The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: A new blog about the future of classical music has been launched in Madison by Lydia Sewell. It is called “A View From the Stage” and features interviews with prominent musicians
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
As the classical music industry continues to shift and adapt to changing cultural patterns, many performers, administrators, educators, journalists, and music enthusiasts are tracking these changes and exploring best practices to keep the institution alive.
In December 2017, Madison native Lydia Sewell (below) – an accomplished violinist and daughter of Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra artistic director Andrew Sewell — launched a blog that seeks to address those issues in a comprehensive, timely fashion.
“A View From the Stage” features the voices of world-renowned classical musicians, educators and arts administrators and their thoughts on the future of classical music and symphony orchestras.
The blog arose out of Sewell’s research on the strike by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2016.
Says Sewell: “As a graduate student at Duquesne University prepping for auditions, I was trying to answer the question, ‘If orchestras like the PSO are struggling to survive, what does that mean for regional orchestras who don’t have the donor bases that the majors rely on?”
“A View from the Stage” currently features interviews with musicians including Noah Bendix-Balgely, concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic; Scott Pingel, principal bass of the San Francisco Symphony; David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra who performed this fall at the UW-Madison; and Eric Nowlin, principal viola of the Detroit Symphony, as well as administrators including Paul Hogle, Dean of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and critic and composer Gregory Sandow.
With more than 30 interviews to roll out in the coming months, Sewell plans to continue interviewing classical thinkers and document their perspectives in “A View From the Stage,” in hopes to initiate further conversations surrounding 21st-century musicianship, concert reinvention and the sustainability of symphony orchestras.
Here are links to featured interviews, with photos below the link:
Noah Bendix-Balgely: https://www.lydiasewell.com/aviewfromthestage/2017/8/4/noah-bendix-balgely
Scott Pingel: https://www.lydiasewell.com/aviewfromthestage/2017/8/4/scott-pingel
David Kim (photo by Ryan Donnell): https://www.lydiasewell.com/aviewfromthestage/2017/10/26/david-kim
Eric Nowlin:
Paul Hogle:
https://www.lydiasewell.com/aviewfromthestage/2017/10/27/paul-hogle
Gregory Sandow: https://www.lydiasewell.com/aviewfromthestage/2017/8/21/gregory-sandow
Mike Block:
https://www.lydiasewell.com/aviewfromthestage/2017/8/4/mike-block
Upcoming interviews include:
Steve Hackman (conductor, composer, arranger)
Rachel Barton Pine (violin soloist)
Tracy Silverman (electric violin soloist)
Kate Sheeran (Dean, Provost of San Francisco Conservatory)
Philip Setzer (Emerson String Quartet)
Aaron Dworkin (Founder of Sphinx, Detroit)
Stanford Thompson (Founder Play on Philly!)
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Classical music: Five alumni composers return to UW-Madison for two FREE concerts of their work this Thursday and Friday nights. On Tuesday night, UW trombonist Mark Hetzler and friends premiere four new works.
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ALERT: On Tuesday night at 7:30 in Mills Hall, UW-Madison trombone professor Mark Hetzler with be joined by Anthony DiSanza, drums/percussion; Vincent Fuh, piano; Ben Ferris, bass; Tom Ross-percussion; Garrett Mendelow, percussion.
Mark Hetzler and friends present a FREE concert titled “Mile of Ledges” with the premiere of four new works. Two new compositions (Falling and Mile of Ledges) by Mark Hetzler will feature lyrical and technical trombone passages, soulful and spirited piano writing, complex percussion playing and a heavy dose of electronics. In addition, the group will showcase new music by UW-Madison alum Ben Davis (his $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for quartet and electronics) and Seattle composer David P. Jones (a chamber work for trombone, piano, bass and two percussionists).
Read a Wisconsin State Journal about Mark Hetzler. Download PDF here.
By Jacob Stockinger
If The Ear recalls correctly, alumni who return to the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music are generally performers or scholars.
All the more reason, then, to celebrate this week’s major UW event, which was organized by UW-Madison composer and teacher Stephen Dembski (below). It features five composers who trained at the UW-Madison and who are now out in the world practicing their art and teaching it to others.
Steve Dembski’s class
Dembski writes:
This week, the UW-Madison School of Music will welcome back five graduates of the composition studio who have developed creative, multi-dimensional careers in a range of fields: acoustic and electronic composition, musicology, theory, audio production, conducting, education, concert management and administration, performance, and other fields as well.
The two-day event is intended to show the breadth of talent at UW-Madison as well as demonstrating that music students focus on much more than performance as a way to shape successful careers.
The composers include: Jeffrey Stadelman (below), who is now associate professor of music composition at the University at Buffalo.
Paula Matthusen (below, BM, 2001), who is assistant professor of music at Wesleyan University.
William Rhoads (below, BM, 1996), who is vice-president of marketing and communications for Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City.
