The Well-Tempered Ear
A jazz-pop composer is the new director of the UW School of Music
7 Comments
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Dan Cavanagh (below) from Texas has been named the next director of the UW-Madison School of Music, effective July 1, 2023.
Cavanagh’s appointment concludes a national search led by Associate Dean Susan Zaeske of the College of Letters and Science; music professors Mimmi Fulmer, Christopher Taylor, Scott Teeple, Conor Nelson and Daniel Grabois; and School of Music Assistant Director Wendy Johnson.
The Ear can’t be the only person wondering what a jazz and pop musician — a performer, arranger and composer — means for the school that has always selected its leaders from classical music and music education as the top administrators.
But there is no doubt about Cavanagh’s impressive credentials.
Here is the official press release from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
“I am thrilled that Dan will bring to the directorship of the Mead Witter School of Music a cutting-edge vision of research and curricular excellence combined with the wherewithal to get things done thanks to his many years of experience as a music and liberal arts administrator,” Dean Zaeske said.
Cavanagh is a composer and pianist who has garnered numerous awards in both areas. As a composer he has written or arranged for Latin Grammy-winning AfroBop Alliance, the legendary Patti LaBelle, and a wide range of classical and jazz performers across North America and Europe. He has released five critically acclaimed jazz CDs as a leader.
His music can be heard on many other recordings both classical and jazz and he continues to be commissioned and programmed around the world. Cavanagh has also performed extensively in North America and internationally. He has been a finalist in the EuropaFest Jazz Contest in Bucharest, and in the Jacksonville Jazz Festival Piano Competition.
“I am very excited to join UW–Madison as the next Pamela O. Hamel/Music Board of Advisors Professor and Director of the Mead Witter School of Music,” Cavanagh said. “The school’s national reputation is bolstered by its amazing faculty, talented students, and accomplished staff.”
Cavanagh is currently the interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington. Prior to serving as interim Dean, Cavanagh held various academic leadership roles, including program director, music department chair, and associate dean. He has also served in high-profile shared governance roles in the University of Texas System, including as Chair of the Faculty Advisory Council representing over 21,000 faculty members across the 14 institutions in the system.
From 2015-2020, he served as the Co-Chair of Region VI for the Society of Composers and currently serves on the executive board of a2ru (the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities). Cavanagh serves on the board of directors for Downtown Arlington Management Corporation (Arlington, TX), chairs Downtown Arlington’s Cultural Arts District Partners group and serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Dallas Winds, a five-time Grammy nominated professional Wind Symphony.
Cavanagh succeeds Director Susan C. Cook, who will be on sabbatical during the 2023-24 academic year after serving 10 years as director of the School of Music.
“I look forward to engaging with the Board of Advisors, colleagues across the University, and individuals throughout the community to continue growing the impact, reach and excellence the School of Music creates every day, and to advance the ideals of the Wisconsin Idea through the creative work and scholarship we will produce together,” Cavanagh said.
Do you have any questions or comments you want to share?
The Ear wants too hear.
Tags: #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #DanCavanagh, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FacultyConcert, #TheEar, #YouTubevideo, Arlington, arranger, Arts, audience, award, blog, CD, Chamber music, Classical music, commission, composer, Concert, conclude, Dallas Winds, Dan Cavanagh, Europe, excellence, Facebook, Grammy, idea, ideal, impact, international, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Latin, letters, link, Madison, Mead Witter School of Music, Music, music faculty, music school, music students, national, North America, Patti LaBelle, Piano, pop, program, recording, reputation, research, science, search, share, staff\, Student, symphony, tag, Texas, The Ear, The Wisconsin Idea, United States, University of Texas, University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW, UW-Madison, UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music, vocal music, wind music, winds, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Idea, wonder
YOU MUST HEAR THIS: No piece captures the mixed emotions of Memorial Day better than Charles Ives’ “Decoration Day”
3 Comments
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2022.
It is the annual holiday to remember those who died in military service to the country. (Below are flags placed each year at the tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.)
If you want to honor survivors and current service members, that would be Veterans Day on Nov. 11.
All weekend long the radio has been playing music and the television has been showing war movies.
A lot of the music is familiar and repeated every year: Sousa marches and Morton Gould suites, elegies by Gustav Mahler, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein; requiems by Mozart and Fauré; a hymn by John Williams and other movie scores. This year has also seen the playlist include rediscovered works of homage by African-American composers such as William Grant Still.
