In Concert: Eli Winter Trio
(Left) Eli Winter. Photo: Beth Kotz. (Right) Eli Winter’s A Trick of the Light, Three Lobed, 2025. Photo: Steven Perlin.
Join us for an evening of expansive, genre-defying music as the Chicago-based Eli Winter Trio fills the Visual Arts Center with sounds of the American landscape.
A Houston native turned fixture of the Chicago music scene, Winter has earned acclaim for his seamless blends of folk, jazz, rock, and devotional music. His latest album, A Trick of the Light (Three Lobed, 2025), marks a career high for the bandleader, showcasing a "vibrant and elegantly crafted" collection of songs that balance intense improvisation with delicate, melodic beauty. Accompanied by his longtime trio of elite Chicago improvisers, Sam Wagster (Fruit Bats) on pedal steel and Tyler Damon (Circuit des Yeux) on drums, Winter leads an ensemble that performs with interlocking, effortless grace.
Admission is free. RSVP recommended.
About the artist
Eli Winter is a composer, self-taught guitarist, essayist, and Houston native. His music synthesizes aspects of folk, rock, jazz, and devotional music, maintaining a waggish disregard for genre constraints emblematic of Chicago, his adopted hometown. His new album, A Trick of the Light, is an elegantly crafted and vibrant collection that finds the bandleader at the height of his powers: the dazzlingly intense arrangement of Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell’s “Arabian Nightingale” that opens the album, Winter’s muscular, dreamy originals, and his daring arrangement of Carla Bley’s “Ida Lupino.” His trio features Chicago improvisers Sam Wagster of Fruit Bats (pedal steel guitar) and Tyler Damon of Circuit des Yeux (drums), with performances at prestigious music festivals like Primavera Sound and Big Ears, and collaborations with a wide range of artists live and on record, including Yasmin Williams, jaimie branch, Caroline Rose, and Ryley Walker. His concert history spans prestigious music festivals like Primavera Sound and Big Ears, pristine listening rooms, museums, university chapels, laundromat bars, and small rooms in shotgun houses.