sound environment. A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology.

"Spirit Lake" Research capturing the soundscape of Lake Michigan's 51th Street walking path.

Sound, when understood as an environment, is a soundscape: a powerful tool that helps humans relate to their surroundings. They can be consciously designed by an individual or group of individuals' circumstances or the by-product of historical, political, and cultural events.

"Spirit Lake" June 2022, a work in progress

Acrylic on Black Foam Broad, Wetting Agent, 36" X 40"

"Spirit Lake" November 2022, a work in progress

Acrylic on Black Foam Broad, Wetting Agent, 36" X 40"

 This project is funded in part by #DCASEgrants.

Alpha Bruton

Describing the artistic vision of her work: 

At this plateau in her life, she started reflecting on how her work affects lives. In 2005 she started her series on vibration sounds that teach the body at all levels how to have a new experience. Bringing us into focus with the opportunities to choose new ways to live out our lives in each unique moment, they mirror to us things that we have forgotten about ourselves, reminding us just how powerful we are in changing our reality. 

Vibration Sound Narratives was a four-year exploration of various jazz musicians, improvisational jazz, creative music, electric music, and alternative sound. I created abstract sketches responding to their sound streams and what I felt or saw during these performances. Vibration Sound Narratives are a comprehensive system of patterns or vibrations that teach our bodies at all levels how to have a new experience. They activate a practice similar to Vibra Keys associated with sound, shape, and image in the context of emotional response and unlock visual-spatial intelligence in the artists among us who think in pictures.

What inspires her most is the feeling that she has a social responsibility as an artist to record history and to thrust awareness about life, the earth, and life in the passing to the viewer to cast another perspective upon to view the world.

These explorations affect her personally because she is focused on examining what transpires from the artist to the canvas. She uses the canvas to stage experiences and to create an observational view for others as spectators at the event. She uses the same approach she uses in the professional world with 

colleagues in conceptualizing an installation or group exhibition or planning for a mural project she employs in the classroom while working with teachers and their students. This dialog helps her to reflect the same continuity in her professional works.

Reggie Nicholson

The instantly recognizable style and sound of Reggie Nicholson have elevated him to one of the most distinctive, inventive, and inspirational drummers/percussionists of his generation; he is a formidable technician but one who uses his considerable skills constructively and with infinite taste.

Born in Chicago, his drum concept fitted perfectly the needs of many extraordinary Chicago musicians. Nicholson first gained a reputation as a drummer and percussionist in his hometown of Chicago. A Southside native, he graduated from Cornell Elementary, where he played drums for the “Area A Band” of exceptional music students, and Hirsch High School as a concert band percussionist. He then used a 4-year music scholarship to Chicago State University’s percussion program.  During his early days before moving to NYC, Nicholson worked around Chicago with many great musicians and performed regularly at the famous Southside organ club, The Other Place. An active Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) member since 1979, Nicholson has absorbed the organization's musical influences to compose and improvise original music.

RESEARCH REFERENCES:

Folklife

Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is home to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, a public resource named for the founding director of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

The Sound of Life: What Is a Soundscape?

May 4, 2017 | Marinna Guzy | Comments

This is the first article in a two-part series.

Marinna Guzy is a sound artist, writer, and photographer focused on the intersection of art and social justice, especially in relation to culture and the environment. She currently serves as the supervising sound editor and sound designer at Raconteur Sound.

WE DEM DAT BLAK: White Surveillance of Black arts and Life.

"Art is Business,"  

Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape presents Renee Baker; all films start from 6pm to 10pm.

James Baldwin knew and spoke about the malicious treatment, scalping, and appropriation of all things black. WE DEM DAT BLAK is a phonetic device to make "others" look at how much they emulate and steal from black cultural, all while putting black cultural at an even lower caste than whites in poverty. The prose speaks for itself. RB 2022.

WE DEM DAT BLAK

It's a funny way of being

We diddle daddle and poke fun at each other

Because WE BE THAT WAY WITH OURS

BUT WHeN We see you saintering by, side-eyeing us,  

wondering what the private joke is

Wondering what we have to laugh at

We straighten up and switch the code

OHHHH, HOW DO YOOOOU DO?

We have developed the art of putting you off the scent, black scent.

You think we're dawdlin'.

We just drifted to another planet.

And all you can do is gander.

