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 – Monday, Dec. 21 — is the Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It arrives at 4:02 a.m. CST.
The Ear expects that Wisconsin Public Radio, among other media outlets, will be marking the event with traditional, often austere, winter music. That includes “Winter” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”; maybe some songs from Schubert’s “Winterreise” (Winter Journey); Peter Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons” and “The Nutcracker”; and, of course, plenty of winter holiday music, including carols and the Baroque oratorios, cantatas and concertos by Bach, Handel, Telemann, Corelli and others.
But many people – strained by the coronavirus pandemic –are already eagerly looking forward to the days growing longer, which will culminate in the Summer Solstice at 10:31 p.m. CST on Sunday, June 21, 2021.
Who needs to celebrate the season’s cold and darkness? So The Ear thought that we could all use a little sonic sunlight, tonal warmth and musical hope, especially at the end of this Plague Year.
There are standards and favorites such as Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” and Vivaldi’s “Summer.”
But to The Ear that work that really lifts one’s spirits, and captures the kind of joyful abandon and youthful energy of the mid-summer event, complete with animal noises and romance, is the “Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream” by a 17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn (below).
You can hear it below in a YouTube performance by the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig conducted by the late, great German conductor Kurt Masur, whose son, Ken-David Masur, is the new music director and conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
The Ear hopes you enjoy it.
What music would you like to hear or play to mark the Winter Solstice?
Leave a suggestion with your reason and, if possible, YouTube link in the Comment section.
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 – Saturday, June 20, 2020 – is the Summer Solstice.
Summer officially arrives this afternoon at 4:43 p.m. CDT.
Is The Ear alone in thinking that the time since the winter solstice has passed both more slowly and also more quickly than usual, thanks to the pandemic?
And now the days will start getting shorter. Can that be possible? Is the year really half over?
Well, it has been an unusual spring and promises to be an unusual summer, to say the least.
So how about some unusual Vivaldi?
If you listen to Wisconsin Public Radio, chances are good that today or sometime soon you will hear the hyper-popular original version of “Summer” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”
But The Ear finds this unusual contemporary version a welcome change from the over-programmed and too familiar original version, and more appropriate to the special summer that will follow the special spring.
It is a version that has been “recomposed” by British composer Max Richter (below top) with violin soloist Daniel Hope (below bottom), a protege of the legendary Yehudi Menuhin, who performed several years ago with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
The Ear finds the entire work very appealing, but here is the YouTube video of just the Summer section as it was being recorded.
If you don’t like this music, what music would you choose to listen to as you celebrate the coming of summer?
And if you like this excerpt, here is a link to the complete version of “Vivaldi Recomposed”:
Today may be the Summer Solstice, but this year’s Make Music Madison will take place this Sunday, which also happens to be Father’s Day.
The eight annual Make Music Madison – which includes classical music but also rock, jazz, folk, blues, hip-hop and country — is part of Make Music Day, an international celebration of the Summer Solstice that this year will take place in some 1,000 cities in 120 countries.
Here is a helpful listing with locations, time, performers and programs as well as form (virtual and online, with links, or real): http://www.makemusicmadison.org
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE 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
Here is a chance for music lovers to combine civic duty with private pleasure.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music is looking for volunteers of any kind to help “tune” the two new concert halls in the soon-to-open Hamel Music Center (below), located at 740 University Avenue next to the Chazen Museum of Art’s newer wing. The official opening celebrations for the $56-million building are Oct. 25-27.
“Tuning” the hall is the term that acousticians apply to the process of adjusting the hall to how it will sound when audiences are in attendance. Halls sound very different from when they are empty to when they are occupied.
The School of Music team is looking for volunteers to help tune the larger concert hall on Thursday, Sept. 19, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and the smaller recital hall on Friday, Sept. 20, from 9:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Volunteers can be from the university of from the general public. Two halls are involved: the larger Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, which can seat up to 662; and the smaller Collins Recital Hall (below, in an architect’s rendering), which can seat up to 299.
Volunteers can study, work quietly on computers, check out the new facility, use the time as quiet time or sample for free some of the UW’s performers. Individuals and groups will be performing during the adjustments being made by the sound engineers.
Visitors will be asked to remain silently in their seats while the “commissioning” for a particular setting is in process. Breaks are scheduled for people to come and go. Start and stop times are approximate.
The musicians and kinds of music include: a symphony orchestra; a choir; brass, wind, percussion and string ensembles, including a string quartet; solo piano; and jazz.
Volunteers can attend as many sessions as they want, but they are asked to arrive 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time they wish to attend and sign up for.
For more information, including schedules and details about the kind of music to be performed and how to behave, here is a link to a story and schedules: https://www.music.wisc.edu/tuning/
If you go, use this blog’s Comment section to let The Ear know what the experience was like – even though he may also see you there.
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE 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
Summer is almost over and the new concert season is about to begin in just a couple weeks.
Just about all the groups in the Madison area, large and small, have announced their upcoming seasons.
But it you are wondering why the brochure for the hundreds of events that will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music hasn’t arrived yet, here is the answer.
There isn’t one this year.
For many years the UW-Madison’s SOM — as the School of Music is often abbreviated – has issued a handsome season brochure (below) with names and dates, if not always complete programs.