But only this year did The Ear finally hear — thanks to Wisconsin Public Radio — the one piece that, to his mind, best captures Memorial Day with its blending of consonance and dissonance, its mix of major and major keys, of familiar or “found” music and original music.
It is called, simply, “Decoration Day” and it was composed in 1912 — but not published until 1989 — by the 20th-century iconoclastic and early modernist American composer Charles Ives (below, 1874-1954). It ended up as part of a work the composer called “A Symphony: New England Hollidays.”
See if you agree with The Ear.
Listen to the 8-minute performance by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Listen to the deep anguish and and sense of loss conveyed in the opening, when a solemn remembrance procession goes to a cemetery to plant flags and lay flowers and wreaths to “decorate” the graves of the fallen.
Listen carefully and you will hear a faint version of “Taps” and ringing church bells in the atmospheric music.
Then as so often happens in reality, life suddenly intrudes in the form of a celebration by a loud marching brass band as it leaves the cemetery for the celebratory marches, picnics and fireworks.
But at the end, the darkness briefly returns. The sense of loss lingers long after the actual death and long after the holiday has been celebrated.
There is no closure.
Just resignation.
Just living with loss.
Here is the background from Wikipedia about how the holiday started as Decoration Day after the Civil War and when it evolved into Memorial Day in 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
And here is biographical background, with the actual sources and depictions of “Decoration Day” — just go down the page to compositions and click — about Charles Ives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives
Did you know and like Charles Ives’ music?
Does “Decoration Day” impress or move you?
What music most embodies Memorial Day for you?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #AaronCopland, #African-AmericanComposer, #ArlingtonNationalCemetery, #BandMusic, #BlackAmericans, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BrassBand, #BrassMusic, #CharlesIves, #ChurchBells, #CivilWar, #DecorationDay, #FacebookPosting, #GabrielFaure, #GustavMahler, #JacobStockinger, #JohnPhilipSousa, #JohnWilliams, #LeonardBernstein, #MajorKey, #MemorialDay, #MilitaryService, #MinorKey, #MixedEmotions, #MortonGould, #NationalPublicRadio, #NewEngland, #OrchestralMusic, #OriginalWork, #SamuelBarber, #TheEar, #ThePresident, #TheU.S., #UnitedStates, #UnitedStatesMarineBand, #USMarines, #VeteransDay, #WarMovies, #Wikipediaentry, #WilliamGrantStill, #WisconsinPublicRadio, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YouTubevideo, 20th-century, 20th-century music, Aaron Copland, actual, African American, American, American Civil War, Ameriuca, anguish, annual, Arlington, Arlington National Cemetery, Arts, atmosphere, atmospheric, audience, background, band, band music, Barber, Bernstein, biographical, black, blog, bottom, brass band, brass music, celebration, celebratory, cemetery, Charles Ives, church, church bells, Civil War, Classical music, Classical Revolution, closure, compose, composer, Composition, Concert, consonance, Copland, darkness, dead, death, Decoration Day, deep, depiction, dissonance, early, Early music, Elegy, embody, emotion, evolution, evolve, Facebook, fallen, familiar, Fascebook, Faure, film, Fireworks, flag, flower, found, Gabriel Fauré, Gould, grave, Gustav Mahler, hear, Holiday, homage, honor, hymn, iconoclast, iconoclastic, impress, information, intrude, Ives, Jacob Stockinger, John Philip Sousa, John Williams, Leonard Bernstein, life, like, linger, listen, living, loss, loud, Mahler, major key, march, Marines, mark, Memorial Day, military, minor key, minute, mixed, modern, modernist, morph, Morton Gould, move, Movies, Mozart, nation, national, National Public Radio, New England, NPR, opening, orchestral, original, performance, picnic, piece, plant, playlist, post, posting, President, procession, psalm, publish, Radio, reality, rediscover, remembrance, repeat, Samuel Barber, score, sense, service, show, solemn, soundtrack, source, sources, Sousa, Still, suddenly, Suite, symphony, Taps, Television, thanks, The Ear, TV, U.S., United State Marine Band, United States, veterans, Veterans Day, video, war, war movies, weekend, Wikipedia, William Grant Still, Williams, wisconsin public radio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work, wreaty, year, you, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 