The Grossman Ensemble, in residence at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition, has premiered more than 70 compositions since its inception in 2018. The group has become known for its “precision” (Third Coast Review) during world premiere performances of new music by an impressive roster of leading and emerging composers like Chen Yi, Tania León, George Lewis, Sean Shepherd, Melinda Wagner, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and many more.
The group comprises 13 musicians, passionate about performing music with a sensitive understanding, meticulous preparation, and abundant rehearsal time. World premiere works performed by the Grossman Ensemble are developed over nine weeks, during a series of unique workshopping rehearsals, allowing time for the music to grow in the mind of the composer and to fully inhabit the minds of the musicians. This process encourages collaboration between composers, musicians, and conductors.
Grossman Ensemble concerts offer opportunities for the audience and artists to connect. All composers introduce their world premiere works from the stage, with musicians also offering insight into the music. Composers, conductors, and members of the ensemble share about their unique creative process in the concert program welcome letter, along with pre-concert interviews on the CCCC website and social media.
As part of the CCCC’s mission to record and widely share world premiere music, the entire collection of works performed by the Grossman Ensemble is available to watch on the CCCC’s YouTube Channel. The ensemble also released an album in 2020 titled Fountain of Time—a record that “rewards repeat listenings” (Chicago Reader), and the group was more recently featured on Augusta Read Thomas’s album Terpsichore’s Box of Dreams (Nimbus Records), one of three finalists for the BBC Music Orchestral Award.
The Grossman Ensemble is made possible by support from the Sanford J. Grossman Charitable Trust, Gay K. Stanek, John Balfe and Nancy Herring, and other generous donors.