Sonorous Somatics presents: D-Composed

This live performance offers a sonic meditation on litany, an exhibition where Black women artists engage the urgent intersections of environmental justice, ancestral wisdom, and speculative ecologies.

Through string vibrations, D-Composed will respond in real time to the exhibition’s themes, transmuting visual narratives into dynamic musical expressions. Through resonance and improvisation, the performance seeks to bridge sonic and material landscapes, offering an embodied reflection on resilience, reclamation, and ecological interconnectivity. This event invites listeners to engage in a multisensory dialogue that honors the power of Black women’s creative praxis in shaping new environmental imaginaries.

Doors: 1.30pm

Performance: 2-3pm

D-Composed is a Black chamber music collective that celebrates Black culture and creativity through the music of Black composers.

Led by their mission to uplift and empower society through the music of Black composers, this Chicago-based creative incubator acts as a bridge between the past and present to the future of representation, music-centered experiences, and the communal power of Black composers and their impact.

Music is not just entertainment; this collective music is a storytelling tool that educates and inspires. Unapologetic Blackness is at the core of their experience; protecting, nurturing, and sustaining are on the other side. In the middle lies their impact—the people who make up these experiences, whether as musicians, creatives, or community members.

D–COMPOSED /DEE-KUHM-POHZD/ – ADVERB - Our creative process involves the breaking down of preconceived notions, barriers, and opinions of what people think classical music should be to re-writing our narrative to reflect what the classical world could be.

D-Composed Ensemble Members

• Khelsey Zarraga - Violin
• Anya Brumfield - Violin
• Wilfred Farquharson - Viola
• Malik Johnson - Cello

Flutist and producer exploring sound, spirituality, and self-understanding through electronics and acoustic instruments.

South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC), in partnership with Blanc, presents litany, a group exhibition featuring the work of Candace Hunter, Rhonda Wheatley, Erika Allen, Cydney Lewis, and Sonja Henderson. Curated by SSCAC Public Programs and Engagement Manager jada-amina, litany expands upon a thematic foundation initiated by art historian Bethany Hill, PhD.

litany is an invitation toward Black feminist possibility, liberation in all its forms, and the making of new worlds. A sequence of prayer, a devotion to remembrance, sustainability, and the sacred labor of self and collective care. An answer to a call, present to those who are listening.

Anchored in the understanding that land is both geography and body, structure and memory, the exhibition features sculpture, installation, video, and works on paper that reflect material practices of divination and return. Artists work with stone, wood, fabric, metal, and salvaged objects—gesture as lineage and listening. Sankofa moves through litany as a force of return—kinetic, embodied, and sovereign. It exalts what is often rendered intangible: the will to remember, recover, and revere what capitalism overlooks.

Throughout the exhibition, materials are transformed through reverence and ritual. A sculptural well speaks to the crisis of water access and the weight of women’s histories. A Black Madonna emerges from melted plastic, transfigured into sacred form. Plants root in speculative soil beneath digital water, forming an ecology of care where decay and renewal coexist. An nkisi is wrapped and adorned, carrying the divine alongside the discarded. Other figures—grounded, watchful—appear equipped not only to endure but to rebuild.

Also check out other Music events in Chicago, Entertainment events in Chicago, Exhibitions in Chicago.