As we sashay down OUR Blvd

Strolling like cocks of the walk

WE KNOW YOU MAd

But

We dem dat blak and we don't have to share that with anyone else.

We've perfected the drift

Drifting in

Drifting out

Drifting left

Drifting right

In and out of your universe

But you don't have a key to ours.

Oh, you take swipes at it.

Wearing dashikis

Twerking, jerking, smirking

Even wearing braids

But that's not it

And you can practice on Tiktok

Til you're purple... It's our wealth

Owned by A people like no other

Tested, pressed down

But the Art of being Black

The real art of being black

Can't be taught

It can't be bought

It can't be swiped

It can't be bottled

It just is..what it is..a great pride

And we are the proof of the beauty

Deep within the many-hued beauty of our people

We know our value

We know our glow

Inside and out

Renee C Baker

Curatorial Projects produced by Renee baker include:

Suburbs Daily Southtown Southtown Community

From the community:

Dear James Baldwin relatives Dan Baldwin and Carole Weinstein.

Posted by stanwest1, Community Contributor

Author James Baldwin was the subject of Renee Baker's brilliant neopera "The Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble" at CSO this weekend.

Author James Baldwin was the subject of Renee Baker's brilliant neopera "The Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble" at CSO this weekend. (Posted by stanwest1, Community Contributor)

Community Contributor stanwest

You asked me to send you copies of the program from Renee Baker's "The Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble" that opened last night at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

It was powerfully poignant, illustrating his poems and prose utilizing her video, music, and lyrics. I'm sending you the programs, as promised. But I just felt I needed to send you so much more.

We all miss him very much, especially family members like you and his longtime friends who affectionately called him "Jimmy." Unfortunately, I only met him in '86, a year before he died. To me, he was "Mr. Baldwin." My writing teacher, Ishmael Reed, giving him a well-deserved award for being North America's best essayist, invited me to "Come to meet Jimmy." Pardon my French, but this is how it went down.

Je lui ai dit que comme un adolescent , je l'ai lu deux de ses livres de la bibliothèque de mes parents. Pendant ce temps, les Black Panthers , qui étaient un jeune groupe militant que je savais , renvoyé à lui comme " un révolutionnaire de café " qui n'a pas été assez en colère . Il m'a regardé dans les yeux et m'a dit: " Montrez-moi un nigga dont pas en colère et Je vais vous montrer un imbécile . " Je me suis assis en pensant que peut-être je venais d'être appelé un imbécile par Baldwin .

As a teen, I read a couple of his books from my parent's bookcase. During that time, Black Panthers, a young militant group I knew, referred to him as a "café revolutionary who was not angry enough." He looked me in the eye and told me, "Show me a nigga who's not angry, and I'll show you a fool." I sat thinking that maybe I had just been called a fool by Baldwin.

I believe you both heard me share this story in French and English at the 2016 James Baldwin Conference at the University of Paris, Dan Baldwin and Carole Weinstein. I recalled Carole smiling when I mused, "Since I had been called a fool by lesser individuals, I took Mr. Baldwin's words as a compliment." Unfortunately, as we all know, he died the following year, angry, I suspect.

Renee Baker's brilliant "neoopera" (which is how she describes her oft-abstract musical mosaic) showcased how some Whites felt he was "too angry" and some Blacks thought he was "not angry enough" - themes that emerged in his own writing that powered the Academy Award-nominated 2016 Raoul Peck-directed documentary, "I Am Not Your Negro."

Maestra Baker invited me to open the night by reading Baldwin's poem, "The Giver," that begins, "If the hope of giving/is to love the living/the giving gives madness/in the act of giving"… and ends quite angrily, "And he turns in his guilty bed to stare/at the starving multitudes standing there/and rises from bed to curse the heavens/he must understand that to whom much is given/much will be taken, and rightly so/I cannot tell how much I owe." So I did my very best.

The standing-room-only opera with Chicago's cultural elite packed rather closely in Symphony Center's Buntrock Hall featured baritone singer Robert Sims who bellowed, "I am Black, and I'm Gay, and that's why you can't stand me" to a crowd stunned by the ferocity of the truthful lyrics. I sat next to music educator Barbara Wright Pryor. Pryor smiled as this extraordinary operatic movement addressed the values and aspirations of ordinary people in AAN's 3rd Annual Black History Month Celebration co-sponsored by Phumzile Pride Mazibuko, Chicago's South African Consulate General.

