The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: As the semester ends, choral music concerts -– most of them FREE -– stack up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here is a summary for this week and next.

By Jacob Stockinger

The end of the semester is approaching, and the situation is once again typical.

The choral concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music are starting to stack up the same way that singers walk on stage and start filling up risers.

Every semester, it seems, the choral music performances get backed up and squeezed into the last few weekends of the semester.

To help you fill in your calendars and datebooks, here is a summary of the major groups and concerts.

THIS FRIDAY

The UW Madrigal Singers and Chorale will both give FREE concerts at 7:30 p.m. in Luther Memorial Church (below), 1021 University Ave.

Bruce Gladstone (below) will conduct the groups.

Here are some notes from the UW-Madison School of Music website and calendar:

“With a Merry Noise” features sacred music from 20th-century England.”

Here are the programs:

Chorale

“Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem” (1910) by Charles Villiers Stanford (below top, 1852-1924)

“O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem” (1941) by Herbert Howells (below bottom, 1892-1983)

Madrigal Singers

“The Twelve” (1965) by William Walton (below, 1902-1983)

INTERMISSION

Combined Ensemble

“Pilgrim’s Journey” (1962) by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) (A cantata adapted from Vaughan Williams’ opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (1951) based on the allegory by John Bunyan.]

With UW-Madison faculty members John Chappell Stowe, organ; Bruce Gladstone, conductor.

Soloists for Pilgrim’s Journey are: Sara Guttenberg, soprano; Josh Sanders, tenor; and Paul Rowe, baritone.

NOTES FROM THE UW SCHOOL OF MUSIC

England experienced an oft-called musical renaissance in the last half of the 19th century. Composers like Hubert Parry (below), Charles Stanford and others at the Royal College of Music sought to raise the standard of composition and find a true “English voice.”

The works on this concert, though stylistically varied, display a characteristic “Englishness,” and offer a look at four very important composers who not only helped change the face of music in Great Britain, but who also wrote sublime and glorious works.

The three shorter works were all written as church anthems. Vaughan Williams’ “Pilgrim’s Journey” started life as an opera and was adapted into its present cantata format for performance as a non-staged work.

THIS SUNDAY

On Sunday night, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Concert Choir (below bottom) will present a FREE concert, under director Beverly Taylor (below top), called the “Style Show.”

It features works of different periods from the Renaissance to the present and showing where they overlap and imitate each other.

The composers include Orlando Gibbons, Robert Pearsall, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gyorgy Orban and John Harbison (represented by his jazz arrangements). Featured are serious and happy motets, several extended works, folk songs and close harmony.

NEXT WEEK

On Friday, Nov. 21, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall the University Chorus and the UW Women’s Chorus will give a FREE concert.

Anna Volodarskaya and Sarah Guttenberg will conduct.

Here is the program:

Three Madrigals                          Emma Lou Diemer (below)

Praise His Holy Name                  Keith Hampton

Ruhetal                                            Felix Mendelssohn

Exsultate justi in Domino            Ludovico da Daviana

UW CHORAL UNION AND UW SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

On Saturday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall and Sunday, Nov. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Choral Union (made up of campus and community singers) and the UW Symphony will perform under the baton of Beverly Taylor (all seen below).

Tickets are $15 for the public; $8 for seniors and students.

Program:

Antonin Dvorak                      Te Deum

Ralph Vaughan Williams          Flos Campi 

Featuring Professor and Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm

Giuseppe Verdi                       Te Deum

“Presented will be the buoyant, robust and beautiful Te Deum by Antonin Dvorak (performed for the first time by Choral Union); the languorously beautiful Flos Campi by Ralph Vaughan Williams for wordless chorus and solo viola, and the dramatic Te Deum by Giuseppe Verdi set for very large orchestra.

The two Te Deums are very different settings of an ancient liturgical song of praise.

The Flos Campi (below in a YouTube video) features violist Sally Chisholm (below), a member of the Pro Arte String Quartet and Professor of Music at UW-Madison.

Ticket info here

 

 

 

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