The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Third Coast Percussion offers a FREE concert of new music tonight and a FREE master class on Thursday at the University of Wisconsin. Also, settings by American composers of poems by American poet Emily Dickinson songs will be featured at the FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society.

ALERT: On this Friday from 12:15 to 1 p.m., the FREE Friday Noon Musicale in the Landmark Auditorium of the historic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, soprano Julia Foster and pianist Susan Gaeddert will perform songs by Francesco Santoliquido and Francis Poulenc, plus settings of poems by the great American poet Emily Dickinson (below, in a photograph) by various American composers (Ernst Bacon, Daniel Crozier, John Duke, Henry Mollicone and Andre Previn).

By Jacob Stockinger

Tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, the acclaimed group Third Coast Percussion (below, in a photo of Saveria Truglia) will perform a program of modern and contemporary percussion music.

The program includes: “Fractalia” by Owen Clayton Condon (at bottom in a YouTube video); “Mallet Quartet” by Steve Reich; “Third Construction” by John Cage; and “Resounding Earth” (commissioned work) by Augusta Read Thomas (below), former composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Then on Thursday, from 12:15 to 2:15 p.m. in Room 1321 of the George Mosse Humanities Building, the percussion ensemble will give a public master class.

Hailed by The New Yorker magazine as “vibrant” and “superb,” Third Coast Percussion explores and expands the extraordinary sonic possibilities of the percussion repertoire, delivering exciting performances for audiences of all kinds.

Since its formation in 2005, Third Coast Percussion has gained national attention with concerts and recordings that meld the energy of rock music with the precision and nuance of classical chamber works. Third Coast Percussion is the Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Notre Dame.

For more information about Third Coast Percussion, visit the group’s website:

http://www.thirdcoastpercussion.com

You can also read the preview blog post by Kathy Esposito on the UW School of Music’s terrific new blog “Fanfare:

http://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/third_coast/