Classical music: This weekend boasts a wealth of 19th, 20th and 21st century chamber music and vocal concerts — all of them FREE.

By Jacob Stockinger

This weekend offers a lot of great music, with very varied programs. Plus, all of them are FREE.

But there just aren’t enough days in the week to write separate posting for each of them. So instead, here is a round-up:

FRIDAY, MARCH 1

From 12:15 to 1 p.m. the weekly FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, will feature pianists Vladislava Henderson and Ludmila Syabrenko in piano duets in an unspecified program. (Below is a YouTube video of them playing Schubert‘s beautiful Fantasy in F Minor.)

At 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, University of Wisconsin cellist Parry Karp (below), who also plays with the Pro Arte String Quartet, will perform a FREE recital on the Faculty Concert Series with two of his favorite pianist: long-time collaborator and UW-Madison graduate who now teaches at the UW-Oshkosh Eli Kalman; and his mother Frances Karp.

The program features the Sonata in F Major (1913) by Giacomo Orefice with Kalman; British composer Rebecca Clarke’s Rhapsody (1923) with Frances Karp; and a cello transcription of Cesar Franck’s popular Violin Sonata with Kalman.

On the coming SUNDAY, the program — with a cello transcription of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s Horn Sonata substituted for Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata — will also be repeated and broadcast live statewide on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen” from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Gallery III (below) of the  UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2

At noon in Grace Episcopal Church, in downtown Madison on the Capitol Square, a FREE program by Grace Presents will offer a program on art songs that also features songs and the “Liebeslieder” Waltzes of Johannes Brahms for vocal quartet and two pianists. (The church’s exterior is below top; the beautiful and acoustically superior interior is below bottom.)

The program, the order of which is yet to be determined, includes:

Mezzo-soprano Kathy Otterson (below) will sing Reynaldo Hahn’s “To Chloris” and Gabriel Faure‘s “Chanson d’Amour.”

Baritone John Bohman (below) will sing Franz Schubert‘s “Du bist die Ruh” and Robert Schumann’s “Intermezzo” from “Liederkreis” (Song Cycle).  

Soprano Rachel Eve Holmes (below) will sing Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Zingara” and Donoudy’s “O del mio amato ben.”

Tenor Jesse Hoffmeister (below) will sing Norman Dello Joio‘s “There is a lady sweet and kind,” and Ned Rorem’s “The Lordly Hudson.”

The vocal quartet of Otterson (below top), Holmes, Hoffmeister and Bohman along with pianists Kirstin Ihde (below top) and Michael Roemer (below bottom) with perform all 18 of Brahm’s “Liebeslieder” Waltzes, Op. 52.

All the singers and pianists have extensive educational and performing experience in the Madison area.

On Saturday at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the Wingra Woodwind Quintet (below) will offer a FREE concert. The group will perform Quintet No. 2 in E flat Major by Peter Müller; “Le Tombeau de Couperin” by Maurice Ravel, joined by UW pianist Martha Fischer; Suite, Op. 57, by Charles Lefebvre; and Dixtuor, Op. 14 by Georges Enesco.

The Wingra will be joined by a student woodwind quintet including flutist Erin Murphy, English hornist Allison Maher, clarinetist Paul Yu, bassoonist Brian Ellingboe and hornist Sarah Gillespie.

SUNDAY, MARCH 3

12:30-2 p.m.: “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen”: see above for Friday’s listing for cellist Parry Karp.

At 3:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall (with a post-concert reception in Strelow Lounge), there will be a FREE public recital by the winners of the 7th Annual Duo Competition for Woodwinds and Piano, sponsored by former UW-Madison Chancellor and chemistry professor Irving Shain (below) – an avid classical music fan (and a former devoted flutist) who also started the Beethoven Piano Sonata Competition some 30 years ago.

Here are the winning and performers and programs: Elizabeth Lieffort, flute, and Sara Giusti, piano, performing Sonata for Flute and Piano, op. 14, by Robert Muczynski; Introduction and Variations on “Trockne Blumen,” Op. 160, D. 802 by Franz Schubert; and Danielle Breisach, flute, and Yana Groves, piano, playing the Sonata for Flute and Piano, op. 14 by Robert Muczynski (different movements); Sonatine for Flute and Piano by Henri Dutilleux; Sonata for Flute and Pianoforte by Erwin Schulhoff, movements I and IV. Honorable mention team of Sergio Acosta, bassoon, and Hazim Suhadi, piano.

Then at 7:30 p.m. Mills Hall, there is a FREE concert by the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble (below top) under UW composer Laura Schwendinger (below bottom).

The program of contemporary and new music, entitled “Heartstrings,” will feature works by Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, Ross Bauer, George Perle and Robert Dick.

Performers include Dan Jacobs, Yosuke Komura, George Rochberg, Roxana Pavel, Erin Murphy, Sergio Acosta and Maxfield Wollam-Fisher.

 

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Posted in Classical music
Tags: Capitol Square, Chamber music, contemporary music, Franz Schubert, Giacomo Orefice, Horn Sonata, Irving Shain, Jacob Stockinger, Jesse Hoffmeister, Laura Schwendinger, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Norman Dello Joio, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, YouTube