The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Let us now praise UW-Madison oboist Marc Fink – and show up to say good-bye and thank you to him by attending a terrifically varied FREE concert by him and his colleague friends on Sunday afternoon.

By Jacob Stockinger

It would be hard to name a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music who has served his students and his art better than oboist Marc Fink (below).

Fink has been on the faculty for 40 years. His students sit in principal chairs of orchestras and chamber music groups, in studios and classrooms, all around the country and the world. And talk about melding clarity with beautiful tone: Just listen to the recent YouTube video at the bottom of Fink rehearsing Mozart’s gorgeous Oboe Concerto with the UW Chamber Orchestra under James Smith.

Marc Fink, who is also a member of the Wingra Woodwind Quintet and the principal oboist of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, has had an international career, and has the CDs of Russian music he discovered to show it.

All the more reason, then, to celebrate Marc Fink’s retirement. He has surely earned it.

On this coming Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. in Mills Hall, Fink will give his last faculty recital – admission is, as always, FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC — with friends and colleagues. We should all show up en masse and pack Mills Hall.

After the concert – called “A Few of My Favorite Things” — there is a special retirement dinner in Marc Fink’s honor. What a terrific combination to go out on, no?

Here is a link to an earlier post I did about Fink’s retirement and post-retirement plans, and his local “farewell” tour that included a chemistry lab (below) to show his support for linking the arts and sciences:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/classical-music-oboist-marc-fink-retires-after-40-years-of-teaching-at-the-university-of-wisconsin-madison-and-announces-his-local-farewell-tour-this-spring/

Here is the appealing program for Sunday’s concert: “Pan” (from Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Op. 49) by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976); arias by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) including “Ich Habe Genug” (from Cantata 82) and “Sich üben im Lieben” (from Cantata  202) with baritone Paul Rowe; soprano Mimmi Fulmer; Suzanne Beia, violin; Alice Bartsch, violin; Katrin Talbot, viola; Parry Karp, violoncello; and Bruce Bengtson, organ.

Also included on the program are the Quartet in F, KV 370 (368b) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) with Suzanne Beia, violin; Katrin Talbot, viola; and Parry Karp, violoncello; “Variations on the theme ‘Là ci darem la mano’ by  Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)  from Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni”) with Andrea Gross Hixon, oboe; Kostas Tiliakos, English horn.

But the concert still isn’t over: Add in “Three Folksongs from the County of Csík” by Bela Bartok (1881-1945), arranged by Tibor Szeszler; Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1962) by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963); and the “Romance” from the “Snowstorm Suite” Gyorgy Sviridov (1915-1998), arranged for oboe and piano by Victor Gorodinsky, with Todd Welbourne, piano.

The Ear loves it all, but especially the Bach, the Mozart, the Bartok and the Poulenc.

Gee, do you think this is a man and a musician who loves to perform and to share his art?

The audience is invited to a reception honoring Marc Fink in his retirement immediately following the recital in the Mills Hall lobby.

And don’t forget to leave your tributes to Marc Fink in the COMMENTS section of this blog.

The Ear suspects there are a lot of stories and a lot of affection for this world-class musician as performer and teacher.

And The Ear wants to hear about all of it.