As the brilliant Maestra waved her arms and rocked her shoulders to the liberation anthems of singers Cornelius Johnson, Dee Alexander, Sheila Anne Dawson Jones (founder-director of CSO's African American Network that sponsored the night's event) & Taalib Din Ziyad (whose singer-son, Saalik Ahmad Ziyad, died a few days prior and was unable to perform). Baker put her head done as Ziyad sang in deference to his son's recent demise, she later said.

Freedom songs were the night's bread and butter. Speaking of freedom, in the post-concert Q&A where this reporter was recruited to moderate, a prominent South African intellectual raised a provocative question that perhaps the opera did not adequately answer whether or not Baldwin's prophetic call for freedom would be answered. I responded in Zulu, saying, "Freedom is what freedom does." I added, "Dan Baldwin and Carole Weinstein, who could not leave New York City to be present at tonight's historical event, send Renee Baker praise for trying to keep Jimmy's freedom dreams alive."

Dear Dan Baldwin and Carole Weinstein, I believe your famous relative smiled at the night's magnificent effort. It accessed Baldwin's tears and fears in music and rhyme. Humanist attacks against gentrification were heard in lyrics and language though Baker argued, "My work is apolitical." Working-class woes amid a White supremacy backdrop were poetically tender. Moral capitalism meets compassionate humanism that cynics simplistically label socialism were among the tense quandaries underneath the sublime sounds.

Consider this: lines expertly sung by soloists languishing a "wall" instead of a bridge to understanding inspired the audience to hold hands with performers who belted out several verses of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and "We Shall Overcome." What a finale!

Dear Dan Baldwin and Carole Weinstein. As you know, I just sent a U.K. literary agent and a U.K. publisher the rough draft of my "James Baldwin's Black Lives Blues" that I promised to soon share with you. If you think I got the public story right about his views on police brutality, now called euphemistically police misconduct, and the personal story about how several generations of Black straights and gays in my family, including my Black-Mexican-Italian-transgender cousin, Rabbi Ramona Hernandez, maybe you'll add a cover comment. Distant relative Dr. Tara Betts, a blues poet, has offered her terse verse, too. We think the intersectionality of our local, national, and international narrative fares better with U.K. packaging than here in AmeriKKKa, at least right now in this violent Trumpocalypse era of White fragility.

In sum, as I reflect on last night's musical tribute, I believe that your famous relative would beam witnessing the blues, gospel, jazz, classical, zydeco gumbo tour de force called "The Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble," to which I think if he were alive, he'd take a knee. Maestra Renee Baker said there are two other musical movements yet to come. She hinted she'll invite all of us to the party.-Stan West

This item was posted by a community contributor. To read more about community contributors, click here.

--

Renee' Clark Baker

Chicago Modern Orchestra Project

Mantra Blue Free Orchestra

RCB Arts Management

reneebaker@comcast.net

reneebakercomposer.com

Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontial Landscape 2022

"Art is Business" https://www.bronzevilleartdistrict.com/palm-sunday-s

Frank y Louise, An American Novella

Art is Business, Apr 24, 2019, Frank Y Louise, An American Novella

 NICHOLAS CONLON

ILLINOIS

As a Multi-media artist, my ultimate purpose, my ultimate goal, is to entertain. So anything after that is just a plus!

Artist. Fashion Designer. Writer. Actor. Filmmaker. Currently working on abstracts with different tools and media, which include commission works for local Doctor offices, law firms, and private collections. Credits in art also include multiple worldwide private collections. They have shown work at galleries and Satellite Showings in Art Basel, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Colorado, and Chicago. Regional Finalist with the sculpture; "Travel Like The King" for Bombay Sapphire's Artisan Series contest. Award-winning writer, director, and actor. 

Previously worked as an Actor, Director, and Co-writer on several short and feature films. Started pre-production on a new feature film based on past works in theater, short films and features, training industrials, Stand up comedy, Live music, and political graffiti. Studied and trained in theater as an actor receiving B.A. from Southern Illinois University with credits in Chicago, Los Angeles, and St. Maarten. Self-published author of 3 poetry books AKA "The last American poet."

Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape Experimental Film Series

"Art is Business"

Sweet Fruit Falling A SPATIAL ORATORIO FROM THE OPERA BALDWIN CHRONICLES: LONE ALCHEMY

Thanks to the artist in resident Renee Baker for having the vision to bring the project to Bronzeville and record in the Loft Gallery of the Phantom Gallery Chicago Network.  The artwork installed is the sculpture installations of  Renee Baker, "Because we are Nature," featuring her junk drawer series. Visual art is the collection of the gallery.

A CITY OF WORKS EPISODE

SWEET FRUIT FALLING, A SPATIAL ORATORIO FROM THE OPERA BALDWIN CHRONICLES: LONE ALCHEMY

This moment in the life of James Baldwin represents temporality, impermanence, the futility of dreams, and reckoning with the finality of inequality of life in the USA for Black Americans. Baldwin realizes that never will people of color achieve equity or equality in his lifetime..the boxes for blacks and whites have been set..with civil rights almost non-existent.

CAST

RENEE BAKER

Composer

 

DEE ALEXANDER

Performer

 

COCO ELTSSES

Percussion

 

LUV MOSLEY

Saxophone

Artistic Team

Concept/Director

George Cederquist

Concept/Commissioning/Music Direction

Catherine O'Shaughnessy

Concept/Editor

Brad Caleb Le

Chicago Fringe Opera is dedicated to presenting innovative vocal works emphasizing new and contemporary styles, engaging with the Chicago community through intimate and immersive performance experiences, and fostering and empowering local artists. Chicago Fringe Opera is at the forefront of producing dynamic contemporary vocal works in the city of Chicago.

A City of Works – an oblique reference to former Mayor Richard J. Daley's moniker for Chicago – combines the power of music and design in a series of site-specific digital experiences. Evoking the ethereal nature of theatre itself, audiences embark on individual journeys to landmarks throughout our city, unlocking audio and video content and joining a collective experience to watch performances through individual personal devices.

Arriving at specific locations, audiences scan a QR code on their smartphone to access a music video of a given newly commissioned work, the piece having been filmed at that locale, creating a fleeting yet shared theatrical experience. Thus, the project eliminates the need to gather groups of people while leaving content both free of charge and accessible at any time to audiences.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Supported by The MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation & The CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

Bronzeville Art District August 20th Art Walk Hybrid Experience

"Art is Business"

Bronzeville Art District Art Tour,

"Art is Business"

Hello and Welcome:

We look forward to you joining us for the July Art Tour this evening. Please read carefully to ensure you have all the information regarding the tour, virtual or in person. 

Due to COVID 19, there will not be a trolley this year.  Check opening times below:

To visit the virtual Bronzeville Art District Art Tour, use the links provided here. Opens on Zoom at 7:00 CST pm and in-person at participating venues. Check the times below.
 
Gallery Guichard: Virtual and In-person

https://bit.ly/galleryguichardarttourJuly

Webinar ID: 821 1588 2807

International numbers available: International numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcL0XfIErZ

Fair Afrikan Art: Virtual and In-person https:us02web.zoom.us/j/87320093471?

Meeting ID 873 2009 3471

Passcode 698508

Blanc Gallery: Virtual and In-person https://bit.ly/BLANC_JULY
South Side Community Art Center: Virtual Only

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89008105934?pwd=TTBRdWRNZUh5RU9tQU1FUUx0QmpzUT09

Meeting ID: 998 0571 5631 Passcode: 098588

Bronzeville Artist Lofts - Virtual 
Phantom Gallery: https://bit.ly/PhantomGalleryChicago

Raymond Thomas Studio: https://bit.ly/ThomasStudios_Tour
Allen Emerson Hicks:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87803862154?pwd=QUltVUdvYmpKaHBnL3FpditwbmlwUT09

Meeting ID: 878 0386 2154

Passcode: 065227

You can also copy and place it in your browser to search for the event.

 In-Person Experience: You can experience the tour in person at the following galleries:

• Blanc Gallery - in person and virtual 6 pm to 8 pm
• Gallery Guichard - in person and virtual 7 pm to 10 pm
• Faie Afrikan Art Gallery - in person and virtual 6 pm to 8 pm
• Bronzeville Artist Lofts - Virtual & in the Great Migration Sculpture Garden providing a video screening (Studios are not open)

Virtual Only:

South Side Community Art Center - Virtual only

Josephine "La" Baker : Vision of Beauty

In a world where African American female imagery, in cinema and life,  is often not celebrated, the victorious and love-filled life of Josephine Baker reminds us that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

Join us on the third Friday of the month this summer, July - September 17th, 2021, for a free screening during the Bronzeville Art District Art Tour,  SSFF Satellite Experimental Film Festival, presented by Wabi House Media, an art film by Renee Baker.

