UK Alum's Performance Beckons Audiences to 'Remember Me'
Watch a promotional video for "Remember Me" above.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 6, 2017) — University of Kentucky music alumnus and current University of Michigan (U-M) percussion professor Michael Gould returns to campus with his multimedia opus “Remember Me, A lifetime drama in one hour,” which examines the composer’s experiences with loss, illness and recovery through music and artwork that explore outmoded equipment, materials and sounds. Gould will present “Remember Me” beginning 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7, in Room 153 of Holmes Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
The title of “Remember Me” is taken from the aria “Dido's Lament” from Henry Purcell's opera “Dido and Aeneas.” A work in 18 movements based on 16 poems by retired U-M Residential College English lecturer Ken Mikolowski and narrated by U-M drama professor Malcolm Tulip, “Remember Me” combines Gould's original music and Nadja Raszewski's choreography performed by her Berlin-based Tangente Dance Company.
“My interest was to translate the poems into sight and sound — using each as one would a melodic fragment or leitmotif,” Gould said. “As a drummer, I can create a composite pattern or groove from three to four separate rhythms all synchronized precisely that ultimately form a whole. I was interested in doing this with Ken’s poems by the use of composite layers mixed with the interplay of light that take the original words and intent of the poems but create a new or altered ‘groove.’”
A professor of music at U-M, Gould has received international recognition as a performer and scholar in the field of drumset, contemporary percussion performance and pedagogy. He has performed and given clinics all over the world. Gould, who holds a doctoral degree from UK, a master’s degree from University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is both a faculty member of the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department in the School of Music, Theater and Dance and the Residential College (College of Literature, Science and the Arts) at U-M.
Gould has released more than 100 educational percussion videos through www.playalongmusic.com. He has also composed and performed music for a wide range of ensembles and venues from the Münich Opera and Ballet to National Public Radio. He has had several one-of-a-kind collaborations with engineers, material scientists, painters, poets, athletes and business professionals. His book for the iPad, “The Drum Diaries,” is available worldwide via iTunes. He is also the music director for Tangente Company and director of the Center for World Performance Studies at U-M.
Holmes Hall is home UK’s Creative Arts Living Learning Program for students with a strong interest or major in the creative or performing arts — from dance, music and theatre to art studio, creative writing, design and arts administration. The residence hall houses solo and ensemble music practice rooms, a performance studio with projection capabilities for dance, music and theatre, an art education studio and a creative writing studio for a truly immersive living-learning program. First-year students residing at Holmes benefit from the support of peer mentors already engaged with the arts at UK. UK faculty teach connected courses that count toward the Arts and Creativity and/or Humanities requirements of the UK Core and organize programming customized for "creative types."
