The subject header is the billing of an extraordinary Present Music
concert I heard in Milwaukee last evening in an even more extraordinary
venue, the sensational new Windhover Reception Hall of the Milwaukee Art
Museum's Calatrava addition (Take a look at the 16 images of the cover
feature of the March 2002 Architectural Record, (http://www.archrecord.com)
which also features Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
and, if you can, get the magazine, which does vastly more justice to both
than the Web excerpts.) The program was nearly all-Finnish, and three
different groups performed.

The Milwaukee Children's Choir, directed by Emily Crocker, sang
Aulis Sallinen's Winter Was Hard (which ends with the sadly droll line,
"Saturday night could only be celebrated every other Saturday), and which
was followed by a brief Estonian piece by Tuur [Tueuer], Architechtonics
II (1986) for clarinet, cello and piano, and two songs from Sallonen's
Songs from the Sea.  Beautiful music beautifully performed.  Some modal
harmony in the Sallonen, which always goes down well with me.  Baker's
says Sallinen sometimes uses "euphoneous dissonance." Can anyone explain
what that might be? This is the first time I've heard any of his music,
though I see that there are some recordings of his larger works, on BIS.
Can anyone offer some recommendations? Milwaukee Choral Artists, a women's
choir led by Sharon Hansen, then sang Rautavaara's Marjatta matala neiti
(Marjatta the Lowly Maiden) with narrator (regrettably miked) and flute:
a longish narrative song in Finnish except for the narration.  If I had
ignored the translation provided I would be in a better position to comment
on the music; as it is, I would gladly hear it again with my attention
shifted more to it.

Present Music (Kevin Stalheim, Artistic Director) is a small chamber group
which has been very successful in attracting a substantial local audience
for contemporary music.  There was a nearly full house for this concert,
which means several hundred.  (By comparison, when I was in Boston during
the 1980's I regularly attended concerts of the Boston Musica Viva, in
Sanders Auditorium at Harvard and at Longy School of Music.  Except for one
free concert of music by George Crumb, that group never attracted more than
a few dozen people for contemporary music in that period.  I've lost touch
since.) Present Music has seven recordings to its credit (including some
of the music of Kamran Ince, a Turkish-American composer whose Fest for
Chamber Ensemble and Orchestra was premiered by the Milwaukee Symphony).
John Adams has conducted them in his works.  They perform in various venues
including, for several years, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and those two
institutions have grown together.  Some of Present Music's support includes
the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wisconsin Arts Board, Milwaukee's
United Performing Arts Fund (private) and various corporations.  Several
donations made extra rehearsals for last night's concert possible.

Aside from the choral works mentioned, last evening's concert featured
the North American premiere of Kimmo Hakola's Arara Zagara, and the world
premiere of Hakola's Chamber Concerto, commissioned for Present Music.
Hakola (b.  1958) studied with Rautavaara but his music is quite different,
judging by what I have heard of each so far.  Arara [joy] was originally
for three accordians and was recently revised for an ensemble consisting
of a string quintet, flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, piano and percussion.
It sounded jazzy at first, then Mideastern.  (Rehearsals overheard from the
adjoining museum space showed increasing grasp of the rhythms.) The Chamber
Concerto, for the same instrumentation, is in five movements: Furioso;
Tempestoso; Amoroso; Forza.  Con Fuoco; Misterioso.  As these headings
suggest, the work is energetic, though perhaps not quite as much as one
might think, because the lines and instrumental taxtures are clear.  The
Amoroso movement, with a prominent trumpet line, is long, slow, and
especially beautiful.  I suspect the work might have been written to frame
this section.  The finale is misleadingly titled: the composer's notes,
which call it celebratory (even in the face of grief) give a much better
idea of what it sounds like.  This is a work I earnestly hope to hear
recorded.  And Hakola is a composer I very much want to hear more of.

A word about the acoustics of the hall, since we have been discussing
halls here lately.  It is a bear to rehearse in, because it is much too
live.  However, with an audience of several hundred to absorb the extra
sound, it works fine, both for voices and instruments.  (I've never heard
a clarinet and oboe sound so much like a saxophone, though!)

Jim Tobin