Present Music to play at Lynden Sculpture Garden

Any concert by Present Music, Milwaukee s contemporary chamber-music ensemble, can be considered a work in progress pretty much right up to the performance date.

The group s June 23 concert, Sound and Sight, is no exception.

Artistic director Kevin Stalheim understands the magnitude of performing in the shadows of the sometimes massive residents of Milwaukee s Lynden Sculpture Garden.

It s a great opportunity, but the drawbacks of an outdoor concert can be scary as hell, Stalheim says.

A 40-acre blend of park, lake and woodland at 2145 W. Brown Deer Road, the sculpture garden is part of the former home of Milwaukee inventor and industrialist Harry Lynde Bradley and his wife Peg. It s also home to 50 monumental sculptures collected by the Bradleys.

The garden, open to the public, hosts classes and other events. The blend of nature and art provides the perfect backdrop for what may be the most unusual concert in Present Music s colorful season.

We did a concert there about five years ago featuring 99 percussionists that allowed performers and audience members to meander around the grounds, Stalheim says. Everyone thought it was really cool, and we always wanted to go back there.

This time I m creating an event a happening, I suppose that consists of various groups of musicians, composers and performers, he says.

Similar to its program held at the Milwaukee Public Museum earlier this year, Present Music will divide its audience into four groups, with each group proceeding from station to station in front of various sculptures to listen to the performances. Each performance will be repeated four times, once for each group.

Music specific to each sculpture

It s important for me to make each work an experience of sound and sight, which is why I titled the program that way, says Stalheim. There are reasons for being in front of a sculpture for more than just 10 seconds, and I picked pieces of music specific to each sculpture.

In fact, I am writing four pieces myself to go with various sculptures, he adds.

To accompany artist Clement Meadmore s massive 1970 work Double Up, Stalheim is developing a piece consisting entirely of ascending chords. The idea, he says, is for audience members eyes to follow the large, up-thrusting, twisted U-shaped steel installation to its top as the music ascends, creating a blend of sound and sight.

The composer plans on doing something similar with Charles Ginnever s 1976 sculpture Olympus.

I want to create chords that form solid blocks of sound that ascend as if you are climbing a mountain, Stalheim explains, in obvious reference to Mount Olympus, legendary home of the ancient Greek gods. I then want those chords to descend, as if you re falling off the mountain.

Other composers works will be paired in similar ways to sculptures in the garden.

Guest artists

The guest artists for Sound and Sight are unusual even by Present Music standards.

Projecto Arcomusical, a sextet based at Northern Illinois University, is devoted to the preservation and performance of Brazilian music. All six players perform on berimbaus, an Afro-Brazilian percussion instrument consisting of a long bow strung with a single steel string and a hollow gourd attached to serve as a resonator. The string often pulled from the inside of an automobile tire is struck with a wooden stick called a baqueta.

Both the ensemble and its music were inspired by the work of the late Brazilian musician Nan Vasconcelos, says founder Greg Byer on the group s website. Arcomusical likely will perform in front of several sculptures.

Milwaukee performance artist Brooke Thiele and a pair of fellow performers also will be on hand to enhance the proceedings.

Thiele who serves as film lecturer at UWM s Peck School of the Arts will be joined by Hannah White-Hamalian and Kymberly McDaniel to perform Take, Pause, Movement, a combination of animation, dance and performance art.

Members of Quasimondo Physical Theatre, a Milwaukee experimental theatre troupe, also will be part of the evening s activities.

I m not yet sure what they are going to do, Stalheim says. We may have them lead the audience groups to each station.

Challenges of the outdoors

The concert, which begins at 5 p.m., is being divided into two halves, with the more formal performances preceding a period during which the audience can wander at will through the garden and partake of the refreshments that will be part of the program.

Part of Stalheim s creation process is planning for the physical and logistical challenges of a free-form outdoor concert in such a massive space. He worries about heat, humidity and, of course, rain, which occurred during the group s prior performance at the sculpture garden.

High winds could be a problem, he adds. Some of what we re doing is improv, but there will still be a lot of music stands that could blow over.

The facility also does not have groomed trails for foot traffic, or the necessary parking for as many audience members as Present Music expects. Stalheim is asking ticketholders to park at the River Hills park-and-ride lot on Brown Deer Road just west of I-43, where shuttles will ferry them the short distance to the garden.

However, he thinks all the challenges of the performance will be well worth it when first-time visitors actually see the sculpture garden.

This is a real unknown Milwaukee gem, Stalheim says. I think everyone into the arts, visual or otherwise, should go there.