ABOUT PRESENT MUSIC
Present Music gave its first concert in the Turner Hall Ballroom last September. Next season, Milwaukee's new-music ensemble will play four of its six concerts in the vintage, fire-damaged, partially restored downtown space.

"We've looked forever for the right acoustics and atmosphere and the right location at a price we can afford," said Kevin Stalheim, Present Music's founding artistic director. "Right away last fall, I thought maybe this is it."

Turner Hall has a bar and, of course, a dance floor, perfect for Present Music's post-concert parties - and sometimes for the concerts themselves. Belly dancers have been known to cavort in the aisles at Present Music concerts.

Here is the lineup for 2009-'10:

• 7:30 p.m. May 8, Turner Hall: Guest, Amir ElSaffar.

"Amir is a really good jazz trumpeter, and he was doing well playing jazz in New York," Stalheim said. "Then, in 2002, he put his career on hold and went to Iraq to study Iraqi classical singing. It's called maqam. Now he has a jazz band and an Iraqi classical trio.

Present Music will play "Istanthenople," by Turkish-American composer Kamran Ince.

• 6 and 9 p.m. June 18, 2010, The Wherehouse, 818 S. Water St. Present Music and friends, including dancer-choreographer-cabaret artist Kelly Anderson, composer Chris Burns, choreographer-dancer Luc Vanier and composer-diva duYun, will head to the nightclub for the season finale.

ABOUT PRESENT MUSIC
At its heart, Present Music is an ensemble of musicians. Six times a year, Artistic Director Kevin Stalheim develops a program to be performed in Milwaukee, and at times in Madison, by the Present Music ensemble, which ranges from a core group of seven musicians to an ensemble of twenty. The Ensemble expands and contracts to allow for a diversity of instrumental combinations and the requirements of each program. The artists that make up Present Music engage the audience in imaginative and provocative concert experiences that have been described as "crackling with wit and intelligence," "wildly varied," "fun," and "unpredictable."