history and mission

Dedicated exclusively to the performance of contemporary classical music, the University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players (Contempo) is one of the oldest and most successful professional new music groups in the nation. Over its 40-year history, the CCP has earned an enviable reputation for its outstanding performances of music by living composers. It has given over eighty world premieres, and even more Chicago premieres, of works by both established and emerging composers, including Roger Sessions, John Harbison, Ralph Shapey, George Perle, Pulitzer Prize-winning faculty member Shulamit Ran and MacArthur fellow and former University of Chicago faculty member John Eaton.

The CCP was founded in the fall of 1964 by renowned composer and conductor Ralph Shapey, who continued to direct the ensemble until his retirement in 1993. Now named Music Director Laureate, Shapey was succeeded by Stephen Mosko, who held the position of Music Director from 1994 to 1998. Seeking to more closely integrate its artistic vision with its educational mission, the Contemporary Chamber Players underwent a major restructuring by the Department of Music in 1998. Over the next four seasons, conductors Cliff Colnot, Barbara Schubert and Carmen Helena Tellez served consecutively as Resident Conductors, with the award-winning Pacifica Quartet and eighth blackbird joining Contempo as Artists-in-Residence in 1998 and 2000, respectively. In 2002 Shulamit Ran was appointed CCP Artistic Director, and in 2004 - the ensemble's 40th season - the CCP forged a bold new artistic path with a new look, new performance venues and the new alias of Contempo.

In planning each season, Ran collaborates closely with other faculty members in the Department of Music as well as with conductor Cliff Colnot and the two resident ensembles. In addition to the Artists-in-Residence, Contempo often features musicians who perform regularly with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera. Since its inception, the CCP has dedicated itself to the performance of works by the University’s own doctoral candidates in composition, as well as countless other composers whose name recognition may not yet equal their talent. This practice has greatly enhanced the living art of composition, as young composers are able to participate in the rehearsal process and hear their work realized by a world-class professional ensemble.