Lots to Hear at Present Music’s Peace Concert

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Photo courtesy Present Music

Niloufar Nourbakhsh

Niloufar Nourbakhsh

Peace is the theme of this year’s concert. “Sometimes it seems to be a choice between non-violence or non-existence,” Segnitz says. With hopes in mind for bringing people together, Segnitz and Co-Artistic Director David Bloom programmed a concert that includes music by Native Americans, African Americans, Muslim, Jewish and Ukrainian composers.

The concert’s lynchpin will be MacArthur Fellow Courtney Bryan’s “Sanctum.” “I like the blend of her influences,” Segnitz continues. She’s a pianist from New Orleans, classically trained and steeped in jazz and gospel. Segnitz describes the cadences of “Sanctum” as derived from Black gospel preaching. Courtney incorporated found sounds including the voice of a homeless woman from Los Angeles. Bloom has worked with Bryan in New York, but this will be her first debut at Present Music. “You come away from her music with a sense of solace,” Segnitz adds.

In an interesting twist, Present Music’s organist, John Orfe, will perform a little-known piece by mid-century African American composer Mark Fax, “Fantasy on Kremser,” based on an old Dutch hymn, and respond with the premiere of his “Variations on Kremser.”

Next on the program is Valentin Silvestrov whose work is comparable to other dissident composers from the former Soviet Union such as Arvo Part. He is Ukrainian, living in Berlin since the Putin invasion “and has become Ukraine’s de facto musical spokesperson,” Segnitz says. Silvestrov will be represented by his quietly moving duet for piano and cello, “Postlude #3.”

Also away from her homeland, Iranian-born, New York-based Niloufar Nourbakhsh contributes “C C See” to the concert. “She grew up in a Sufi family and was interested in Western music,” Segnitz says. She has composed in several formats; “C C See” is minimalist in conception. Finally, Jewish American composer Michael Kropf offers “Moses in Nederland.” Segnitz describes the three-movement composition inspired by his grandfather’s journal of life during the Holocaust as “joyful and buoyant, sometimes elegiac.”

Present Music’s Concert for Peace, 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 24 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 812 N. Jackson St. Bloom will moderate a preconcert talk at 4 p.m. with Kropf and Nourbakhsh. For tickets, visit presentmusic.org.