The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Soprano Sarah Brailey and nine UW-Madison cellists team up for the FREE concert of songs at Grace Presents this Saturday at noon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Saturday, Sept. 21, at noon, a FREE one-hour program in the Grace Presents series will feature soprano Sarah Brailey (below) in “My Loyal Heart,” a recital of songs by Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Guillaume de Machaut, Dmitri Shostakovich and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
The concert is at Grace Episcopal Church (below), located downtown on the Capitol Square at 116 West Washington Avenue.
Brailey is an acclaimed professional singer who often tours and who is doing graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Brailey will be joined by friends and colleagues. They include UW baritone Paul Rowe and members of the UW Madison Cello Ensemble, featuring nine local Madison cellists who include Grace Presents program coordinator James Waldo. (Below is a summer cello choir at the UW-Madison from several years ago.)
The works will be sung in Russian, Portuguese, and both modern and medieval French.
Here is an introduction from Waldo:
“It is often said that the cello is the instrument most like the human voice.
“My Loyal Heart,” devotes an entire program to music for soprano Sarah Brailey and cello from the 14th century to the 20th century.
“It opens with Arvo Pärt’s L’abbé Agathon about the legend of Father Agathon from the 4th century book “The Desert Fathers,” followed by a new arrangement by Brailey for soprano and cello trio of Guillaume de Machaut’s elegant love song Se quanque amours puet donner.
“This intimately ardent piece is followed by a more tragic love story, that of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, in the opening movement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok.
“The program continues in Russian with Sir John Tavener’s powerful and darkly spiritual Akhmatova Songs with poetry by Russian-Soviet Modernist poet, Anna Akhmatova.
“The concert concludes with the hauntingly beautiful and famous first movement and the playful concluding dance of Bachianas Brasileiras (Brazilian Bach Suites) No.5 for soprano and eight cellos by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. (You can hear the Villa-Lobos aria in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“Text and translations will be provided.
“This program will not be performed anywhere else in Madison.”
Tags: #AlexanderBlok, #AnnaAkhmatova, #ArvoPärt, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BrazilianComposer, #CapitolSquare, #CelloChoir, #ChristianChurch, #DesertFathers, #DmitriShostakovich, #EnglishLanguage, #EnglishLiterature, #EnglishTranslation, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FatherAgathon, #FrenchLanguage, #GraceEpiscopalChurch, #GracePresents, #GraduateStudent, #GuillaumedeMachaut, #HeitorVilla-Lobos, #James Waldo, #JamesWaldo, #JohannSebastianBach, #JohnTavener, #JohnTaverner, #LoveSong, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MedievalFrench, #ModernFrench, #PaulRowe, #PortugueseLanguage, #ProfessionalMusician, #RussianLanguage, #RussianLitertaure, #SarahBrailey, #SopranoSinger, #SovietMusic, #SovietUnion, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #WilliamShakespeare, #YouTubevideo, Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Arvo Part, Bach, baritone, blog, Book, Brazil, Brazilian, Capitol Square, cellist, Cello, cello choir, Choir, Christian, Christian church, church, classicalmusic, colleagues, Concert, coordinator, dark, desert, Dmitri Shostakovich, downtown, drama, elegant, England, English, Facebook, father, Father Agathon, France, free, French, French language, friends, Grace Episcopal Church, Grace Presents, graduate student, Guillaume de Machaut, Hamlet, heart, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Tavener, John Taverner, language, local, love song, loyal, Madison, Mead Witter School of Music, modern, modernist, Music, Ophelia, Paul Rowe, poem, Poetry, Portuguese, post, posting, professional, program, recital, Religion and Spirituality, Romance, Russia, Russian, Sarah Brailey, series, Shakespeare, Shostakovich, singer, soprano, Soviet, spiritual, Suite, summer, text, tour, tragedy, translation, trio, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USSR, UW-Madison, Villa-Lobos, years, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison-based Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society gets its 24th three-week summer season underway this coming weekend. This year’s theme is “Guilty as Charged.” Here is part 1 of 2 with background and Week 1.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Our friends at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society – which The Ear named Musicians of the Year two years ago – will begin its new summer season this coming weekend.
The season features six concert programs performed over three weekends in three different venues and cities.
Here is the first part of two postings based on the BDDS press release. Part 2 will run tomorrow:
BACH DANCING AND DYNAMITE SOCIETY (BDDS) PRESENTS ITS 24TH ANNUAL SUMMER CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL — GUILTY AS CHARGED — JUNE 12–28, 2015.
This festival features 12 concerts over three weekends. Each weekend offers two different programs. Concerts will be performed in The Playhouse at Overture Center in Madison, the Stoughton Opera House, and the Hillside Theater at Taliesin in Spring Green.
