The Black Square Ensemble is a chamber music project led by composer and pianist Earl MacDonald, bringing together bass-baritone, cello, percussion, and piano to perform original works that engage contemporary civic and ecological questions.
At the center of the ensemble’s work is a commitment to carefully notated composition, contemporary poetry, and close collaboration between text and music. Drawing on contemporary classical music, jazz harmony, and rhythmic traditions from around the world, the ensemble creates music that invites attentive listening while engaging the realities of the world beyond the concert hall.
The repertoire addresses themes including climate change, migration, racial justice, violence, and civic responsibility—not as abstract ideas, but as lived human experience.
Origins
The ensemble takes its name from Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915), a work that reduced painting to its essential elements. In a similar spirit, the Black Square Ensemble seeks clarity through restraint, allowing text, sound, and silence to carry equal weight.
The result is music that values focus over excess and invites audiences into difficult questions without prescribing simple answers.
Current touring ensemble
Earl MacDonald, piano & composition
Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut, MacDonald is a two-time JUNO Award nominee and recipient of the Sammy Nestico Award and the Connecticut Office of the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Award. His recent work focuses on fully notated chamber music that brings poetry and contemporary social questions into conversation.
Rod Nelman, bass-baritone
Praised as a “superb singer-actor” (The Washington Times), Nelman has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Arena di Verona. His combination of operatic power and textual sensitivity gives the ensemble a distinctive voice.
Adam Willson, cello
Cellist Adam Willson performs with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and regularly appears with the Rhode Island Philharmonic and Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and Rice University, he brings both rigor and warmth to the ensemble, aiming always to dissolve the distance between performer and audience.
Rogério Boccato, percussion
Featured on numerous Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated recordings, Boccato has collaborated with artists including Maria Schneider, Danilo Pérez, and Hermeto Pascoal. His rhythmic imagination brings subtle color, momentum, and depth to the ensemble’s sound.
Current Repertoire
A central work for the ensemble is a chamber song cycle setting poetry by UConn English professor V. Penelope Pelizzon, exploring climate justice, ecological disruption, migration, and human displacement. Scientific perspectives from UConn professors David Wagner and Elle Ouimet informed the project, grounding the work in both research and lived experience.
Additional texts by Sara Goudarzi, Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger, and Everette Hoagland broaden the ensemble’s exploration of justice, dignity, and collective responsibility.
Recent Activity
The Black Square Ensemble debuted in November 2025 with a concert performance followed by a studio recording of its inaugural song cycle. The recording also features guest contributions from cellist Amanda Gookin, a founding member of the Grammy-nominated PUBLIQuartet; trumpeter Louis Hanzlik, a longtime member of the Grammy Award–winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, performing here on flugelhorn; and electronic musician Ikue Mori, a MacArthur Fellow.
In July 2026, the ensemble appeared as part of the Hartford Jazz Society’s Paul Brown Monday Night Jazz Series in Bushnell Park, presenting music centered on questions of social justice.
The ensemble’s debut recording is now in its final stages of production. Mixing, mastering, and liner notes are underway, with the album scheduled for release on February 19, 2027. Additional performances are being planned to coincide with the release.
Critical Response
Following the ensemble’s July 20, 2026 performance in Hartford’s Bushnell Park as part of the Paul Brown Monday Night Jazz Series, Midbrow published an independent review by Hartford bureau chief Jamil Ragland examining the ensemble’s integration of poetry, contemporary social themes, and chamber jazz.
“Perhaps what we’re missing is the shock, the grim confrontation of what the world is facing in the exact moments we’re trying to forget. Earl MacDonald and the Black Square Ensemble brought that Monday evening.”
— Jamil Ragland, Midbrow, July 21, 2026
“…a group that uses music as a way to respond directly to the social and ethical realities of the present moment.”
— Jamil Ragland, Midbrow, July 21, 2026
Read the complete review: https://midbrow.org/earl-macdonald-black-square-ensemble/