Her Only Light is an evolving project dedicated to illuminating the works of composer and songwriter Connie Converse. The performance features Converse’s folk songs and art songs, sung by Emmy Bean and arranged by Ronnie Kuller for an ensemble of harp, violin, viola, clarinets, and sometimes accordion.
Emmy Bean and Ronnie Kuller have created and played music together in Chicago for over 10 years. Their collaborations incorporate improvisation, theater, and participatory music making, with a focus on classical and folk forms and styles. They have performed together as a duo and in various ensembles on concert stages, clubs, and theaters, featuring voice, piano, accordion, violin. Their work together has included the composition and performance of songs set to texts by Charles Baudelaire, spontaneously-composed odes performed in parks and community centers, music for young children, and most recently, the arrangement and performance of the works of Connie Converse. Their collaboration is inspired by themes of darkness and light, the natural world, children and families, and the liberating power of all that is absurd, colorful, playful, and strange.
Her Only Light has been performed as a whole or in part in the following venues:
- 19 May 2023 Constellation Chicago w/ Fifth Wave Collective
- 3 August 2024 Constellation Chicago w/ Sarah Plum, Vannia Phillips, Melissa Bach, Lauren Hayes, Emily Rach Beisel, and Katie Jimoh
- 16 November 2024 WFMT Folkstage (live broadcast) w/ Katie Klocke, Doyle Armbrust, Melissa Bach, Lauren Hayes, Michael Tran, and Barbara Drapcho
download a one-sheet PDF of our project here
Ronnie Kuller is a composer, arranger, pianist and accordionist who has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Joffrey Ballet, the Chicago Philharmonic, and Mister Tom Musick, and whose compositions have been performed at Ear Taxi Festival and recorded onto wax cylinder at Edison National Historical Park. She lives in Chicago with her wonderful husband Patrick and amazing daughter Sylvie.
Emmy Bean is a singer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist. She writes songs and performs as a soloist and with the trio 80 Foots. She has been seen in Facility Theater’s Little Match Girl Passion, Theater Oobleck’s Baudelaire in a Box, and The Carter Family Family Show with the Neo-Futurists. She has collaborated with Stacy Rene Erenberg, Ami Saraiya, Jace William, Erica Mott, Naima Lowe, Opera-Matic, John Szymanski, Beyond This Point, and ~Nois saxophone quartet. Her solo show You’re His Child has been seen at the Pivot Arts Festival and Rhino Fest here in Chicago. She holds a masters degree in Interdisciplinary Art from Columbia College Chicago.