March 27, 2002
Contact: Sherry Wallace, 309/556-3181

Program Scheduled for April 6
Symposium of Contemporary Music 2002
To Feature "Present Music"

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.--Present Music will be the featured guest ensemble at Illinois Wesleyan University’s Symposium of Contemporary Music April 6.

The symposium is free and open to the public. All events will be held in Presser Hall, 303 E. University Ave., Bloomington.

From 1-3 p.m. members of Present Music will offer master classes to IWU student musicians and at 3 p.m. in there will be a panel discussion on "Building Audiences for New Music." Participants on the panel will include Present Music’s Artistic Director and conductor Kevin Stalheim, the group’s pianist Phillip Bush (also a University of Michigan faculty member), Associate Professor of Composition and Theory and Director of the IWU School of Music Mario Pelusi and David Vayo, professor of composition and theory at IWU.

At 7:30 p.m. that evening in Westbrook Auditorium, Present Music will perform a concert of new music and also will perform two of Elaine Angelino’s compositions. Angelino is the winner of the second High School Composers Contest sponsored by IWU’s School of Music.

Established in 1954, the symposium promotes and encourages the performance of contemporary music and recognizes contemporary composers. Last year’s featured guest was William Bolcom, recipient of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for music.

Present Music, an ensemble ranging from six to 12 musicians, is one of the leading ensembles specializing in new music in the United States. Founded in 1982 by Stalheim, and based in Milwaukee, the ensemble has toured extensively throughout the United States, performing approximately 50 concerts per year for over 14,000 people.

The group has participated in several major international music festivals including the 1992 Interlink Festival of New American Music in Japan, the Bang on a Can Festival in New York, and most recently, with the Istanbul Symphony at the 1999 Istanbul International Music Festival.

Present Music’s annual performance schedule includes a subscription series in both Milwaukee and Madison and educational programs for elementary through college students.

The ensemble’s programs have been described as "crackling with wit and intelligence," "wildly varied," "fun," and "unpredictable." According to Stalheim, Present Music "It’s Beethoven with an electric guitar. It’s…thrilling and profound, classical music with a lot of other stuff thrown in to keep you on your toes."

The goals of the group are to build and expand the audience for the music of our time, support new music by commissioning, performing and recording music of living composers and perform new music with the highest artistic standards possible.

Present Music has received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Reader’s Digest/Meet the Composer Commissioning Program, as well as winning the ASCAP Adventuresome Programming award twice. The ensemble can be heard on seven compact disc recordings that include the composers Kamran Ince, Michael Torke, Daniel Lentz and Joseph Koykkar on the Argo, Albany, and Northeastern labels.