The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: String quartets, African-American spirituals and a farewell faculty flute recital plus many graduate student recitals are FREE highlights this week at the UW-Madison

By Jacob Stockinger

Only about a month of classes remains in the academic year, so concerts by faculty members, guest artists and students are backing up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.

But quantity does NOT preclude quality — or variety.

Just take a look at the highlights this week:

TUESDAY

At 8:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, the Hunt Quartet will perform its spring concert.

Members of the graduate student ensemble are (below, from left, in a photo by Katrin Talbot): Kyle Price, cello; Vinicius “Vinny” Sant’Ana, violin; Blakeley Menghini, viola; and Chang-En Lu, violin.

The program is: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 77, No. 1 by Franz Joseph Haydn; String Quartet in F minor “Serioso,” Op. 95, by Ludwig van Beethoven; and the String Quartet No. 2, Op. 90, by Sergei Prokofiev. (You can hear the riveting Prokofiev quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

The Hunt Quartet is sponsored by Dr. Kato Perlman and the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

For more information about the quartet and its individual members, as well as a SoundCloud audio sample of the Hunt Quartet playing a 1924 piece by Joaquin Turina, go to:

http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/the-hunt-quartet-spring-concert/

WEDNESDAY

At 7:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, guest artist Emery Stephens (below), faculty collaborative pianist Martha Fischer and UW students will perform African-American spirituals, songs and instrumental works.

For more about the visit by scholar-performer Stephens, see this blog posting done just before he cancelled the last date, which fell on a Tuesday rather than a Wednesday:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/classical-music-singer-scholar-returns-to-coach-students-about-and-perform-a-free-recital-of-african-american-songs-and-spirituals-on-tuesday-night-at-uw/

THURSDAY

At 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, retiring professor of flute Stephanie Jutt (below) will perform her farewell faculty recital.

Jutt will be joined by faculty colleagues violist Sally Chisholm, clarinetist Amy McCann and pianist Christopher Taylor.

Sorry, no word about the program.

Jutt (below), who has been teaching and performing at the UW-Madison for 28 years, is also the principal flutist of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. Jutt says she will continue with MSO and BDDS after she retires.

This week also features a plethora of degree recitals by students, most held in Morphy Recital Hall (below). The Ear counts 11 in fields from voice to percussion. For more information, check out these links:

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

And for the full lineup for April, visit:

https://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com