Sounding/BODY: BODY MATTER

Join us at the IMSS for an evening of music by Ti McCormack, performed by Ben Roidl-Ward (bassoon) and Ty Bouque (baritone).

sounding/BODY Presents: BODY MATTER

May 14, 2026

7:00-9:00pm

Doors at 6:30pm

Tickets:

$10 Student - use code STUDENT at checkout

(Valid Student ID will be requested at the door)

$10 IMSS Members Presale - use code IMSSMEMBER at checkout

(Valid IMSS Membership card will be requested at door)

$15 GA Presale

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$15 Student & IMSS Members (With valid ID & Membership Card) at Door

$20 GA at Door

BODY MATTER is a portrait concert of solo works by Ti McCormack, performed by Ben Roidl-Ward (bassoon) and Ty Bouque (baritone). The program, which constitutes 50 minutes of music, features Ti's 2015 solo bassoon work BODY MATTER followed by their 2024 solo vocal work Seated at the Throat. These works, both of which significantly reimagine the characters and limitations of what their featured instruments can do, are the product of a decade of Ti's work that engages with how bodies can produce, mould, and interact with sound.

This project is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

The International Museum of Surgical Science acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Timothy McCormack (1984) writes haptic, viscous music which makes audible the tactile, physical relationship between a performer and their instrument. Sometimes ecstatic, sometimes hermetic, their music threads an intimacy between tone and noise to create strangely affecting sonic ecologies which alter one’s perception of time. They also engage with contemporary queer aesthetics: hæmal ancestries, incurable disease and its histories, mourning, listening, and the erotics of form.
McCormack is the recipient of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers’ Prize (2018), and also won the Impuls International Composition Competition (2019). Their work can be heard on the record labels Kairos, Another Timbre, and Huddersfield Contemporary Records.

Ty Bouque sings new music in various solo, ensemble, and opera configurations around the world. Elsewhere he writes about opera: its slippery histories, its sensual bodies, and signatures of the generic in its late modernity. He is the author of two books, from Bloomsbury (2026) and Intellect Press (2027). He lives in Chicago.

Recently named one of 23 artists who are “changing the sound of classical music” by the Washington Post, Ben Roidl-Ward is the Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds positions as Principal Bassoonist of the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Illinois Symphony and Co-Principal Bassoonist of Sinfonia Da Camera. Ben’s dedication to working with living composers has led him to serve as the bassoonist of Ensemble Dal Niente and as a Contemporary Leader for the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), and to participate in the premieres of over 150 compositions to date. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Ben received his DMA from Northwestern University, where he studied with David McGill. His previous teachers include Ben Kamins at Rice University, George Sakakeeny at the Oberlin Conservatory, and Francine Peterson in the Seattle area.