The Illinois College Fine Arts Series welcomes a special modern classical quartet to the Fine Arts Series this weekend.
~Nois, a well-traveled saxophone quartet based in Chicago, Illinois will perform starting at 3PM on Sunday at Rammelkamp Chapel.
Tim Kramer, musical professor emeritus at I.C. Has a special connection to the group, as both are members of the Composers Alliance of San Antonio, Texas (CASA).
Kramer says the group will bring a program they previously performed in San Antonio to the Jacksonville audience: “The way this worked was that CASA contacted ~Nois a couple of years ago, and we wanted to do something with them. [CASA members] all wrote pieces for them, and then, they came down to San Antonio and played this amazing concert for this international music festival. That’s when we said, ‘Let’s do this again up in Illinois.’ They are based in Chicago so it would be an easy trip for them. We asked them to come down and play the concert. So, what they’ve done is they’ve put on many of the pieces from that [first] program and then, they added some other works that they like to do. All of the pieces on the program were written in 2022, with two written in 2023, and then, one ‘old standard repertoire piece’ from 1986.”
Kramer’s own piece “Grand Jeu” kicks off the second half of the program. Kramer says that the pieces all have multiple influences beyond just classical music and that with the 4 saxophones, it will expand the common conception on what the instrument can do.
Adult tickets are $20 at the door. Students and children get in for free. The concert is being made possible by the Alma Churchill Smith Chamber Music Fund. For more information visit, ic.edu/fas.