The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: On Wednesday at noon, Just Bach turns to C.P.E. Bach. At night, the Middleton Community Orchestra, with soloist Paran Amirinazari, plays the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Bruch plus works by Janacek and Sibelius.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Wednesday, Feb. 19, features two noteworthy concerts, one by Just Bach at noon and the other by the Middleton Community Orchestra at 7:30 p.m.
Here are details:
JUST BACH
For this month’s FREE one-hour Just Bach concert (below, in a photo by John W. Barker) on this Wednesday at noon in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, attention will turn from father to son.
The concert features music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (below), the eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The concert opens with a movement from the Sonata in A Minor, Wq. 70/4, H. 85, performed by organist Mark Brampton Smith.
The program continues with a recently rediscovered Cantata, “Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Stande” (I Am Content with My Station), featuring bass-baritone Professor Paul Rowe, and the Just Bach period-instrument players led by Kangwon Kim.
Just Bach co-founder and soprano Sarah Brailey (below) will lead the chorale sing-along, a beloved audience-participation feature of these programs.
The program concludes with eight selections from the “Geistliche Oden und Lieder ‘Gellert Lieder’” (Sacred Odes and Songs ‘Gellert Songs’), performed by students of Paul Rowe (below, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson), accompanied by organist Mark Brampton Smith.
This will also be the first concert with a mother and daughter performing, with violinist Leanne League in the Just Bach players, and soprano Cecilia League in the Paul Rowe studio.
Performers are: Sarah Brailey, soprano; Paul Rowe, baritone; Kangwon Kim, violin 1 (below); Leanne League, violin 2; Katrin Talbot, viola; Anton TenWolde, cello; Mark Brampton Smith, organ; Allyson Mills, Cecilia League, Carly Ochoa and Ella Anderson, sopranos; and Jack Innes, Jake Elfner, Nick Schinner and Chase Kozak, baritones.
The concert is free and open to the public, with a goodwill offering collected.
Other Just Bach concerts this spring, all Wednesdays at noon are on: March 25, April 15 and May 20.
MIDDLETON COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA
At 7:30 p.m., the mostly amateur and critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (below) will perform its winter concert as part of its 10th anniversary season.
The concert takes place in the comfortable and acoustically pleasing Middleton Performing Arts Center (below, in a photo by Brian Ruppert) that is attached to Middleton High School, 2100 Bristol Street.
The program, under conductor-composer Steve Kurr, includes the “Lachian Dances” by Leos Janacek; “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius; and the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor by Max Bruch with guest soloist Paran Amirinazari (below). (You can hear the finale of the violin concerto, played by Sarah Chang, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Tickets are $15 for adults. Students are admitted free.
The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and auditorium doors open at 7 p.m.
There will be a meet-and-greet reception (below) with the orchestra players and audience members after the concert.
For more information about upcoming concerts, how to join the orchestra and how to support it, call (608) 212-8690 or go to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
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Classical music: The Middleton Community Orchestra honors retired music critic John W. Barker with a special performance of Brahms and a season dedication
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By Jacob Stockinger
How does an individual musician or musical group pay tribute and say thank you to a critic?
By performing, of course.
And that is exactly what 30 members of the Middleton Community Orchestra did, playing under guest conductor Kyle Knox (below top), last Friday night for the veteran music critic John W. Barker (below bottom).
The orchestra performed for him at the downtown Capitol Lakes Retirement Community, near the Capitol Square, where the ailing Barker lives with his wife Margaret.
Because of space limitations, word of the special performance never went public. But the large basement room was packed with affectionate and respectful fans and friends.
The MCO members played the lyrical and sunny Serenade No. 1, Op. 11, of Johannes Brahms. (You can hear the opening movement of the Serenade by Brahms in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The orchestra also announced that it would dedicate its upcoming 10th anniversary season to Barker as a gesture of thanks for all he has done over the past nine years to promote the mostly amateur orchestra — which opens its new season on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
“I’ve known this piece most of my life,” said Barker, who soon turns 86 and who started reviewing in his teens. “It’s lots of fun.”
