Present Music Is 45 And Feisty As Ever

Image courtesy of Present Music.

Present Music opens its 45th season with Forty Something at UW-Milwaukee’s Zelazo Center on Friday. Artistic director Eric Segnitz curated “a program exploring the human body as both instrument and subject, with music built around breath, movement, percussion and anatomy.” Thematic links aside, the evening follows a familiar Present Music model. It pairs historic re-creations of once-groundbreaking “new” music with genre-bridging works tied to jazz, minimalism, industrial rock, the Renaissance mass and the classical symphony. The concert also includes a premiere that is a modern mathematical tour de force.

Vinko Globokar created the groundbreaking ?Corporel in 1985. Percussionist Alex Wier plays only his own body in a choreographed, theatrical presentation that, the program says, “confronts the audience with a stark, raw, and deeply political look at human vulnerability.”

Alex Temple’s 3 Arms and 17 Half-legs (2013) recalls the chaotic energy of underground rock clubs. Derek Johnson plays aggressive electric guitar riffs against an electronic soundscape.

Aviva Kopelman’s jazz fusion piece Forty Something (2013) remixes fragments of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 “through an irreverent, danceable and rhythmically complex fusion vocabulary.” The result blends familiar melodies with contemporary sounds.

Nico Muhly wrote Doublespeak (2011) after a long collaboration with famed minimalist Philip Glass. The piece weaves a personal insight into harmonically lush sounds. Muhly adds a touch of soul that minimalist works, with their focus on rhythmic pulse and tightly repetitive lines, often lack.

Temple also wrote 7x7x7 (2026), a new work commissioned by Present Music and the Woman’s Club of Wisconsin. It premiered at a Woman’s Club of Wisconsin event in September, and this second hearing offers another chance to marvel at the sonic variety of the number-driven conceit. Seven very different instruments move through a work in seven sections. In the opening, a seven-note chord repeats seven times, with its notes distributed across the instruments so that each repetition evokes different colors. Timbre, texture, order and disorder and driving rhythms create an exciting soundscape. The piece capitalizes on its unusual constraints and transcends them.

The concert closes with a major new piano concerto, Donnacha Dennehy’s Limina (2026), played by Lawrence University Conservatory pianist Michael Mizrahi. The movements move from head to chest to nervous system. The first opens with “frantic, high-register energy meant to evoke the rapid firing of neural synapses.” The second slows to breathy fragments derived from Renaissance viol consort music, recalling reflective moments of the Catholic Mass. The last ends grounded “deep in the gut … in a fierce, propulsive pulse.”

Segnitz sees Limina as a substantial work. “The way he uses color is really unusual, almost extreme. And he’s trying to meld a sort of electronic aesthetic with orchestral instruments in new and unusual ways, and it really works for me.”

Deanna Tham, who champions contemporary works, conducts the ensemble pieces. She has assisted with several Present Music concerts.

The contemporary dance company Wild Space will contribute a “transitional” dance performance, Segnitz noted.

The short works may share a loose theme, but the variety fits the usual Present Music formula: unexpected yet approachable music that leaves a lasting impression.

Segnitz is proud of the trajectory of the group. “It started out as bringing the best in new music to Milwaukee. It has gone a bit the other way, where we’re exporting things that are produced here, well beyond even the country limits.” The growing number of commissions reflect this change. In addition to new CDs, Present Music will be adding video selections to its YouTube channel throughout the year.

Forty Something is scheduled for Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the UW-Milwaukee Zelazo Center, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd., on Milwaukee’s East Side. Tickets are available by phone at 414-229-4308, online, or at the door. An afterparty follows with the New Orleans-style Extra Crispy Brass Band.

On Nov. 22, Present Music celebrates Thanksgiving at the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist. This popular and traditional annual event features world premieres by Angélica Negrón and Mikhail Johnson, and a special tribute to longtime arts champion Daniel Petry.

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