The Well-Tempered Ear

From beginner to maestro — for the Final Forte, John DeMain reflects on a life in music

March 5, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

This Wednesday night, March 6 at 7 p.m. in Overture Hall, is the “Final Forte” — the annual high school concerto competition with the Madison Symphony Orchestra under its longtime music director and conductor John DeMain (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers).

You can attend the concert in person for FREE or watch it live on PBS Wisconsin or listen to it live on Wisconsin Public Radio.

For more details, go online to: https://madisonsymphony.org/education-community/education-programs/young-artist-competitions/the-final-forte/

As usual you can see and hear summary biographies of and impressive interviews with this year’s four teenage participants (below, in a photo by James Gill) and what they think of the competition. You can also read about the three judges and about past compeiutitons and the winners.

But this year, DeMain opened up about himself to PBS Wisconsin. He talks about why he likes and looks forward to directing the performances by young artists and what he thinks about starting a career in music.

DeMain — who will retire at the end of next season — also draws on his own award-winning career from his first piano lessons though his education at the Juilliard School, his lessons with Leonard Bernstein and his 30-year tenure at the MSO.

Trust The Ear — it is an engaging interview well worth reading for many reasons.

Here is a link to that interview:

Do you anything to say about how DeMain sees working with and encouraging young artists?

About his own career?

The Ear wants to hear.


Classical music: Today at noon you can hear Japanese marimba music. At the UW-Madison, tonight offers a FREE concert of Eastern European music by the Wingra Wind Quintet. Tomorrow night is a FREE concert of vocal music by UW Chorale

November 8, 2019
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ALERT: TODAY, Nov. 8, from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at the FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, the veteran international marimbist Rebecca Kite (below) — who teaches and concertizes — will perform a program that features music of Handel, herself and contemporary Japanese composers including Keiko Abe and Minoru Miki. Kite recently moved to Madison.

By Jacob Stockinger

Tonight and tomorrow night feature two noteworthy and FREE concerts of chamber music for winds and choral music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.

Here are details:

WINGRA WIND QUINTET

TONIGHT, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m. in the Collins Recital Hall of the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave., the UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quintet  performs a FREE concert of music from Eastern Europe.

Works by Bela Bartok, Leos Janacek, Gyorgy Kurtag and Endre Szervanszky will be featured.

The guest artist is clarinetist Brian Gnojek (below).

For more information about the concert, the works on the program and background of the Wingra Wind Quintet (below, in 2018, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) as an acclaimed faculty chamber music ensemble, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/wingra-wind-quintet-2/2019-11-08/

UW CHORALE

This Saturday night, Nov. 9, in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall of the Hamel Music Center, the UW Chorale (below) will perform a FREE concert with an eclectic theme.

The program is called “How to Spice Up Your Life.” Selections include works about music, dance, chat, sports, love, outings and cooking.

The concert includes a performance of PDQ Bach’s The Seasonings, a parody of baroque oratorios, featuring faculty soloists Julia Rottmayer and Paul Rowe with student soloists Angela Peterson and Charles Hancin. (You can hear Part I of “The Seasonings” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

For more information, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-chorale-3/

 


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