In the past couple of years, the brochure has been particularly informative with background about performers and events at the school as well as about students and alumni.
But due to a variety of factors, there will be no season brochure although there will be a special brochure for the opening weekend on the new Hamel Music Center (below), which is Oct. 25-27.
A variety of reasons has caused the lack of a brochure, says Publicist and Concert Manager Katherine Esposito. But the familiar full-season brochure will return for the 2020-21 season.
It the meantime, Esposito recommends that you go to the Concert and Events calendar, which has been updated and made more user-friendly, on the website for the school of music. It also features information about faculty and staff as well as news about the school. Here is a link:
On the right hand side is a menu that allows you to view the calendar as a running list or by the month, week or day with maps or photos.
On the left hand side is another menu that allows you to search by musical category (performers and ensemble) as well as concert date, time, venue and admission cost, if any.
Esposito always recommends that you subscribe to the email newsletters. You can see past ones and sign up to receive future ones if you go to this part of the home website: https://www.music.wisc.edu/recent-newsletters/
As usual, the season at the UW-Madison will open with 40th FREE Karp Family Labor Day Concert, which now takes place the day after the holiday, on Tuesday, Sept. 3, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall.
Over four decades, the Karps (below are the brothers pianist Christopher Karp with cellist Parry Karp, who will team up again this year) have never repeated a piece on the the Labor Day concerts.
The program this year includes the sublime Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major, K. 493, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (you can hear the first movement with a visual schematic in the YouTube video at the bottom); the late Sonata No. 10 for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 96, by Ludwig van Beethoven, which has been transcribed by Parry Karp for cello and piano; and lesser known works by Robert Schumann and Antonin Dvorak.
For more about the program and the performers, who include guest violinist Suzanne Beia of the Pro Arte Quartet, the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/40th-karp-family-concert/
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE 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
The summer solstice arrives this morning at 10:54 a.m.
That means today is when Make Music Madison takes place. Wisconsin’s capital city will join more than 1,000 other cities across the globe in celebrating live music-making of all kinds that is FREE and mostly outdoors.
Here is a link to the site with a map of various artists and venues – some 400 events in about 100 venues — and well as times around Madison:
Last night, the 24 piano contestants in the preliminary round of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were trimmed down to 14 semi-finalists. (It was supposed to be 12, but the jury couldn’t agree on 12.)
And the good news is that both Americans — Sara Daneshpour (below top) and Kenneth Broberg (below bottom, in a photo by Jeremy Enlow), who performed a recital last season in Madison at the Salon Piano Series held at Farley’s House of Pianos — made the cut. The next round starts very early today, given the 8 hours ahead time difference between here and Moscow, and runs into the afternoon.
Here is the complete list of the piano semi-finalists:
Of course, pianists aren’t the only ones who might be interested in the competition that became well known in the West when Van Cliburn won the inaugural competition in 1958.
These days, competitions are also going on in violin, cello, voice, brass and woodwinds as well as piano.
What’s more, the entire competition is being live-streamed on Medici TV, and all the performances, from the preliminaries through the finals, are being streamed in real time and also archived. Plus, it’s all FREE. Thank you, Medici!
Here is a link. You’ll find archived performances, which go up pretty fast, under replays. The Ear has found that the sound is excellent and the website pretty self-explanatory and easy to navigate. Check out the preliminary recitals with music by Bach, Haydn. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and of course Tchaikovsky. Here is a link:
Today being the first day of summer, you’ll probably get to hear “Summer” from “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi.
But given other news, something by Tchaikovsky seems especially appropriate. So here is the “June” Barcarolle, or boat song, from the solo piano suite “The Four Seasons,” which features one piece for each of the 12 months in the year. You can hear “June” in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Today is the Winter Solstice. Here is a piece to make you look forward to longer days, warmth and the Summer Solstice next year
1 Comment
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 – Monday, Dec. 21 — is the Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It arrives at 4:02 a.m. CST.
The Ear expects that Wisconsin Public Radio, among other media outlets, will be marking the event with traditional, often austere, winter music. That includes “Winter” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”; maybe some songs from Schubert’s “Winterreise” (Winter Journey); Peter Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons” and “The Nutcracker”; and, of course, plenty of winter holiday music, including carols and the Baroque oratorios, cantatas and concertos by Bach, Handel, Telemann, Corelli and others.
But many people – strained by the coronavirus pandemic –are already eagerly looking forward to the days growing longer, which will culminate in the Summer Solstice at 10:31 p.m. CST on Sunday, June 21, 2021.
Who needs to celebrate the season’s cold and darkness? So The Ear thought that we could all use a little sonic sunlight, tonal warmth and musical hope, especially at the end of this Plague Year.
There are standards and favorites such as Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” and Vivaldi’s “Summer.”
But to The Ear that work that really lifts one’s spirits, and captures the kind of joyful abandon and youthful energy of the mid-summer event, complete with animal noises and romance, is the “Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream” by a 17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn (below).
You can hear it below in a YouTube performance by the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig conducted by the late, great German conductor Kurt Masur, whose son, Ken-David Masur, is the new music director and conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
The Ear hopes you enjoy it.
What music would you like to hear or play to mark the Winter Solstice?
Leave a suggestion with your reason and, if possible, YouTube link in the Comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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