April, 2025
Kishi Bashi and the Chicago Philharmonic
Event Details
Kishi Bashi and the Chicago Philharmonic
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Venue: The Auditorium
Date: April 19, 2025
Time: 7:30 PM
Tickets start at: $59
“Edifying, moving, and musically rich…[Chicago Philharmonic with Kishi Bashi] is in a class of its own.”
—Hannah Edgar, Musical America
In April 2023, Chicago Philharmonic presented multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter Kishi Bashi’s Improvisations on EO9066, leaving a sold-out crowd wanting more. Now Chicago Philharmonic partners with The Auditorium to present another one-night-only event with Kishi Bashi.
Kishi Bashi Bio
The latest full-length from Kishi Bashi, Kantos is a work of exquisite duality: a party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it, at turns deeply unsettling and sublimely joyful. In a sonic departure from the symphonic folk of his critically lauded 2019 LP Omoiyari—a career-defining body of work born from his intensive meditation on the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II—the Seattle-born singer/songwriter/producer’s fifth studio album encompasses everything from Brazilian jazz and ’70s funk to orchestral rock and city pop (a Japanese genre that peaked in the mid-’80s). Informed by an equally kaleidoscopic mix of inspirations—the cult-classic sci-fi novel series Hyperion Cantos, the writings of 18th century enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, a revelatory trip to ancient ruins on the island of Crete—Kantos ultimately serves as an unbridled exaltation of the human spirit and all its wild complexities.
“At a time when so many people had begun to panic about AI and what it might mean for our future, I started working on this record as a way to explore the concept of grounding ourselves in our humanity,” says the Santa Cruz, California-based multi-instrumentalist otherwise known as Kaoru Ishibashi. “The album title is a nod to Hyperion Cantos and to Immanuel Kant, but it also refers to ‘canto’ meaning ‘I sing’ in Spanish. The idea is that even with so much technological advancement, songs are still something we very much rely on to connect with other people.”