The art partners create an interdisciplinary/ multi-disciplinary Hybrid experience featuring a virtual online tour and in-person experiences at each gallery. In addition, an alley activation at 436 E. 47th Street will connect guests to the Great Migration Garden, becoming a social distance zone to gather.  Our neighbors can bring lawn chairs at dusk and enjoy a popup drive in an experimental film festival with projections on a three-foot wall facing the 47th street intersection. 

Tactical Urbanism- Satellite Experimental Film Festival- Art Films of Renee Baker AIR

"Art is Business"

Webster states that experimental art film marries contemporary artistry, innovation, designing and engineering of imaginative procedures, exchanges while concentrating on aesthetic articulation, innovation, social communication, and sometimes, just pure fun.

Filmmaker and composer Renee Baker see the outgrowth of experimental media as part of her overall art practice trajectory. This arena traverses music, film, and visual art as fluidly as water in streams. Combining the honoring of boundaries to bring every listener to an experience must change and challenge everything you thought you knew about filmmaking and the scores accompanying them. 

These films and scores are not just placed markers...they embody the whole of a tiny world of expression born from the experiential pool of man.
Kind of like seeing inside your own mind.

Renee' Baker

Virtual Open Studio Featuring Renee Baker / Artist

BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE- RENEE BAKER

Renée Baker has created sonic arenas and compositions for many museums, including MCA CHICAGO, MOFA St. Petersburg, Fl., Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MOMA, NY, ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO, DESTEJILK MUSEUM, Zwolle, NL, MOMA NY, Spurlock Museum Champaign, Il, Krannert Art Museum, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Stony Island Arts Bank, DuSable Museum Chicago, Gardener Museum Boston, alongside prestigious music organizations: Symphony Center, Chicago. 

She had the privilege of being the

Visiting Resident Artist of the CHICAGO SYMPHONY 

African American Network 2017-2020.

Her film scores for BODY AND SOUL, THE SCAR OF SHAME, along with two new opera projects, BALDWIN CHRONICLES MIDNIGHT RAMBLE and A SOVEREIGN POUT, both premiered at Symphony Center in 2019 and upcoming in 2020. In addition, films with her scores have aired on NETFLIX and TCM.

Renee' Baker is the founding music director and conductor of the internationally acclaimed Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP), a polystylistic organization that grew from the plums of classical music as well as jazz. 

A member of the world-renowned collective Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Critical acclaim for her graphic scores novels has come from performances in Berlin, Poland, London, Scotland, and as far-reaching as Vietnam.

From the Archives: Symphony Center (Chicago)

As a disruptive composer and visual artist, there are few barriers to the creative turns of this composer, conductor, artist, and instrumentalist. As a featured ensemble, CMOP has been chosen to work with NewMusicUSA and the EarShot program of the American Composers Orchestra.

 

An expert at ensemble development and training, Renee’ developed the Mantra Blue Free Orchestra (Chicago), PEK’ Contemporary Project (Berlin), the progenitor of Bleueblue Walkers/Bass Kollektief, Twilight Struggles (Berlin) as well as being involved in starting over 20 cutting edge new music ensembles. Among them: TUNTUI, Wrinkled Linen, Chocolate Chitlin’ Caucus, Red Chai Watch, FAQtet, Project 6, Renee’ Baker’s AWAKENING, Baker ArTet, a Butoh ensemble BODY STRATA, and Strings Attached.

Ms. Baker has performed globally from Bimhuis (Amsterdam) to Symphony Center (Chicago) and was a founding member and Principal Violist of Chicago Sinfonietta for 26 years. Ms. Baker has composed over two thousand works for ensembles ranging from solo instruments, ballet, opera to significant orchestral works that bridge the classical, jazz, and creative music genres. Her ability to embrace various creative parameters in her work has led to commissions for the Chicago Sinfonietta, Berlin International Brass, PEK’s Contemporary Project, and DanceWright Project.