Combining the best local musicians and top-notch artists from around the country, a varied repertoire and delightful surprises, BDDS presents chamber music as “serious fun” infused with high energy and lots of audience appeal, and makes this art form accessible to diverse audiences. Led by artistic directors and performers (below) Stephanie Jutt, flute, and Jeffrey Sykes, piano, 20 guest artists will perform in the festival.
So, what is the meaning of this year’s theme?
Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society is clearly a criminal enterprise. After all, we are named after the only major composer to ever spend a significant amount of time in jail, Johann Sebastian Bach.
Our crime at BDDS?
We’ve destroyed the stuffy, starched-collar atmosphere of traditional chamber music concerts and replaced it with a seriously fun vibe. We’ve broken down the barriers that separate audience and performer, making our concerts into riotously interactive events. Rather than leading audiences through a museum, we invite audiences to trespass into the creative and re-creative process right in the concert hall.
We own up to our crimes, and we proudly proclaim that we are GUILTY AS CHARGED.
GUILTY AS CHARGED features six programs, each performed multiple times and in multiple venues, and each named after some “crime.”
In “Stolen Moments” we feature music that has been stolen in some fashion: stolen from another composer, stolen from oneself, stolen from a completely different land and culture.
Felix Mendelssohn stole a chorale tune from Johann Sebastian Bach as the basis of the slow movement of his second cello sonata (heard at bottom in a YouTube video with cellist Lynn Harrell and pianist James Levine).
Franz Joseph Haydn stole from himself to create his flute divertimentos; Ludwig van Beethoven stole Irish and Scottish folksong texts and tunes as the basis for his songs with piano trio accompaniment.
“Stolen Moments” will be performed at The Playhouse in the Overture Center for the Arts, on Friday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m., and in the Hillside Theater at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, on Sunday, June 14, at 2:30 p.m.
“Rob the Cradle” features the music or poetry of artists who died tragically young, robbing the world of their creative talents.
The Flute Sonata by Dick Kattenburg, a light-hearted and joyous work, was written at the age of 18 shortly before he died in a Nazi concentration camp.
The powerful “Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok” by Dmitri Shostakovich feature the luminous poetry of the man many considered Russia’s finest poet, a man whose life was cut short by the conditions of early Soviet years.
Both programs feature the talents of two great singers—bass-baritone Timothy Jones (below top) and soprano Emily Birsan (below bottom) — familiar to BDDS audiences as the voices of Robert and Clara Schumann from our 2013 season.
“Rob the Cradle” will be performed in The Playhouse of the Overture Center for the Arts, on Saturday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m., and at the Hillside Theater at Taliesin in Spring Green, on Sunday, June 14, at 6:30 p.m.
For the fourth year, BDDS will also perform one free family concert, “What’s So Great About Bach?” an interactive event that will be great for all ages. Together with the audience, BDDS will explore interwoven layers of melody. Everyone will be up on their feet helping to compose for the musicians on stage.
This event takes place 11–11:45 a.m. on this Saturday, June 13, in The Playhouse of the Overture Center. This is a performance for families with children of all ages and seating will be first come first served.
CUNA Mutual Group, Pat Powers and Thomas Wolfe, and Overture Center generously underwrite this performance.
BDDS Locations are: the Stoughton Opera House (381 E. Main Street, below top); the Overture Center in Madison (201 State Street); and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Hillside Theater (below bottom, County Highway 23 in Spring Green).
Single general admission tickets are $40. Student tickets are always $5.
Various ticket packages are also available, starting at a series of three for $114. First-time subscriptions are half off.
For tickets and information visit www.bachdancinganddynamite.org or call (608) 255-9866.
Single tickets for Overture Center concerts can also be purchased at the Overture Center for the Arts box office, (608) 258-4141, or at overturecenter.com additional fees apply).
Hillside Theater tickets can be purchased from the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center on County Highway C, (608) 588-7900. Tickets are available at the door at all locations.
TOMORROW: PART 2 WITH WEEKS 2 AND 3
Tags: accompaniment, Alexander Blok, artists, Arts, audience, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, BDDS, Beethoven, Cello, Cello Sonata, Chamber music, charged, children, Clara Schumann, Classical music, concentration camp, concerto, cradle, crime, culture, Dick Kattenburg, divertimento, Family, Felix Mendelssohn, flute, folk, folksong, Frank Lloyd Wright, German language, guilty, Haydn, interactive, Irish, Jacob Stockinger, jail, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, melody, Museum, Music, Nazi, Piano, Piano Trio, poem, Poetry, Robert Schumann, Romance, Russia, Scottish, Shostakovich, Sonata, song, songs, Soviet, Soviet Union, Taliesin, text, tune, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
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