And so was the unusual honor.
“An orchestra paying tribute to a critic? It’s unprecedented,” Barker quipped, as both he and the audience laughed. Barker also quoted the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius who once said, “A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.”
After the 40-minute performance, Barker spoke briefly to the players and audience.
“The job of the critic,” he said, “is to stimulate performers to play up to their best standards and to give readers some background and context. Being critical doesn’t mean being negative, although at times I have made some negative comments. But you never have to be nasty. I guess I’ve succeeded,” he said looking around at the players and the public, both of whom generously applauded his remarks.
Barker’s list of personal accomplishments is impressive. He has written local music reviews for The Capital Times, Isthmus and this blog.
But he is a participant as well as a critic. He has sung in many choirs, including 47 years in the one at the local Greek Orthodox Church, and has performed with the Madison Opera. He directed Gilbert and Sullivan productions for the Madison Savoyards.
Barker is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which may help to explain his general taste for the traditional. He also is a well-known classical music critic, with a national reputation, who has written for 63 years for the American Record Guide. For many years, he hosted an early music radio show on Sunday mornings for WORT-FM 89.9.
He also worked with Opera Props, the support group for University Opera, and was a member of the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival. And he frequently gave pre-concert lectures in Madison. He has published two books on Wagner and written a definitive history of the Pro Arte Quartet.
But this time even the voluble Barker had to admit, “I am grateful and thankful. I am very moved, even floored. But I’m afraid I’m finally at a loss for words.”
You can leave your own words of tribute in the Comment section.
To see the full “Barker season” schedule for the Middleton Community Orchestra and to read many of Barker’s past reviews of the MCO, go to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
Thank you, John, for all you have done to enrich the cultural and musical life of Madison!
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The Virtual Bach Around the Clock 2020 festival ends today. Here’s how to catch up on the 10 days of making Baroque music
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By Jacob Stockinger
If you recall, this year’s 12-hour Bach Around the Clock festival – a platform for students, amateurs and professional musicians to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below) — was scheduled to take place at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Saturday, March 28.
Faced with cancellation of the annual free event because of the public health dangers posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing, the organizers decided to try going virtual and hold the festival online by asking performers to send in short videos made at home.
And it worked.
“From what we have heard, it has been a very rewarding experience for both the performers who sent in videos and for the people who watched and listened to them,” says violist and BATC artistic director Marika Fischer Hoyt (below).
The cost of going virtual was not great, but it took lot of time and hard work, admits Fischer Hoyt, who says she spent between 7 and 10 hours a day to post each day’s Bach video.
It was hard especially at the beginning, she notes, when she had to learn how to use software programs, such as iMovie, to make and then upload and post the videos.
She didn’t just organize the online festival. She also performed and provided gracious introductions to the program for each day.
Lately, the videos average about 20 minutes – your Daily Minimum Requirement of Bach, as the witty Wisconsin Public Radio host Anders Yocom would say. But they were longer at the beginning when more videos were sent in. Towards the end, the festival even used some photos and audio recordings from past years to round out programs.
But the reach of the virtual festival, intended to be local, was wider than Fischer Hoyt had expected. Musicians replied and participated from Florida, Minnesota and – as you can hear today – from Costa Rica.
All the effort worked.
In one of the major victories against all the coronavirus cancellations and postponements in the Madison music scene, the Virtual Bach Around the Clock 2020 brought the public beautiful Baroque music by voices, strings, keyboards and winds in cantatas, partitas, preludes and fugues, sonatas and suites.
Listening to just one a day would be a good way to spread out and savor the joy of the festival for 10 days while you self-isolate and shelter in place at home.
You can find the videos on YouTube. In the search bar, just type in Virtual Bach Around the Clock 2020, Madison, Wisconsin.
But a much easier and more organized way can be found here on the festival’s home website, which lists the videos in chronological order and links to them: https://bachclock.com/audience-listening-viewing
Try listening to them and tell us what you think about the individual videos and performances — do you have a favorite? — and about mounting the virtual festival.
And, if you like, leave a note of thanks in the Comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Here is Day 5:
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