The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Just a reminder that Friday night the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra again hosts virtuoso flutist Dionne Jackson in music of Bach and Carl Nielsen plus works by Respighi and Haydn

By Jacob Stockinger

This is a very busy week for classical music in Madison.

But today The Ear wants to remind you of a stand-out concert by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below) on Friday night at 8 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.

Tickets are $15-$80.

The virtuoso flutist Dionne Jackson (below) — who now teaches at the University of Connecticut — will solo with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra under the baton of its longtime music director and conductor Andrew Sewell.

This marks Jackson’s first return to the WCO since her debut in 2000, when she wowed the crowd with her performance of the snappy and colorful Flute Concerto by the French composer Jacques Ibert.

This time she is performing the Flute Concerto by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen as well as the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 by Johann Sebastian Bach. (You can hear it performed in a YouTube video at the bottom.)

To top off the varied program of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century composers – such eclecticism is a hallmark of Sewell’s programming – the WCO will perform the “Ancient Airs and Dances” Suite No. 1, based on lute music of the 16th century, by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi.

The WCO’s finale will be the Symphony No. 79 in F Major by Franz Joseph Haydn, whose underappreciated output is quickly becoming a specialty of Maestro Sewell (below) – something to rejoice over since Haydn is, according to American composer John Harbison, easily the most neglected on the great composers.

Here is more information about the concert, the performers, tickets, the pre-concert dinner and the repertoire:

http://www.wcoconcerts.org/performances/masterworks-iii-1/