Photo via Present Music - presentmusic.org
Andy Akiho, Kamran Ince and Carla Kihlstedt
Andy Akiho, Kamran Ince and Carla Kihlstedt
This will be an exciting spring for Present Music. Milwaukee’s contemporary music ensemble will release two albums in the coming weeks, a recording of Carla Kihlstedt’s 26 Little Deaths and an album of Raven Chacon. Both composers were prominent in previous Present Music seasons. PM will also perform later this month at Knoxville, TN's Big Ears Festival.
Meanwhile, PM’s next concert, “Into the Wild,” will feature 26 Little Deaths, a probably memorable take on Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” and two new commissions from Andy Akiho and Kamran Ince.
Ince could be mistaken for a Milwaukeean, given his long association with PM. Along with many performances with the group in Milwaukee, Ince’s music has been included on eight PM albums over the years, and the composer has toured with the group nationally and internationally.
Unmistakable Music
“I like his music because it’s unmistakably his own,” says PM’s co-director, Eric Segnitz. “It’s very passionate, episodic, colorful sounding and covering a wide spectrum of emotions.”
Ince’s latest work, then, nothing, will be premiered at “Into the Wild.” After the recent death of people close to him, Ince’s music is “asking existential questions on how to live the rest of his life. It’s serious and relatable, and like all of his music, it takes us on a journey,” Segnitz says.
Akiho is a younger American composer, a percussionist whose primary instrument is steel pans. His premiere at “Into the Wild,” Copper Canvas, “is based on the number 29—copper on the Periodic Table of Elements,” Segnitz explains. “It’s like a Calder mobile with shifting perspectives—lots of bursts of kinetic energy.” Ince, Kihlstedt and Akiho will both be on hand for the concert.
PM gave Kihlstedt’s 26 Little Deaths its world premiere in 2022. Inspired by Edward Gorey’s “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” the song cycle adds sonic dimension to the writer-illustrator’s eccentric oeuvre of gaslit Edwardian manners and mores. As for “Born to Be Wild,” Present Music played the ‘60s hit at a 1989 concert with guest composer David Lang. “It was a defining moment for us, an off the cuff encore piece” Segnitz recalls. “It had this serious-slash-fun intensity, a spontaneity that defines us.” Expect electronics and “clangorous instruments,” Segnitz promises.
As is usually true for PM, the upcoming concert folds diverse streams into a coherent musical flow. PM’s co-director David Bloom will conduct.
7:30 p.m. March 26-27 at Jan Serr Studio, 2155 N Prospect Ave. For tickets, visit presentmusic.org.
