Present Music’s ‘Future Folk Machine’

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Present Music 'Future Folk Machine'

Present Music 'Future Folk Machine'

In music, folk has had many meanings. In its original sense, it was the music from and for the “folks,” a wellspring of age-old traditions from ordinary people; the origins of their songs unknown, attributable to no single composer, handed down and modified over the generations. This began to change when folks like Woody Guthrie—and his acolyte Bob Dylan—began to write their own “folk songs.”

And now, in the 21st century for Present Music’s upcoming concert, “Future Folk Machine,” the word folk is almost a Rorschach Test. “Many of the works on this program are futuristic reimaginings of poems, dance forms or musical instruments having strong folk elements,” says PM’s Co-artistic Director Eric Segnitz. The “Machine” is borrowed from Guthrie who inscribed a message on his guitar: “This machine kills Fascists.” His follower, Pete Seeger, softened the tone when he emblazoned this on his banjo: “This machine surrounds hate and makes it surrender.” 

The concert checks the boxes for past, present and future. “This program is Present Music’s ‘machine,’ a true happening, taking folk music to the outer limits, with an all-star lineup of some of the finest contemporary music specialists in the country,” Segnitz continues.

The composer featured in “Future Folk Machine” is South Korea’s Unsuk Chin, and her story is the story of the globalization of culture. She lives in Berlin, and her mentor was Hungarian, György Ligeti, one of the 20th century’s most impressive composers for the dazzling, often eerie effect of his chamber music and his ear for distilled detail.

The title of her contribution to the program, Gougalon, comes from an old German word for “conjuring” and its music conjures childhood memories from her Korean homeland. It’s an “imaginary folk music” of fortune tellers and charmers, blending the grotesque with an East Asian sound world. Segnitz notes that Gougalon is scored for a small chamber orchestra—“the percussion instruments alone take up half the stage!”

“Future Folk Machine” opens with Ligeti’s White on White, described by Segnitz as “a little-known gem from the master.” The concert includes a portion of The Secret Diary of Nora Plain, a song cycle by Morris Kliphuis and Lucky Fonz III about “a girl trying to lead a private life, which is increasingly being encroached upon by the surveillance of modern society.” The Secret Diary will be sung by opera soprano Ariadne Greif, fronting an amplified string quartet accompanied by drums. “Ariadne can’t not be theatrical—and loves costumes. So we’ll see what she comes up with for this,” Segnitz says.

Also on tap are John Harbison’s Mirabai Songs, musical settings for the 16th century poetry of Hindu princess Mirabai Rathnor; Steve Martland’s Re-mix, based on a French Baroque composition for viola da gamba; and Francesco Filidei’s Love Story, scored for seven rolls of toilet paper. Love Story “attempts to say much about life with few resources,” Segnitz explains. “It is a composed, not improvised work, and comes off as a tabula rasa with audiences projecting meaning onto the proceedings.”

And there is also someone who might more closely fit an American idea of folk music, at least because of his instrument. Paul Metzger’s Improvisations on a Modified Banjo is played on a 23-string instrument of his own design. Pete Seeger might have been hard put to wrap his fingers around that one.

Feb. 17-18 at Jan Serr Studio, 2155 N. Prospect Ave., or live streaming. For more information, visit presentmusic.org.