Celebrating new voices in composition: 2025 Civic Fellows call for scores

Each season, Civic Orchestra of Chicago Fellows curate two chamber music concerts featuring compositions by living composers. With mentorship from Civic alum Zachary Good, Civic Fellows this spring led a national call for scores, which resulted in more than 225 submissions from composers nationwide.

After a rigorous review process, six pieces were selected to be featured in a program presented May 17 in Buntrock Hall. The chosen composers gathered alongside Civic Fellows to showcase the selected compositions, which may be heard via the clips embedded below.

Rot Town by Isaac Creager

The Rust Belt, formerly known as the Steel Belt, is an area of the United States that was once characterized by manufacturing. As time passed, the gradual decline of industry in the region sparked urban decay and economic distress. Isaac Creager’s composition is about the region’s “rusting out” and the phantoms of past industrial prosperity.

Videogame Vespers by Aaron Israel Levin

The world of classical music is a lot like a video game: when first learning music, a person starts at level one. As music becomes more challenging, the musician levels up; competition and audition victories can be equated to conquering a final boss. In pairing violin virtuosity with video game violence, Aaron Israel Levin’s work examines artistic ambition, the demands of performance, the pain of failure and the fleeting pleasure of achievement.

Alpenglow by Dianna Link

Alpenglow is a string quartet about the little moments that matter the most. It is about the seemingly insignificant things that evoke a warm and fuzzy feeling about something as simple as the joy of watching the sunrise or sunset against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.

Ladders Cross the Blue Sky in a Wheel of Fire by Benjamin T. Martin

The title comes from a painting by the 20th-century Catalan visual artist Joan Miró. Benjamin T. Martin’s work captures the experience of looking at the strikingly beautiful painting for the first time and gradually taking it all in in: first, as an incredibly rich and colorful composite, then honing in on specific shapes.

Belén: Un canto sagrado a mis ancestros by Johanny Navarro

Belén: Un canto sagrado a mis ancestros (Belén: A sacred chant to my ancestors) is a piece by Johanny Navarro that honors and recognizes the beautiful legacy and inheritance of one’s forebears. Skin, philosophy, religion, culture and music are exalted through the work, which explores the variety of sonorities in bomba, an African-based musical genre born in Puerto Rico.

Creation by Taylor Schultz

Thematically, the title of this composition by Taylor Schultz references the idea that the creation of a work of art, or anything, is one continuous process with the creation of the universe. This piece gives a great deal of control to the performers through improvised sections, aleatoric (random) elements and even the length of each section — which is determined by musicians in the moment.