Turning the page

Roma, Italia

Today I begin a new chapter in my professional life. At the end of August I left the Chicago Reader, where I served as a staff writer since 1995. Years before that, and ever since, I’ve also contributed to a wide number of publications. Now, sitting in lovely Rome, Italy, where I will live through July of 2019, I pen the first blog post for my new website. I continue to write for publications like DownBeat, Chamber Music, and Bandcamp Daily, but while here at the American Academy in Rome I’ll be working on a book about the intersection of free jazz and improvisation with experimental music and post-rock in Chicago, covering the years 1992-2002.

Since the Reader was my journalistic home for so long it can feel as if I’m dropping off the earth or at least retiring, but neither is the case. And to counter that reality this blog will serve as a new outlet for my writing, allowing me to share thoughts and ideas about new recordings and live performances, along with other stuff that won’t necessarily fit into my other outlets.

 I’m not sure where I’ll land after next July, but Jessie Marino—whose talent, creativity, and vision are the main reasons I have this remarkable opportunity—and I are hoping to remain in Europe for longer, but whatever happens, I am eager to engage in new challenges and opportunities, whether as a music journalist/critic or as a music programmer, both in Europe and the US. Elsewhere on this website you can see the concerts I’ve programmed over the last five years as the director of the Frequency Series at Constellation in Chicago. Please don’t hesitate to reach out: peter@petermargasak.com. Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around in the months and years to come. I’ll be blogging regularly here, beginning next week, including some posts about new work from Supersilent and Brandon Seabrook.

Here’s to Steve Lacy for his way with titles!

Today’s playlist: 

Alice Coltrane, World Spirituality Classics 1: the Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (Luaka Bop)

Goem, Dertig CM (Mego)

Gottfried Michael Koenig, Gottfried Michael Koenig (Edition RZ)

Various artists: 100 Moons: Hindustani Vocal Art, 1930-55 (Canary/Mississippi)

Fire! Orchestra, Enter (Rune Grammofon)