Present Music presents

Future Folk Machine

February 17 & 18, 2023

Jan Serr Studio | Milwaukee, WI

Concerts co-sponsored by the Heil Family Foundation and Nancy Leff & KC Lerner

Program

from Piano Etude No. 15, White on White (1995) György Ligeti

from The Secret Diary of Nora Plain (2017) Morris Kliphuis & Lucky Fonz III

As a child

Here is my arm

Rat in the room

Ariadne Greif, soprano

Improvisation

Paul Metzger, modified banjo

Mirabai Songs (1982) John Harbison

I. It’s True, I Went to the Market

II. All I was Doing Was Breathing

III. Why Mira Can’t Go Back to Her Old House

IV. Where Did You Go?

V. The Clouds

VI. Don’t Go, Don’t Go

Ariadne Greif, soprano

— Intermission —

Love Story (2020) Francesco Filidei

Gougalōn (Scenes from a Street Theater) (2009/2011) Unsuk Chin

I. Prologue – Dramatic Opening of the Curtain

II. Lament of the Bald Singer

III. The Grinning Fortune Teller with the False Teeth

IV. Episode between Bottles and Cans

V. Circulus vitiosos – Dance around the shacks

VI. The Hunt for the Quack’s Plait

Remix (1986) Steve Martland

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Guest Artists

Ariadne Greif – soprano & whistler
Paul Metzger - modified banjo

Present Music

David Bloom & Eric Segnitz — Co-Artistic Directors

Jennifer Clippert — flutes, percussion & harmonica
Erica Anderson — oboes, percussion & harmonica
Bill Helmers — clarinets, saxophone & percussion
Nicki Roman — saxophone
Zach Childress — saxophone
Don Sipe — trumpet & percussion
Michael Clayville — trombone, percussion & harmonica
Carl Storniolo — percussion
Alex Weir — percussion
Michael Mizrahi — piano & keyboard
John Orfe — piano & keyboard
Emily Melendes — harp
Ben Russell — violin
Eric Segnitz — violin
Maria Ritzenthaler — viola
Nick Photinos — cello
Jake Hanegan — cello
Christian Dillingham — contrabass & percussion
Marty Butorac — sound engineering
David Bloom — conductor

Staff
Barbara Schneider, Managing Director
Martin Butorac, Operations Manager
Daniel Petry, Development Manager
Alex Moreno, Digital Marketing Coordinator

Board of Directors
Jessica Franken, President
Carole Nicksin, Vice-President
Fran Richman, Secretary
Brian Wilson, Treasurer
Louise Hermsen, Governance
Cecile Cheng
Heidi Dondlinger
Tim Frautschi, Special Director
William Helmers
Ron Jacquart, Special Director
Gary Van Wert
Donna Woodall

Additional Credits
Livestreaming by David Vartanian, DV Productions

Special Thanks
Jeff Bentoff
Kurt Cowling
Lisa Dickson
Jason Gierl
Randall Holper
Russ Knudsen & Chicago Percussion Services
Mischa Premeau
Tanner-Monagle Studios

Lyrics

The Secret Diary of Nora Plain text by Lucky Fonz III (aka Otto Wichers)

As a child
As a child you feel invisible
When you cover your own face
Now you see me now you don’t
Until they put you in your place

And you learn to look upon yourself
As a sight to behold
And before you even understand
You are already too old

So I sing my song for some sort of
Invisible form of you
If beauty is in the beholder’s eye
Then evil must be too

They are south across the border
They are high up in the cloud
They have eyes and ears and hands and arms
They never have a mouth

Am I a dancer in a movie?
Am I a laboratory beast?
Is a word too much to ask for?
An echo at the least?

So I sing my song for some sort of
Invisible form of you
If beauty is in the beholder’s eye
Then evil must be too

Here is my arm
Here is my arm
Here is my hand
Here is my body
Right where I stand

Is that not enough?
How much do you need?
My lips or my ears
My neck or my feet?

