Ensemble Dal Niente

Chicago's Ensemble Dal Niente has been a strong advocate for contemporary music, collaborating with top composers on new works and also working with other new music performers. The group has a substantial discography. Ensemble Dal Niente was formed in 2005 by graduate student composers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. The name means "ensemble from nothing" in Italian and is a tribute to the work Dal Niente (Interieur III) by composer Helmut Lachenmann. The group includes 27 musicians at full strength. In 2013, the group joined saxophonist Ryan Muncy on his album Hot, and the following year, it recorded Abhanden with cellist Chris Wild. On a 2023 recording of Chris Fisher-Lochhead's Wake Up the Dead, Ensemble Dal Niente joined the JACK Quartet and other important contemporary music performers.