Classical music: Four UW-Madison concerto competition winners and a student composer will be featured in a special concert and reception this coming Sunday night at 7.

By Jacob Stockinger

The big event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music this week, is the “Symphony Showcase” concert on Sunday evening at 7 p.m. in Mills Hall.

The concert will spotlight the annual concerto competition winners plus a new work by a student composer.

It is a special ticketed event that includes a post-concert reception in the lobby outside Mills Hall. Tickets cost $10; students get in for free.

The competition winners (below from left to right, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson) are: Keisuke Yamamoto; Ivana Ugrcic; Jason Kutz; and Anna Whiteway.

Here are brief profiles including the works they will perform and the teachers they study with:

Jason Kutz, piano, a master’s candidate studying with collaborative pianist Martha Fischer. Kutz, who also performs and composes jazz music, is a native of Kiel, Wisconsin, and studied recording technology and piano at UW-Oshkosh. He will perform “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Op. 43, by Sergei Rachmaninoff, which contains the famous 18th Variation (which you can hear at the bottom in a popular YouTube video as performed by Arthur Rubinstein and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner.)

Ivana Ugrcic, flute, a doctoral student and Collins Fellow studying with flutist Stephanie Jutt. A native of Serbia, Ugrcic has performed as a soloist and chamber musician all over Europe, and received her undergraduate and master’s degrees from University of Belgrade School of Music. She will perform “Fantaisie Brillante” (on Themes from Bizet’s Carmen) by Francois Borne.

Keisuke Yamamoto, violin, an undergraduate student of Pro Arte violinist David Perry, earning a double degree in music performance and microbiology. Keisuke, born in Japan but raised in Madison, received a tuition remission scholarship through UW-Madison’s Summer Music Clinic, and also won honors in Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Bolz Competition, among others. He will perform “Poème,” Op. 25 by Ernest Chausson.

Anna Whiteway, an undergraduate voice student, studying with Elizabeth Hagedorn, visiting professor of voice. Whiteway is a recipient of a Stamps Family Charitable Foundation scholarship as well as the Harker Scholarship for opera. Whiteway, who was praised in 2013 for her singing in University Opera’s production of “Ariodante” by George Frideric Handel, will star in the The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this spring. For this night’s performance, she will sing Je veux vivre (Juliette’s Aria) by Charles Gounod.

The composition winner this year is graduate student Adam Betz (below), a Two Rivers native who wrote a work titled Obscuration. Betz received his undergraduate degree from UW-Oshkosh, where he was named Outstanding Senior Composer. He also holds a master’s degree from Butler University in Indianapolis.

Here is a link to Betz’s website:

http://adambetz.webstarts.com/about.html

The opening work, the curtain-raiser so to speak, is advertised to be Capriccio Italienne by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. But an orchestra player says it will be the Overture to the operetta “Die Fledermaus” by Johann Strauss, Jr.

The concert will also feature the UW Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor James Smith (below top) and graduate student conductor Kyle Knox (below bottom).

 

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Posted in Classical music
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