Angel Bat Dawid’s Sonata for an Empty Room explores the Sonata Composition form as a metaphor for our current times. Joined by Charles Joseph Smith and Adam Zanolini, Sonata for an Empty Room wields the sonata form to wring out the malaise, sorrow, and unrest from life over the past year. 

Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American composer, improviser, clarinetist, pianist, vocalist, educator & DJ. Her critically acclaimed album “The Oracle,” released by Chicago label International Anthem and recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, has been featured in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Guardian and many other publications. Angel composed and premiered “Requiem for Jazz" at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and “Peace: A Suite for Skylanding” commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago for Yoko Ono’s outdoor Skylanding Installation. She also tours internationally with her septet "Tha Brothahood," releasing their album “LIVE” making NPR’s best of 2020 list. Angel leads the all-woman trio Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty with bassist Brooklynn Skye Scott and pianist Anaiet. As half of the duo group DAOUI, Angel & sound artist Oui Ennui produced, mixed, and self-released the album “Message from the DAOUI,'' which was featured at Tusk Festival 2020. As an educator, Angel teaches her “Great Black Music” course at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center through Old Town School of Folk and is the clarinetist in Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble as well as hosts a monthly music show on NTS Radio.

“Music is a language, you see, a universal language.”–Sun Ra 

Dr. Charles Joseph Smith is a pianist, composer, arranger, writer, and dancer based in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Smith has been a staple personality in the Chicago arts community for years. Charles started graduate music studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994, where he earned and MM in Piano Performance (1995) and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Literature (2002). In addition to his piano accomplishments, he also has an interest in creative writing, especially poetry. He also adores ballroom, Latin, and swing dancing, and his favorite dance is the salsa. He also continues to compose music. Moreover, his new autobiography, “The 88 Keys That Opened Doors,” was published in June 2021 through the Amazon KDP platform a book which details his experience in the arts as a BIPOC living with autism.

Dr. Adam Zanolini is a multi-instrumentalist, ethnomusicologist, writer, and arts organizer based in Chicago. He is the Executive Director of Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago and former Associate Director of Arts for Art, presenter of the annual Vision Festival of avant-jazz in New York City. He is also co-founder of the Participatory Music Coalition and active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Adam serves on the Board of the Live the Spirit Residency, producer of the annual Englewood Jazz Festival, and also on the Board of the Milwaukee Avenue Alliance. Adam plays flute, double bass, saxophone and other instruments, performing regularly with PMC, the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, Sura Dupart's Sidepocket Experience, with Angel Bat Dawid and the Brothahood, and Gira Dahnee in addition to his own projects. He received his PhD in music with a certificate in Africana Studies from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2016. Adam’s highest ambition is to be a community musician: to cultivate and share knowledge through music in order to help heal, strengthen, and empower the Black community.