Classical music Q&A: What should newcomers and old-timers know about this year’s Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society concerts? What has changed and what has stayed the same? How do co-founders and co-artistic directors Stephanie Jutt and Jeffrey Sykes measure the success of a BDDS season? Part 2 of 2.

By Jacob Stockinger

Some people might refer to it as one of the highlights of the summer music season in Madison.

The Ear prefers to think of it as a high point of the entire season in Madison. He waits all fall, winter and spring to find out the next theme, the next repertoire, the next performers.

I am talking about this Friday night when the Madison-based chamber music group the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society will open “23 Skiddoo,” its new six-concert, three-weekend and three-venue season at 7:30 p.m. in The Playhouse at the Overture Center. (Below is the poster for the 23rd annual season.)

And this summer series shows no sign of disappointing.

Much of the BDDS concert format or formula will remain the same: familiar classics of the repertoire mixed in with rarely heard artists and works, including commissions and a world or local premiere; familiar local performers mixed in with imported top-flight imported musicians; and the signature atmosphere that combines chatty levity with serious first-rate music-making.

Am I excited? You bet! And should you be too.

Some of my favorites are the piano trios, quartets and quintets performed by the San Francisco Trio. They will be playing here again, including one trio by Dmitri Shostakovich and another by Antonin Dvorak.

Other favorites of The Ear are the symphonies by Franz Joseph Haydn and the piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the long-neglected chamber music reductions intended to be performed as “house music” in private homes. This summer includes one of the most popular Mozart piano concertos –- again.

I love the string works that BDDS plays – and this summer I will get to hear Claude Debussy’s phenomenal Violin Sonata, the last work he composed, and Maurice Ravel’s unusual Sonata for Violin and Cello.

I especially love piano music: the more, the better. This summer I will get to hear two of the best: Jeffrey Sykes, who possesses the chameleon-like gift of Richard Goode in that he can sound absolutely natural and at home in just about any musical style, from Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern. But this summer is a twofer. Sykes will also perform two-piano pieces by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Witold Lutoslawski and Maurice Ravel with the celebrated University of Wisconsin-Madison virtuoso Christopher “Kit” Taylor.

Then there is the fabulous new clarinetist,  Alan Kay, of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, performing the sublime Clarinet Trio by Johannes Brahms.

You can hear all that plus a lot more, including a generous serving of South American music — tangos by Astor Piazzolla and songs by Carlos Guastavino — that flutist Stephanie Jutt brought back from her sabbatical year in Argentina.

But you can check out the programs for yourself. I challenge you to find one that just doesn’t interest and impress you.

Here is a link to the compete new season:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/classical-music-bach-dancing-and-dynamite-society-announces-its-23rd-season-23-skiddoo-this-june-with-an-emphasis-on-latin-american-chamber-music-a-midwest-premiere-by-american-co/

You might recall that The Ear has been so impressed with consistent high quality of the BDDS programs and performances that he named the group Musician of the Year for 2012. Here is a link to that posting:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/classical-music-madisons-bach-dancing-and-dynamite-society-is-musician-of-the-year-for-2012/

And here is a link to the BDDS website with full details about the dates, time, venues, programs and performers’ bios.

http://bachdancinganddynamite.org

The co-founders and co-artistic directors flutist Stephanie Jutt and pianist Jeffrey Sykes, agreed to an email Q&A that has run in two parts.

The first part ran yesterday. Here is a link to Part 1:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/classical-music-qa-how-do-you-make-chamber-music-both-fun-and-fine-co-directors-stephanie-jutt-and-jeffrey-sykes-discuss-this-summers-23rd-annual-three-weekend-three-venue-season-of-t/

Here is Part 2:

What would you like young people and newcomers to know about BDDS?

SJ: This is the perfect concert to go to if you haven’t been to a concert since grade school. It’s a perfect concert to take a date to – he’ll think you’re smart and artistic. She’ll think you’re thoughtful and edgy. The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society is perfect for novices and connoisseurs alike.

JS: We are VERY user-friendly. We know that classical music concerts, and chamber music concerts in particular, can sometimes feel as if they are designed for the “initiated.”

We promise to give you an experience that makes great music FUN to listen to, not a chore, and certainly not like listening to a sermon at church. Whether you’ve been to a thousand chamber music concerts or none, you are welcome at our concerts, and we have something for you. (Below top, playful playing card uniforms are worn for a “Jokers Are Wild” program.)

