Present Music Offers Diverse Program

Concerts produced by Present Music are rarely just about the music. For the concert entitled “Ablaze,” presented this Thursday evening at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the music speaks to social issues, often addressing themes of identity. Two composers, Julian Saporiti and Anthony R. Green will be presented. Another, English composer Daniel Kidane, will be featured in a world premiere commission.

The program was created to complement two photographic exhibits at Milwaukee Art Museum and at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee. See the details below.

Although only five works are on the program, they feature mixed media, performance art, choreographed players, and creative instrumentation. Three works may be considered concertos. The soloists for two of them — percussion quartet and saxophone/electric guitar — are hardly typical. And the piano concerto, backed by a percussion ensemble, evolves into a staged commentary on gender roles.

The five works:

No-No Boy, a multimedia project by Vietnamese-American artist Julian Saporiti, blends folk storytelling and archival imagery to tell the hidden story of Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. Citizens incarcerated at these camps were deprived of their civil rights, yet asked to serve in combat duty and swear allegiance to the US. Those who defiantly answered “no” to those questions were known as “no-no boys.” Saporiti wrote folk songs telling personal stories of residents of the camps. He will share five of his songs from that project.

Anthony Green identifies as a composer, performer, and social justice artist. His piano concerto, Solution, includes performance art. A woman pianist must deal with interruptions from five male percussionists whose challenges eventually bring the concerto to an end. Pianist Eunmi Ko collaborated with Green on the premiere of this work.

This year, Present Music has commissioned a new work for each concert – an ambitious objective. British artist Daniel Kidane has written Primitive Blaze (2022) for saxophone and electric guitar. He was inspired by a geometric artwork of that name by Bridget Riley. (Copyright issues limit picturing the artwork on this page. View it here.)

Kidane writes, “I was inspired by (the artwork) that conjure up visions of a raucous and roaring inferno. The soundworld (of the saxophone and electric guitar) create a hybrid sounding instrument — grungy and bold.”

Kidane’s music draws on his Eritrean and Russian heritage as well as his eclectic London upbringing. Kidane has an impressive list of commissions from the BBC Proms, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and others.

Vietnamese-American Viet Cuong explores the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. Cuong responded to a commission by General Electric to create a piece representing energy resources with Re(new)al, a very creative instrumental work for a percussion quartet and ensemble. A highly choreographed percussion quartet works with wine glasses, a shared drum kit and compressed air cans, then a glockenspiel, “prepared” vibraphone, and other metallic instruments to reference different sources of power (hydro, wind, solar.) The inventive approach works marvelously.

The concert ends with a jazzy work by Nina Shekhar. Turn Your Feet Around (on this Youtube concert at the 1-hour mark) reconstructs Gloria Estefan‘s “Turn the Beat Around” with a dance choreographed for a seated ensemble.

For full immersion, visit a related MAM photo exhibit, attend the pretalk, stay for an after-party, rewind the online concert video and drop by the Jewish Museum Milwaukee for a second exhibit that addresses the same issues as Saporiti’s storytelling.

Collaboration, invention, performance, observance, and celebration — all hallmarks of a Present Music event.

The March 10 concert will be performed in Windhover Hall of the Milwaukee Art Museum (700 N. Art Museum Dr.) at 7:30 p.m. Tickets ($35/$65) may be purchased online. (Urban Milwaukee member’s are eligible to receive up to two free tickets, while supplies last. Click here to reserve your tickets, before they are gone.)

Click here for directions and parking information.

Three artists will be present for the concert. Saporiti will be singing his own songs. Ko premiered and will play the piano concerto written by Green. All three will participate in a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m. in the Lubar Auditorium.

Present Music will also host an after-party. Live Irish music anticipates St. Patrick’s day and celebrates the gradual loosening of COVID-19 rules.

But basic COVID protocols are still in place. In keeping with a protocol established by many performing groups in Wisconsin, Present Music will require COVID-19 vaccinations or proof of negative test within 72 hours of events for all audience members 12 and up attending indoor performances.

Present Music also offers the option to stream the concert. A concert video will be available for a limited time afterward.

Plan to visit a museum exhibit related to the concert. On Contested Terrain is the first comprehensive survey of the work of the celebrated photographer An-My Lê. A Vietnamese-American, her work is dedicated to exploring the complexity that envelops war. The exhibit closes on March 27.

An exhibit at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee is also inspired by the themes of the evening. The exhibit, Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties, features imagery by noted American photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, alongside works by incarcerated Japanese-American artist Toyo Miyatake and artifacts from the Chicago-based Japanese American Service Committee collection. The exhibit is free to visitors through May 29.

Present Music will next offer a world premiere by Carla Kihlstedt on June 23 and 24. The evening will feature a sweeping song cycle, 26 Little Deaths, inspired by Edward Gorey‘s Gashlycrumb Tinies, described as a “a delightfully dark alphabet book” with songs “that are part Tim Burton, part Edgar Allan Poe, part art song and 100% Present Music.”