Announcing Caught!

After weeks and weeks of planning, I am ecstatic to announce Fifth House Ensemble's 2012-2013 Signature Series, Caught.

Members of Team Fifth House have been working around the clock for the last few weeks to take Caught from the idea stage to the "let's make this happen" stage, and now we are able to share our next installment of narrative chamber music with you!

Caught continues to build on everything we have tried and learned in the last few years of 5HE series making.  From Black Violet to The Weaver's Tales to In Transit, we have played with many different artistic styles and collaborations to bring chamber music to both our die hard fans and to the communities in which we live.

What makes this season special is that we are engaging communities throughout Chicago in our musical storytelling process by using tales gathered in parks and schools citywide as the basis for our shows. In addition to performing parts one and three of Caught (The Woods and The Web) at the Chicago Cultural Center's Preston Bradley Hall, we will present each concert at THREE different Chicago Park District venues (Washington Park, Austin Town Hall, and Humboldt Park) free of charge.  Leading up to each performance, we will hold Story Circle Workshops at each of the three CPD venues to gather tales for the show.

For the first time this season, we are also blurring the line between our performances on the concert stage and our work in the public schools by presenting performances and residencies in classrooms near each park district site.  A few weeks ago, 5HE members Matt and Eric helped us kick off  our first 9-week Music and Storytelling residency at Lowell Elementary School in Humboldt Park.  Not only will we be working with these awesome fifth graders to teach them about the wonderful narrative powers of music, but stories they create with us in the classroom will also be incorporated into Caught: The Woods. And, when it comes time to perform, the fifth graders from Lowell, their families, and everyone we worked with in the Story Circle Workshops will be able to attend the performance in their neighborhood and see how we incorporate their stories into our work!

Wow, that was a lot of information to share about Caught all in one blog post.  But never fear, as soon as you're done processing this massive amount of info, you can head over to the Caught page on the 5HE website to find a ton more!  Over there you'll find the trailer, bios and headshots from our collaborators, information about parts one, two (performed at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and featuring two world premieres), and three, and, most importantly, the schedule of performances.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Caught Trailer from Fifth House Ensemble on Vimeo.