The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The second annual Mineral Point Chamber Festival – with both free and ticketed performances — takes place this coming weekend
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By Jacob Stockinger
The summer music season in the Madison area — which kicks off big-time this weekend – just seems to get busier and busier.
The second annual Mineral Point Chamber Music Festival will take place this coming Friday through Sunday, June 8-10.
All the information — including ensembles, complete repertoire and concerts times and venues — is available at artsmp.org under “Chamber Music Festival.” You will also find there some extensive audio samples of the performers.
There are three ticketed concerts that will take place at the refurbished Mineral Point Opera House (below top, by Michael J. Smith, and bottom):
Tickets are $20, and a package pass for all three concerts is $49.
The schedule for ticketed events is:
On Friday night at 7:30 p.m., the cello-and-piano Artu Duo (below) from the University of Minnesota will perform music by Robert Schumann, Bohuslav Martinu and Ludwig van Beethoven.
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. the Volante Winds (below) from Indiana University will perform music by Samuel Barber, Karl Pilss, Gyorgy Orban and Giulio Briccialdi.
On Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m., the Altino Duo (below), from Madison, will perform music by Zoltan Kodaly, Maurice Ravel and Johan Halvorsen.
There are also two FREE concerts. They feature many other works by many other composers including George Frideric Handel, Johann Pachelbel, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Jacques Ibert and Samuel Barber.
The first FREE concert is on Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. at the Congregational United Church of Christ, 300 Maiden St., and features Q&A sessions after each ensemble’s performance.
The second FREE concert — weather permitting — is on Sunday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. in Library Park (below) and features the Festival Brass.
The festival’s director Peter Schmalz explains the philosophy of the festival, which strikes The Ear as a savvy way to host a festival of fine performers and great music for very reasonable ticket prices:
“We are a festival devoted to providing opportunity to emerging talent,” says Schmalz. “At least 50 percent of the membership of each ensemble must be currently enrolled students.
“This year we ran into an insoluble problem, when one member of the Zima Piano Trio from Indiana University could not be approved for employment because of her current status as an international student.
“Hence we have the last-minute substitution of the Altino Duo from Madison – cellist Leonardo Altino and violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino – who are both college professors and obviously not a student ensemble. (She teaches at the UW-Madison, and he teaches privately in Madison and at the Wheaton College Conservatory near Chicago.)
(Editor’s note: You can read more background about the Altinos, and about playing together as spouses, here: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/classical-music-what-is-it-like-to-play-music-with-a-spouse-local-wife-and-husband-violinist-and-cellist-open-the-winter-masterworks-season-of-the-wisconsin-chamber-orchestra-with-the-brahms-double/
“The Altinos were very gracious about helping us in this situation, and will present a concert Sunday, June 10, of music that is included on their recently released CD “En voyage.”” (You can hear them perform the Duo for Violin and Cello by Zoltan Kodaly, which is on the recording, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
If you want to see the sponsors of the festival or become a sponsor, go to the bottom of the page at: http://www.artsmp.org/chamber-music-fest/
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