SQUANDERED TREATS AND 26 LITTLE DEATHS
Carla Kihlstedt & Present Music: intO tHe WiLd!
Featuring Carla Kihlstedt’s 26 Little Deaths and work by Andy Akiho, Kamran Ince, and David Lang
Present Music is one of the nation’s leading ensembles specializing in the commissioning and performance of new music. Founded in 1982 and based in Milwaukee, Present Music has worked closely with many of the nation’s most exciting and important composers, and has firmly established one of the largest audiences for new music in the country.
Commissioned by Present Music, composer, violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, Carla Kihlstedt will present 26 Little Deaths, a remarkable song cycle inspired by Edward Gorey’s internationally beloved and morbidly humorous alphabet book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, or After the Outing.
In addition to performing Kihlstedt’s 26 Little Deaths and celebrating the Gorey Centennial, Present Music brings two most recently commissioned works to Big Ears Festival, Andy Akiho — a composer relatively new to the ensemble — and Present Music’s longest-running collaborator, Turkish-American Kamran Ince. Both share an adventurous spirit, an episodic flair, and an incredible ear for instrumental color, and a passionate approach to music-making. The Big Ears performance will open with a chestnut from the inimitable David Lang, a reworking of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.”.
Watch: “Intro to Present Music”
David Grubbs
David Grubbs — guitarist, writer, professor, and, of course, founding member of Gastr del Sol with Jim O’Rourke — is finally joining us at Big Ears this March. He performs solo as well as in Squanders with Kramer and Wendy Eisenberg, among perhaps other things as well. This interview in BOMB, with Big Ears 2009 alum C. Spencer Yeh, is over 10 years old but it’s a great one.
Read: “David Grubbs by C. Spencer Yeh”
Kramer
Celebrated as a collaborator, composer, producer and champion for some of the most boundary-pushing artists of his generation via his NYC-based label Shimmy-Disc, Kramer has played bass guitar with Ween, Butthole Surfers, Half Japanese, B.A.L.L., Bongwater, and numerous other bands. As a producer, it was there that he helped to create seminal recordings for artists as diverse as Daniel Johnston, Galaxie 500, Pussy Galore, Urge Overkill, Will Oldham, and LOW, to name but a small few. Don’t miss a live rendering of his Music for Pianos and Sunflowers and his performance with Squanderers.
Read: “Shimmy Shimmy Ya: An Interview with David Grubbs”
Wendy Eisenberg
Over the last five years or so bona-fide guitar slayer Wendy Eisenberg has been keeping listeners guessing. Nominally an improvising guitarist, they don’t recognize any musical limitations, perpetually finding ways to apply a deeply exploratory practice to a wide variety of contexts. In addition to their performance with their full band, they joins Grubbs and Kramer in Squanderers.
