The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: This week at the UW-Madison features three FREE concerts: the UW Wind Ensemble, pianist Leon Fleisher with the Pro Arte Quartet and the UW Symphony Orchestra in music by Prokofiev and Sibelius

By Jacob Stockinger

This week there are three FREE concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music that merit your attention and attendance:

WEDNESDAY:

On Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW-Madison Wind Ensemble (below top) will perform a concert of theater music under director Scott Teeple (below bottom).

The concert features special guest soloist, percussionist Darin Olson (below), assistant director of the University of Wisconsin Marching Band.

The program includes music from “The Three Penny Opera” by Kurt Weill; the wind octet “Figures in the Garden” by Jonathan Dove; the Concertino for Timpani with Brass and Percussion by Michael Colgrass; the “Nocturno” by Felix Mendelssohn; and the “Geschwindmarsch” (Wind March) by Paul Hindemith.

For more information, visit:

http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-wind-ensemble-5/

THURSDAY

Famed pianist Leon Fleisher (below top) will perform a FREE noon concert with the Pro Arte Quartet (below bottom, in a photo by Rick Langer).

A single work is featured but it is a great one, an undisputed masterpiece: The Piano Quintet in F Minor by Johannes Brahms.

The concert is from noon to 1 p.m. in Mills Hall.

For more information and background, visit:

http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/special-guest-artist-concert-the-legendary-leon-fleisher-in-concert-with-pro-arte-quartet/

FRIDAY

At 8 p.m. on Friday night in Mills Hall, the UW Symphony Orchestra (below) will perform under its director and conductor James Smith.

The ingenious program features two terrific fifth symphonies that are NOT the most famous Fifth Symphony, the one by Ludwig van Beethoven: these are instead the Symphony No. 5 in B-flat by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev; and the Symphony No. 5 by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. 

You can listen to the exciting and moving finale of the Sibelius symphony, performed by the Finnish conductor Essa-Pekka Salonen and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra  in the YouTube video at the bottom. It is one of The Ear’s favorites.)

Three student recitals, including graduate recitals in viola and piano, are also on the schedule this week. For information, visit:

http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/