Come closer to me then
Come closer, stand near
Peek at these freckles
Right next to my ear

Small little spots
The size of a pin
Tips of the pyramids
Under my skin

Now sing of the valleys
Sing of the hill
Sing of the hollows
A lover may fill

Sing of the Nile
That from finger to toe
Waters the flowers
You ask me to show

Sing of the backbones
Sing of the sea
Sing of the whole world
But don’t sing of me
But don’t sing of me
Don’t sing of me

Rat in my room
There is a rat in my room
There is a rat in my room
There is a rat in my room
I can hear it

I hear its feet in the middle of the night
I hear its feet in the middle of the night

Chop its head off with an axe
Set its head and tail on fire
Whack it with a rusty nail
Choke it with a piece of wire
Throw it off the balcony
Put the poison on the floor
Stab it deep inside its head

Beat its head against the door
Smack it with it a baseball bat
Suck the life out of its soul
Slash it with a dirty knife
Turn its heart into a hole
Smoke it out, take it down
Hang it from the highest tree
Beat it, beat it, beat it up
Let it never ever come for me
Go to it and shake it up
Listen up you dirty rat

Maybe I will let you live a little
Then shoot you through your head

Mirabai Songs text by Mirabai Rathor; translation by Robert Bly

It's True I Went To The Market
My friend, I went to the market and bought the Dark One.
You claim by night, I claim by day.
Actually I was beating a drum all the time I was buying him.
You say I gave too much; I say too little.
Actually, I put him on a scale before I bought him.
What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels.
Mirabai says: The Dark One is my husband now.
Be with me when I lie down; you promised me this in an earlier life.

All I Was Doing Was Breathing
Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes.
There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body.
All I was doing was being, and the Dancing Energy came by my house.
His face looks curiously like the moon, I saw it from the side, smiling.
My family says: "Don't ever see him again!" And they imply things in a low voice.
But my eyes have their own life; they laugh at rules, and know whose they are.
I believe I can bear on my shoulders whatever you want to say of me.
Mira says: Without the energy that lifts mountains, how am I to live?

Why Mira Can't Come Back To Her Old
The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira's body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings.
That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this.
Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day.
I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries.
I don't steal money, I don't hit anyone. What will you charge me with?
I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders;
and now you want me to climb on a jackass?
Try to be serious

Where did you go
Where did you go, Holy One, after you left my body?
Your flame jumped to the wick, and then you
disappeared and left the lamp alone.
You put the boat into the surf, and then walked
inland, leaving the boat in the ocean of parting.
Mira says: Tell me when you will come to meet me.

The Clouds
Clouds -
I watched as they ruptured,
ash black and pallid I saw mountainous clouds
split and spew rain
for two hours.
Everywhere water, plants and rainwater,
a riot of green on the earth.
My lover's gone off
to some foreign country,
sopping wet at our doorway
I watch the clouds rupture.
Mira says, nothing can harm him.
This passion has yet
to be slaked.

Don’t Go, Don’t Go
Don’t go, Don’t go. I touch your soles.
I am sold to you.
No one knows where to find the Bhakti path, show me where to go.
I would like my own body to turn into a heap of incense and sandlewood as you set a torch to it.
When I’ve fallen down to grey ashes, smear me on your shoulder and chest.
Mira says: You who lift the mountains, I have some light, I want to mingle it with yours.

About the Music

György Ligeti: from Piano Etude No. 15, White on White (1995)
White on White is an arrangement for two Ondes Martenot from solo piano etude #15 by György Ligeti. It is written in canon, and utilizes only the white keys of the piano.

The 18 etudes in this set are works of dazzling originality, and are considered milestones in contemporary music literature.

György Ligeti was born in 1923 to Hungarian Jewish parents. Coming of age during the war, much of the music a young composer might be interested in was officially banned, and Ligeti had to piece together his knowledge of new and recent music from diverse sources: an uncle abroad, foreign radio broadcasts. His works established him as a master of color and stillness on the one hand and quick-fire humor on the other. In his words, “In my music one finds neither that which one might call ‘scientific’ nor the ‘mathematical.’ But rather a unification of construction with poetic, emotional imagination.”

Morris Kliphuis & Lucky Fonz III: songs from The Secret Diary of Nora Plain (2017)
The Secret Diary of Nora Plain tells the intimate story of a girl who tries to lead her own life in a world that encroaches on her further and further — into her innermost thoughts and feelings. It’s a personal and heartbreaking narrative about relations between society, privacy, paranoia and eroticism.

Berlin-based, Dutch composer/instrumentalist Morris Kliphuis (born 1986) writes for ensembles, soloists and vocalists and is a virtuoso on the French horn. Kliphuis rose to fame as founding member of the award-winning trio Kapok, which mixed elements of punk, rock and free improvisation. Lucky Fonz III (aka Otto Wichers) is a noted Dutch singer-songwriter, who wrote the text for these songs.

Paul Metzger: Improvisation
Improvisations on Paul Metzger's 39-string homemade banjo, like the music of John Cage’s prepared piano, contain multitudes. Suspended between past and future, honoring the tradition while hijacking it, listening to its voice while reveling in its inarticulacies; this is how the thing sings. And the song, in the obsessive extensions of Metzger’s instruments, truly has no ending.

