Chartreuse & Fonema Consort: Pablo Chin Portrait

Pablo Chin’s recent music often draws inspiration from the narratives of film and literature, phonetic structures in text, and the use of idiosyncratic transcription methods that enable imaginative exploration of pre-existent musical sources. His music has been performed in South, Central and North America, in Israel, Asia and in Europe. He has been commissioned to compose works for Ensemble Recherche, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), members of the Anubis Quartet, the MAVerick Ensemble, the Latino Music Festival of Chicago and Ensemble Dal Niente, among others. His music has also been performed by artists including Fonema Consort, Nina Dante and Dalia Chin, Ostravská Banda, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Donatienne Michel-Dansaq, Pierre-Stéphane Meugé, Marino Formenti, Claire Chase, Eric Lamb, Gan Lev and Marcuss Weiss. Chin earned a DMA in composition and technology from Northwestern University under the guidance of Hans Thomalla, Jay Alan Yim, and Aaron Cassidy. His dissertation focused on the work of Mexican composer Julio Estrada, his graphication method, and parallels found with the dream mechanisms in Freud’s Dream Theory. Previous instructors include Alejandro Cardona in his native Costa Rica, and Orlando García in Miami. Currently Chin is instructor of Theory at Montclair State University, NJ, and co-founder and artistic director of the Fonema Consort. In 2017 he released his first portrait album under the New Focus Recordings Label titled “Three Burials.” Ongoing projects include a piece for harpsichord and MIDI keyboards for Daniel Walden exploring the merging of early music and new technology, a piece for electric guitar and electronics for Jesse Langen based on recordings of Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman, and an ensemble piece for Ensemble Aventure of Freiburg inspired by Mesias Maigushca’s outlook on popular opposition to oil drilling in his piece …por el Yasuní…

Fonema Consort commissions, performs, and records new music that explores the possibilities of the human voice in an avant garde chamber setting. Known for their “enthusiastic embrace of daring new music” (Chicago Reader) Fonema is driven by a fascination with pieces that foster rich interplay of voices and instruments and that are characterized by deep expressivity. The ensemble is highly committed to presenting works by Latin American composers to US audiences and encouraging musical exchange between these regions. Fonema Consort was founded in 2011 by singer Nina Dante and composers Pablo Santiago Chin and Edward Hamel. Since its founding, the ensemble has premiered over 50 works, and traveled widely across the US and increasingly in Latin America. 
National performance highlights include appearances with the Mexican Consulate’s Mexican Cultural Institute (Washington DC), National Sawdust (New York City), the City of Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Latino Music Festival (Chicago), WFMT’s Thirsty Ear Festival (Chicago), the Frequency Festival (Chicago), Preston Bradley Hall (Chicago), the 113 Composer’s Collective (Minneapolis), the Instituto Cervantes (Chicago), and Bond Chapel (Chicago). Fonema Consort has held residencies and given performances at Oberlin Conservatory, Harvard University, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, New England Conservatory, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, North Central College, Drew University and Saint Xavier University. International performances include an Ecuadorian tour featuring the work of Mesias Maiguashca (Teatro Sucre, Quito; Centro Abraham Lincoln, Cuenca); appearances on Mexican festivals Visiones Sonoras, the Festival Internacional de Chihuahua, Festival Interfaz, and the Foro de Música Nueva as well as at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneous, the Claustro de Sor Juana and UNAM (Mexico City); appearances at the Universidad de Costa Rica (San José) and the Centro Cultural de España (San José); and a FACE grant-funded performance with chamber choir Voix de Stras’ at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. 
Fonema Consort is dedicated to the commissioning of new works for voice(s) with instruments, and has premiered over 50 new works since 2012. Recent commissions and world premieres include works by Julio Estrada, Peter Ablinger (2020 premiere), Mesias Maiguashca, Mathew Arrellin, Pablo Chin, Valeria Jonard, Morgan Krauss, Chris Mercer, Fernanda Aoki Navarro, Lewis Nielson, Clara Olivares, Joan Arnau Pámies, Tiffany Skidmore, Zesses Seglias, Iván Sparrow, Francisco Castillo Trigueros, Anna-Louise Walton, Katherine Young, and Bethany Younge. ALBUMS Described by the Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak as “dazzling“, Fonema Consort’s debut album Pasos en otra calle (New Focus Recordings, 2014) features the music of Costa Rican composers Pablo Chin and Mauricio Pauly. Fonema’s 2017 album FIFTH TABLEAU (Parlour Tapes+) was supported by an Aaron Copland Fund for Music grant and featured new works by five rising American composers. The ensemble looks forward to the release of their third album, Vistas furtivas: the music of Juan Campoverde (New Focus Recordings), in February 2020. They have been broadcasted by WFMT and CAN-TV. 

Chartreuse string trio is violinist Myra Hinrichs, violist Carrie Frey, and cellist Helen Newby. Uniquely committed to repeat performances and developing the string trio repertoire through adventurous commissions, Chartreuse has premiered works by dozens of composers and toured extensively in the U.S. Northeast, Midwest, and California, as well as in Norway. Cleveland Classical described the trio in concert as “a maelstrom almost tactile in its grittiness” and “as much fun to watch as to listen to.” 
Of equal importance to the trio is educational outreach, where the ensemble works with emerging composers, performers, and communities of listeners to cultivate both love and knowledge of new music. Chartreuse has conducted workshops and masterclasses for composers, seminars on entrepreneurship, demonstrations of active listening techniques, classes on improvisation and notation, and more, at institutions including Brown University, Hillsdale College, SUNY Fredonia, Georgia Southern University, Oberlin Conservatory, Tromsø University, the Norges Musikkhøgskole, middle schools in Philadelphia and Cleveland, the Minnesota Junior Composers’ Workshop, and retirement home Kendal at Oberlin. They recently offered virtual class visits at Depauw University and Valparaiso University for composition and theory students. 
Chartreuse is part of the inaugural cohort of the Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant, made possible with generous support from the New York Community Trust.