The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Here’s bad news — There will be NO string orchestra this season to replace the University of Wisconsin-Madison Chamber Orchestra this year – or maybe next or maybe ever. | September 3, 2014
By Jacob Stockinger
Some bad news reached The Ear yesterday, on the first day of classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The following is an official announcement from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
It comes from the administration via Professor James Smith (below), who heads the program in orchestral conducting.
Writes Barbara Mahling: “I have some disappointing and sad news from Jim Smith. There are not enough string players for this new string orchestra, not enough violas or basses to make it work.”
“It is currently listed on the timetable, so that will need to be changed. It will not exist either term. We can hope for next year.
“Thanks,
“Barb Mahling
UW-Madison School of Music”
You may recall that a string orchestra seemed to be a temporary solution to the unexpected dissolution of the UW Chamber Orchestra (below, in 2012, and at bottom on YouTube in the opening of the Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.)
The UW Symphony Orchestra (below top, with student conductor Kyle Knox on the podium) will continue to exist and will give its first performance on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 28, at 2 p.m. in Mills Hall The program features UW visiting voice professor, soprano Elizabeth Hagedorn, from Vienna, (below bottom) in Gustav Mahler’s Rückert Songs. The orchestra will also perform the Symphony No. 1 “Spring” by Robert Schumann.
Here is a link to the UW School of Music (SOM) Calendar of Events:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/
And here are two links to background stories about the UW Chamber Orchestra and the string orchestra that was supposed to replace it and do some impressive repertoire, including Mahler’s orchestra version of the famous “Death and the Maiden” string quartet by Franz Schubert as well as intriguing works by Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok.
The Ear finds that the announcement leaves him with some important and disturbing questions.
What is the solution to the problem? More scholarships to attract more talented students, as one source has said.
How will the lack of some smaller ensemble – either a chamber orchestra or a string orchestra – means for the prestige and national ranking of the UW School of Music?
How will the move affect recruiting of new players in strings and other areas?
Will the UW Symphony Orchestra end up doing double duty for the campus and community UW Choral Union (below), which usually alternates between the UW Symphony Orchestra and the UW Chamber Orchestra, depending on the work they are singing? (Below is a photo of the UW Choral Union and the UW Symphony Orchestra performing the “Missa Solemnis” by Ludwig van Beethoven in 2010.)
What small orchestral group will perform smaller-scale orchestral works, either by itself or in collaboration with others?
And does the concluding phrase “We can hope for next year” mean that the chamber orchestra is dissolved forever? That the best we can hope for is another chance at an all-string orchestra?
No doubt details will emerge in the coming days and months.
But it is all too bad.
What do you think of the decision?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Arts, basses, Beethoven, chamber orchestra, choral music, Classical music, conductor, Death and the Maiden, Elizabeth Hagedorn, Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, Jacob Stockinger, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Missa Solemnis, Music, Orchestra, Rückert-Lieder, Robert Schumann, Ruckert songs, soprano, String quartet, strings, symphony orchestra, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Chamber Orchestra, UW Choral Union, UW Symphony Orchestra, Vienna, Viola, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Respondents above are plenty insider-savvy! UW-Madison did indeed de-emphasize MusicEd in favor of a higher-profile performance/conservatory model and–I think–rested on its “flagship” laurels, confident that its studio faculty (even as its average age seems to be increasing) would continue to be a prestigious “draw.” Forgetting about violas and Basses for a moment, it’s worth considering the recent decline (student numbers) in several of its instrumental studios–horn, bassoon, and so on. Many music schools in our state and elsewhere are feeling this pinch a bit, but UW perhaps thought themselves immune? (Also, we could arguably place the roots of this shift in direction well in advance of John Schaffer’s years as Director, going back even to John Stevens’ leadership in the 1990s.)