John Harbison: Mirabai Songs (1982)
Mirabai Songs are musical settings of six poems by Indian princess Mirabai Rathor, who lived during the sixteenth century (translated by Robert Bly). Says composer John Harbison: “Her answers involved the ecstatic, the devotional and the artistic, but her independence and resolve and her dancer’s vitality led my setting toward narrative and characterization, unusual territory for a song cycle.”

John Harbison’s catalog of almost 300 works is anchored by three operas, seven symphonies, twelve concerti, a ballet, six string quartets, numerous song cycles and chamber works, and a large body of sacred music. Harbison has received commissions from most of America’s premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As one of America’s most distinguished artistic figures, he is recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize.

Francesco Filidei: Love Story (2020)
Love Story is scored for 7 rolls of toilet paper, and attempts to say much about life with few resources. The work concentrates on how a heartbeat begets another heartbeat, and is passed on to new generations. Like his mentor Salvatore Sciarrino, Francesco Filidei tries “to imagine a music that has lost the sound element.”

Francesco Filidei is an Italian organist and composer. He has worked with many of the major European orchestras and has received numerous awards, including being named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He is Artistic Director of the Controtempo festival of contemporary music at Villa Medici in Rome. His operas have been performed throughout Europe, including the Opéra Comique in Paris.

Unsuk Chin: Gougalōn (2009/2011)
Gougalōn, titled after an Old High German word for “conjuring,” refers to Unsuk Chin’s memories of a troupe of entertainers she saw a number of times as a child in a suburb of Seoul. These amateur musicians and actors travelled from village to village in order to foist self-made medicines — which were ineffective at best — on the people. To lure the villagers, they put on a play with singing, dancing, and various stunts. This was all extremely amateurish and kitschy, yet it aroused incredible emotions among the spectators. The whole village was present at these happenings, a circumstance from which others also desired to profit: fortune-tellers, mountebanks, and traveling hawkers. This piece is about an imaginary folk music that is stylized, broken within itself, and only apparently primitive.

Unsuk Chin was born in 1961 in Seoul, South Korea. She studied with Sukhi Kang and György Ligeti and has lived in Berlin since 1988. Her music has been commissioned and performed by the world’s major orchestras and conductors. It is modern in language, but lyrical and non-doctrinaire in communicative power. She has received the Grawemeyer Award, Arnold Schoenberg Prize, and many others. Her first opera Alice in Wonderland premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in 2017.

Steve Martland: Remix (1986)
Remix is a jazzy and folkloric march based on a French Baroque composition for viola da gamba by Marin Marais. The original piece came to composer Steve Martland’s attention in the French film “Tous les matins du monde, and he gave it his patented unruly treatment.

Steve Martland was born in 1954 in Liverpool and studied composition in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen. His preoccupation with the function of the composer in society was reflected in his commitment to music education. He directed many composition projects in schools both at home and abroad and he ran Strike Out, his own annual composition course for school children. Martland rejected academic dogma in favour of a plurality of musical influences, both ancient and modern, serious and vernacular. He worked frequently with artists outside classical institutions — Dutch and American groups, freelance musicians and especially his own Steve Martland Band touring his music internationally.

About the Guest Artists

Paul Metzger, a self-taught musician, plays a heavily modified 39-string banjo in a tireless, often-isolated search for a musical style of his own. On the face of it, his instruments take on the look of tramp art, but his music is in the great maverick tradition of innovators like Harry Partch. His sonic vocabulary ranges from deeply satisfying and impulsive outer cosmos ragadelia to clangorous, rapidly punctuated percussive workouts. Metzger has been described as a virtuoso and a visionary whose live performances are vital, deeply visceral and simply breathtaking. Metzger has been profiled on NPR’s Weekend Edition and recorded for Amsterdam’s legendary VPRO radio and MN Original (PBS).

Ariadne Greif, praised for her “luminous, expressive voice,” “searing top notes,” and “dusky depths,” (NY Times), began her opera career as a ‘boy’ soprano in Los Angeles and with LA Children’s Chorus at the LA Opera, making an adult debut singing Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantefables with the American Symphony Orchestra.

Ariadne has premiered over a hundred new works and more than a dozen new operas, including, in 2021, We Need To Talk by Caroline Shaw and Anne Carson for Opera Philadelphia, and Table Manners, by Sheree Clement, released as a film. She created a twenty-composer commissioning project, called Dreams & Nightmares, subject of a forthcoming documentary called Only a Dream.

Ariadne has performed with William Kentridge in his production of Ursonate in performances presented by the Luxembourg Philharmonie, the Performa Festival in New York, and at Den Norske Opera as part of the Ultima Festival in Oslo.