'Suite DuSable: A Vision of Faith' Sunday, March 3, 2013 from 7-9 PM at DuSable Museum

Renee' Baker:
As a conductor and composer, Renee' Baker has developed into a force to be reckoned with. From her conducting debut at Symphony Center to Café Oto (London), she is fearlessly taking the music world by storm, with the double threat as composer and conductor. Her primary musical vehicle, Chicago Modern Orchestra Project is a tsunami like, genre-sweeping powerhouse that presents every genre thinkable, marrying the elements of classical to jazz with such force and precision that leaves their audiences feeling euphoric, entertained, and educated.

In “Suite DuSable: A Vision of Faith,” a symphonic poem presented in collaboration with Chicago Modern Orchestra Project and AACM, Ms. Baker gives tribute to Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, the founder of Chicago. This piece is a celebration of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable’s visionary journey, tracing in sound the water routes traveled and choice encounters by Chicago’s first settler from his home in Haiti in the Atlantic Ocean through various waterways leading to the Great Lakes.

“Suite DuSable: A Vision of Faith” is a hypnotic symphony, using conceptual composition and improvisation, combining the lyrical influences of Haiti to New Orleans to Illinois through the avant garde use of unworldly sonorities, glissandos, micro-tonalities and other unusual colors that develop as CMOP and the AACM pull you into the power of history. This symphonic poem displays a subtler appreciation for timbre and effect from an orchestra, developing the distinctive Afro-American forms of blues, spirituals, jazz with jazz-centric rhythmic control, bolstered by the brilliance and forthrightness of the adventurous AACM luminaries. Experience the flexible accumulation of sound-art and music making from the collaboration of these two cutting edge ensembles.