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Comment by Sarah Sifferte — September 3, 2014 @ 8:19 pm
If the year is short of viola’s and bass then hire them in from the community for the time being until student level is where it needs to be. And yeah let’s start them out young with the music. Too many schools are cutting music programing due to budget cuts. But don’t cut the sports….hey parents…your kids can’t get a confusion playing a string instrument. When budget cuts happen other organizations in the community need to take over that role. Do people not understand where most of the music in the movies we love comes from? Classical? Perhaps?
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Comment by Deborah B — September 3, 2014 @ 7:05 pm
Sad. I doubt there’s any one or even just a few causes. I could make a long list by myself, and probably most of your readers could expand on it. Perhaps the bottom line is that music in American culture has become an entertainment industry commodity. Mass-produced and derivative music is all most people grow up with, all they’ve ever known. Why should they aspire to something they’ve never encountered?
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Comment by Susan Fiore — September 3, 2014 @ 5:52 pm
… “short of violas and basses…” I believe was the reason given. Sally Chisholm is busier than three beavers, look at her calendar. How much time does she spend at teaching? How much time is actually required of her to spend with students? And, what does the Artist-in-Residence status afford Ms. Chosholm and her colleagues in the Quartet? A LOT less teaching responsibilities, I would suspect.So much for the Violas.
Richard Davis, the lone African-American on the entire UW Music faculty, is in his middle 80’s. He will NOT retire until there is another black person to replace him on the faculty. He WAS quite the draw when he first started at UW, in my last two years there, 35 years ago… whoa. Then, people found out he was “difficult” for both the students and the faculty to work with. His student load is miniscule compared to his long performance career.Yet, this is the paradigm that the School professes to want to embrace, world-class Players as teachers and performers. Less than ideal for a student.
Not enough violas, what a pathetic cry for help. An entire school reduced to the same predicament as trying to start a semi-pro string quartet.
Not enough basses, with an aged, fading star for a bass instructor. The School had a chance to hire an Afro-American when the Jazz Studies Asst. Professorship became available. They hired a very skilled, very personable, white German/Canadian pianist. And so it goes, as Vonnegut would have said…
MBB
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Comment by 88melter — September 3, 2014 @ 11:22 am
Promotion is NOT the issue. Ticket prices are NOT the issue. The UW-School of Music is the issue. They have gotten farther and farther into their new paradigm, begun under the directorship of Prof. John Schaffer, of producing Performers, not music teachers.
As we all know, aspiring to be a performer is such a long-shot, life-long crapshoot, that most people who want to be orchestral professionals STILL want a school with a long track record of placing their graduates in orchestras. UW is NOT such a school, yet, and may never be.
The UW S of M has recently undergone another spate of faculty changes: people do retire, die and move, of course.
When the Madison campus concentrated on producing teachers with strong instrumental and/or vocal performance skills, they had more students in ALL the programs. Now, as the Arts are increasingly being de-monetized, and yet the cost of a BM degree, to say nothing of graduate study, has skyrocketed, the UW Music School has insufficient prestige and a stiff price tag. Not an attractive combination.
On a happier note, the Jazz Studies degree has been revived. On a less-than-happy note, The Jazz Ensemble STILL does not qualify to fulfill the ensemble requirement. Time marches on, but what happens is largely under the control of an intransigent, idealistic, and expensive school leadership. Who wants to go to a school where the faculty have a hard time seeing the stark realities the students must face? I am a graduate of that school, for the record.
MBB
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Comment by 88melter — September 3, 2014 @ 10:19 am
1) Teach kids to play and appreciate classical music at an early age. Currently it’s only sports that’s pushed. Probably why there’s so few strings students and so many drunks at the football games.
2) Offer discounted tickets to local classical performances for poor people. This won’t solve low strings turnout in the short-run; but in the long run it could broaden classical performance appeal to all of society and create more classical musicians.
3) Scholarships and better UW promotion of music programs/events.
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Comment by John Pass — September 3, 2014 @ 9:38 am