Present Music opens it’s 2024-25 Season with “Holy Lift Off!” with guest curator and flutist Claire Chase on Oct. 31

Milwaukee, WI (September 24, 2024) – Present Music will open its 2024-25 season on Thursday, Oct. 31 at 7:30 pm at Windhover Hall at the Milwaukee Art Museum with Holy Lift Off!. The concert will be guest-curated by Claire Chase, who is a flutist, MacArthur ‘genius grant’ winner, and world-renowned advocate for new and experimental music.

In her first appearance with Present Music, Chase will perform a new work from iconic Minimalist composer Terry Riley entitled “The Holy Lift Off”. The work, arranged for this performance by Samuel Clay Birmaher for an array of flutes, string quartet and electronics, was several years in the making, and sprang from Riley’s colorful sketchbooks. These drawings, of angels, flying creatures and the like, served as a jumping-off point for an hour-long adventure exploring transcendental themes.

Riley, now 90 and living in Japan, and Chase, who teaches at Harvard, began by trading musical postcards during the pandemic based on the artwork he would share with her. As this material developed into a large-scale piece, Chase said of Riley “He is genuinely like a kid in a candy store. He says- let’s taste and explore all of the things we don’t know. And let’s go blindly, joyfully, ecstatically into this experience without having any idea of what this outcome is going to be”. She found this kind of trust in the creative process to be infectious.

Present Music’s Holy Lift Off! event will occur at the Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 N. Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee. Tickets for the event can be purchased at https://www.presentmusic.org/.  There will be a public and private event hosted by Ms. Chase scheduled earlier in the concert week, with details to be posted on the website.

This performance is presented in conjunction with 2 exhibits at the Milwaukee Art Museum: LaToya Hobbs; Carving Out Time and Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History. Entrance to the exhibits is free with the purchase of a concert ticket, and there will be a preconcert talk on these exhibits offered at 6:30pm in Lubar Auditorium.

Present Music is grateful to co-sponsors Lois Smith and UPAF for underwriting this performance.

Since its founding 1982, Present Music’s mission has been to commission and perform new concert music, bringing over 100 new works to life. Ensembles range from a core group of seven musicians to an ensemble of 20 or more. Present Music has had the privilege of working closely with many of the nation’s top composers, including John Adams, Henry Brant, David Lang, Caroline Shaw, Ingram Marshall, Missy Mazzoli, Bright Sheng, Roberto Sierra and Michael Torke.

The not-for-profit organization has a long and impressive track record for identifying outstanding talent early in the artists’ careers. Present Music’s discography includes world premiere recordings on the Argo, Albany, Aoede, Northeastern, Naxos and Innova labels. The group is led by Artistic Director Eric Segnitz and Conductor/Advisor David Bloom. Present Music was founded by conductor Kevin Stalheim, who was Artistic Director for the first 37 years of the ensemble’s existence until 2019.

Visit https://www.presentmusic.org/ for additional information.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION – BIOS 

Flutist and curator Claire Chase founded the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2001, and was the Executive/Artistic Director until 2017, when she stepped down to pursue a successful solo career. She won the Concert Artists Guild prize in 2008 and has since premiered hundreds of new compositions for the solo flute, incorporating extended techniques and electro-acoustic elements. In 2012, she won a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2017 won the Avery Fischer prize, and was appointed Professor of Practice at Harvard University.

Composer Terry Riley is best known as one of the pioneers (along with Steve Reich and Phillip Glass) of the Minimalist school of composition. Inspired by jazz and Indian classical music, such landmark works as “In C” and “A Rainbow in Curved Air” have become seminal influences on many genres of music since the 1960’s.

He cites a list of his own early influences: Pandit Pran Nath, John Cage, and jazz greats John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Bill Evans. Mr. Riley has had a long and fruitful relationship with the Kronos Quartet, having written some 30 works for them over the course of his long career. He appeared as a performer in concert with Present Music in the late 1990’s.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.