Courtesy of Preset Music
Present Music’s Valentine’s Day concert will not include the work of Julio Iglesias or Christopher Cross. In keeping with its 38-year tradition, Milwaukee’s recent-contemporary music ensemble will cut the schmaltz in favor of something “off kilter,” as co-artistic director Eric Segnitz puts it.
Their Valentine’s concert, “The Avant-Garden of Love,” will feature a broad swath of challenging yet engageable music from the 20th and 21st centuries—much of it being short piece no longer than a pop song. The connecting theme is romantic love looked at from various perspectives. Per Present Music tradition, “The Avant-Garden” will be multimedia. The program includes Robert Florey’s 1927 Expressionist silent film The Love of Zero accompanied by the world premiere of a new score performed by Little Bang Theory, a Detroit trio of toy instrumentalists. And, as usual for Present Music, there will be a party afterward featuring We Six, Quasimondo Physical Theatre, a drag show and a “surrealist costume party.” Wear your own outfit to the concert or put one together with help at the crafts table.
The sonic diversity will be striking, including Ornette Coleman’s “What Reason Could I Give,” interpreted by Wisconsin saxophonists Matt Sintchak and Melissa Reiser, and a set of original numbers by Swedish jazz singer Sophie Dunér. Sintchak will also be featured on “The Garden of Love,” contemporary Dutch composer Jacob TV’s minimalist riff on the William Blake poem. Segnitz describes John Cage’s “Water Walk” as a “time-structured piece. Someone will walk around with a stopwatch, interacting with electrical appliances—radios, toasters—and the appliances will be pushed into a tub of water. Everything makes a sound. According to Cage, anything that makes a sound can be considered music.”
Also on the bill are pieces by Charles Mingus and the homeless Manhattan Street musician called Moondog, as well as performances of Dadaist poetry. Much of the concert, including Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova’s “Such Different Paths,” will be performed by a string septet. “It will be an avant-garde, three-ring circus,” Segnitz promises. “It’s a crazy program. It will be fun!”
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Present Music performs The Avant-Garden of Love at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13-14 at the Jan Serr Studio, 2155 N. Prospect Ave. For more information and tickets, visit presentmusic.org.
