AWE Festival Chicago: Gateway
About this event series
A spring festival of chamber music, At the World’s Edge is forging new creative pathways between Aotearoa New Zealand and Chicago USA - from the great lakes of Central Otago to the shores of Lake Michigan.
With three thematically interlinked programs, AWE’s inaugural festival celebrates shared creativity and collaboration through much loved masterpieces woven between music less heard or discovered on a journey through three inspiring Chicago venues–the Field Museum, Guarneri Hall, and Driehaus Museum.
Field Museum: Gateway
AWE Festival Chicago opens in a place of deep spiritual significance for Aotearoa New Zealand—the marae of the Field Museum’s wharenui (Māori meeting house) from Tokomaru Bay, which marks 120 years in the museum’s collection this year.
Join us for a powerful cultural exchange through the prism of chamber music, where music from Aotearoa New Zealand, Chicago, and beyond creates a bridge between past and present. Set on sacred ground, this wharenui was built as a gateway for the living to connect with their ancestors, history, and new communities—a spirit we honor as AWE brings its performance to this special space.
AWE's esteemed performers include AWE Artistic Director and violinist Benjamin Baker, violinist Natalie Lin Douglas, violist Zoe Martin-Doike, cellist Julia Yang, pianist Albert Cano Smit, and the celebrated British horn soloist Ben Goldscheider.
Program features works by Augusta Read-Thomas (Chicago), Gareth Farr (New Zealand), Georg Philipp Telemann (Germany) and Eleanor Alberga (United Kingdom).
Visit AWE Music Foundation for more details.