What would you like fans and longtime audience members to know?

 JS: We are so inspired by your loyalty, your generosity, your roll-up-your-sleeves offers to help in hundreds of ways, big and small. We get many of our best ideas from our audience, so keep talking to us, because we are listening! If I could ask a favor, please bring a friend or two to a BDDS concert – someone that hasn’t been before. That’s the way we build our audience, one listener at a time.

SJ: We love you and we wouldn’t be here without your incredible enthusiasm and generosity! But if we could ask you a favor: bring someone new to a concert, someone who has never been to hear BDDS — or chamber music — before. Our very best advertising has always been word-of-mouth.

Do you any favorite repertoire or programs? What are the virtues of each of the three different venues, and which one is the most popular venue with public? How do you measure the success of a season?

SJ: Oh dear – my favorite concert always is the one I’m currently playing, and our concerts are on such a level that I’m captivated by virtually everything. I don’t mean to gush, but since I’m the flutist, I’m not in all the pieces, so I get to watch and listen as some of them get put together.

It’s thrilling to watch the development of ideas and the intense communication between the artists, which the audience can truly appreciate in the small venues in which we perform. At Taliesin, the audience can literally read the notes on the page, and sometimes they do! We love that aspect of our performances, and it’s something our audiences only experience at BDDS.

JS: I love all our programs, so it’s hard to pick a favorite. During the process of putting together the season, any music we don’t like almost always gets weeded out 🙂

As for what I’m actually playing, again I’m happy about everything I’m playing—but I suppose if pressed, I’ll say that I’m especially looking forward to playing two-piano music with Kit Taylor again. Ravel’s “La valse” and Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances”—they are such juicy masterpieces, both originally written for two pianos, and really, really fun to play.

I’m also very self-indulgently looking forward to playing the Mozart concerto in Week Two. We pianists are so lucky—27 concertos by Mozart, and 19 of them absolute masterpieces. I hope to play one every year until I make my way through all of them.

I’m also very much looking forward to the Dvorak Piano Trio in F minor in Week Three. (Editor’s note: You can hear the Boston Trio play the first movement of the Dvorak Trio in F minor at the bottom in a YouTube video.) I’ve never played it before, and I love it so much. It’s music of such incredible depth and emotional honesty. (Below is the San Francisco Piano Trio with pianist Jeffrey Sykes, violinist Axel Strauss and cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau.)

Venues:

They are all great. Each has its pluses and minuses. I’d suggest you try them all on for size! (Below top is The Playhouse at the Overture Center; below middle is the Stoughton Opera House; and below bottom is the Hillside Theater at famed architect’s Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green.)

Measuring the success of a season.

1. Well, one measure is certainly financial—this is the “butts in seats” measure. We want a butt in every seat! Aside from meaning we’ve had great ticket sales, the energy of a full house is incredibly exciting.

2. Another measure of success is whether the season as a whole, and the concert programs individually, have a successful narrative arc. I think (hope) they do (will). Of course, you never really know until you actually do the programs…

3. Yet another measure of success is fairly internal—how the chemistry works for these artists playing these pieces together. It’s always a risk mixing musicians and pieces. We’ve had a pretty good success rate with this, but we do make mistakes now and again. We’re all pros, and we will pull it out for performance whatever has happened in rehearsal, but there is something fundamentally satisfying about great chemistry in the rehearsal process.

4. And yet another measure of success is the effect everything has on the audience. We all love a thunderous, spontaneous standing ovation. But even more than that, I love it when a piece ends and is followed by a very pregnant silence in the audience, like you’re so caught up in the moment that you forget to breathe. THAT is a sure sign of success. I think we have possibilities for a couple of these this season.

What else would you to say or add?

SJ: We have a wonderful FREE children’s concert on Saturday morning, June 14, at 11 a.m. in The Playhouse of the Overture Center. It is called, “Getta Move On, Kids!” and is sponsored by CUNA Mutual, and that is getting a large and enthusiastic audience. It is friendly for children of all ages -– so please join us!

Hightail it to the Overture box office or our BDDS website and buy a season ticket. Student tickets are only $5 and we’d love to see more music loving students in our audience. BDDS comes only once a year and it means to me that summer’s here!

JS: Thank YOU, Jake, for being such a loyal fan and supporter of BDDS!

 

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Posted in Classical music
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