From the Archives:

As a disruptive force in composition, Ms. Baker’s eclectic visual score compositions led her to create a gestured conducting language she calls CCL/FLOW (Cipher Conduit Linguistics), which she employs when working with numerous cutting edge groups in Cologne, Berlin, Netherlands, London, Chicago, Portland (OR), and other ensembles around the world. 

From the Archives:

A further aspect of her composition skills is the development of her painted score exploratorium pieces for ensembles of variable sizes. Ms. Baker is also in demand as a lecturer and expert in nontraditional composition techniques and large ensemble “comprovisation”/ improvisation development.

Aspects of the art world permeate Ms. Baker’s work. Her performance artwork SUNYATA: TOWARDS ABSOLUTE EMPTINESS premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA, Chicago) in May 2015. Her tactile score sculpture works were featured at the MCA Chicago as part of the Sunyata premiere.

Ms. Baker is the composer of four operas. Currently, she is working as a film score composer, having composed and released a new score for Oscar Micheaux’s “race film” masterpiece BODY AND SOUL (1925) with the music performed by her Chicago Modern Orchestra Project ensemble.

From the Archives:

Called the latest AACM visionary by Downbeat Magazine, Ms. Baker is one of the brightest and most fertile minds active in composition today.

From the Archives:

2020 Film Society Series Canceled due to COVID -19 Pandemic

Renee’ C. Baker, Conductor/Composer

Chicago Modern Orchestra Project /PEK’ Contemporary Project

reneebaker@comcast.net

reneebakercomposer.com

reneebakercomposer.net

chicagomodernorchestraproject.org

For more information:

http://www.billdoggettproductions.com/Black-Composers.html

http://www.billdoggettproductions.com/Black-Composers-2.html

http://www.billdoggettproductions.com/CH125.html *

Renee Baker Touring and Presenting Silent Film Screenings in Portland OR

"Art is Business" Touring and Presenting- Renee Baker in Portland Oregon

SILENT FILM SCREENINGS - ORIGINAL MUSICAL SCORE

Renee Baker of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project presented Body and Soul (1925) and on Saturday, and  Borderline (1930). The Stacks Coffeehouse. 

Thursday, October 3rd Silent Film with Original Score  Body and Soul (1925) directed by Oscar Micheaux. Original score by Renee Baker and the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project.

Saturday, October 5th Silent Film with Original Score
We will be screening Borderline (1930) directed by Kenneth MacPherson. Original score by Renee Baker and the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project.

The Stacks Coffeehouse opened in October 2018

Owners Nathan and Mary have lived in the neighborhood since 2003 and wanted to create a space where their neighbors could gather together over cups of delicious coffee, great snacks, and beautiful books.  Mary was inspired by the library stacks at the University of Texas, where her mother used to work, and by the breakfast tacos of her hometown of Austin. Most of the books in The Stacks community library have been donated by friends and neighbors, and we’re always happy to accept more book donations.

We love coffee. We love books. We love our neighborhood. 

The Stacks is a coffee shop, but we’re also a community library.
The books are here for everyone to enjoy, so please take a look around and find something to read. If you’d like to take a book home with you, we’ll ask you to sign up for a library card—which essentially just says that you’re a member of our community library and that when you’re done with the book, you’ll return it.
You can also choose to bring us something else another day, helping to grow and expand our library for everyone to enjoy.

ZOOM Gallery Opening "Creative Conversations" with artists in their studios.

"Art is Business" Bronzevilleartdistrict.com 

Forecasting what the future holds, and how we adapt to new ways of presenting art engagement, and audience development while practicing social distancing.  Alpha Bruton, Founder of the Phantom Gallery Chicago, is moving to mark out a new and exciting program for the future of gallery practice in a virtual space.

 AUGUST FEATURED ARTIST/CURATOR/MUSEUM FOUNDER

SEPTEMBER FEATURED ARTIST/ ART PROFESSOR/ MODERNIST

BRONZEVILLE ART DISTRICT IS THE LARGEST 

AFRICAN AMERICAN ART  DISTRICT IN THE COUNTRY

The Bronzeville Art District has gone virtual. 

RSVP on Eventbrite July 17th at 7 pm CST.

2020 Bronzeville Art District Virtual Gallery Tours

Eventbrite to RSVP-

7pm - 8pm CST

"Examining the State of Our Environment"