Andrew Rindfleisch (below, BM, 1987), who is a full-time composer living in Ohio. (You can hear his introspective and microtonal work “For Clarinet Alone” in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Kevin Ernste (below, BM, 1997), who is professor of composition at Cornell University.
The UW-Madison School of Music will present two FREE concerts of their music, performed by the Wisconsin Brass Quintet (below top), the Wingra Woodwind Quintet (below bottom, in a photo by Michael Anderson), the UW Wind Ensemble, and other faculty members and students.
Wisconsin Brass Quintet
The FREE concerts are on this Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall; and on this Friday, Nov. 6, 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall. There will be workshops and colloquia yet to be announced.
For complete composer biographies, along with comments about their works, and more information about the two-day event, visit this site:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/2015/10/08/uw-madison-composers-return/
Tags: acoustic, alumni, Andrew Rindfleisch, Arts Administration, Audio, Bachelor of Music, bachelor's, bass, Bassoon, brass, Brass quintet, Campus, careers, clarinet, communications, composer, composing, concert manager, Conducting, Cornell University, double bass, drum, electronic, electronic composition, Electronic music, flute, French horn, Horn, Jeffrey Stadelman, Kevin Ernste, Mark Hetzler, marketing, microtonality, microtones, Music education, music history, music theory, musicology, New Music, New York City, Oboe, Ohio, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Paula Matthusen, percussion, performance, Piano, reed, Seattle, Stephen Dembski, Teacher, teaching, theory, tonality, Trombone, Trumpet, Tuba, Undergraduate education, University of Buffalo, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wesleyan University, William Rhoads, winds, Wingra Woodwind Quintet, Wisconsin Brass Quintet, Wisconsin State Journal, Woodwind quintet, woodwinds, YouTube
Classical Music: Isthmus Vocal Ensemble performs a world premiere by Madison composer Jerry Hui plus music by Mendelssohn, Brahms and other composers Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Over the past decade, the annual concert by the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble (below, in a photo by Jim Pippitt) has become a mid-summer landmark in Madison’s rich classical music scene.
The group does amazing things, especially given that it pulls its annual summer program together in only about two weeks. Its conductor is University of Wisconsin School of Music alumnus Scott MacPherson (below), who flies into town and gets the group rehearsing difficult old and especially new music.
In that short two weeks, the group prepares and presents an interesting and unusual program that typically combines well-known masterpieces with unknown or neglected works as well as world premieres.
The concerts always garner critical acclaim as well as a devoted following, and the part-time even manages to record outstanding and unusual CDs, including a compilation of works by contemporary composer Andrew Rindfleisch and an eclectic, unusual holiday CD called “An Isthmus Christmas.”
For more about the group in general, visit: http://www.isthmusvocalensemble.org/
This year marks the 11th annual concert by the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble. The event is especially noteworthy because it is a send-off of sorts: It marks the end of the Andrew Taylor’s tenure as president of the group. (He is not singing this summer because of his upcoming career change, but says he hopes to return next summer to sing. You can say hi and thank him at the ticket table, which he will be manning at the two performances.)
Taylor (below), who for 20 years has headed the renowned Arts Administration program at the UW Business School – the first program is its kind in the country — is leaving in August to take up a tenure-track faculty post at American University, which wisely recruited him, in Washington, D.C. For three years in a row, Taylor was named on the national list of the “The 25 Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Non-Profit Arts World.”
How the UW-Madison let a teacher and researcher of this caliber and prominence get away is beyond me, but there it is – a subject of regret and a topic for another time.
A typical offering by the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, this summer’s program spans five centuries of choral masterworks, and includes a world premiere by Madison local performer Jerry Hui), who is equally at home in early music (he founded and directs the ensemble Eliza’s Toyes) and contemporary music (he is a co-founder and co-director of NEW MUSE or New Music Everywhere).
For this concert, Hui, who just received his doctoral degree at the UW School of Music and composed and staged an Internet opera “Wired for Love” as his thesis, has sets poems by Wisconsin poet Lorine Niedecker (below in a photo by Bonnie Roub), an “Objectivist” poet who graduated from Beloit College and lived and worked in Fort Atkinson, to music.
The first performance is this Friday, Aug. 3, at 7:30 p.m. in the resonant, cathedral-like acoustics of Luther Memorial Church (below), 1021 University Avenue in Madison, where the group promises the air conditioning will be working.
A repeat performance is on Sunday, Aug. 5, at 3 p.m. in the more intimate space of Covenant Presbyterian Church, 326 South Segoe Road, on Madison’s near west side.
General admission tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. Tickets are available at the door, or online at:
http://www.isthmusvocalensemble.org/
Here is the impressively varied program, subject to change:
“Richte mich, Gott,” Op. 78, No. 2, by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847); “Parce mihi Domine,” by Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500-1553); Three poems by Lorine Niedecker (world premiere), by Jerry Hui (b. 1981)’ “The Drowned Lovers” (1998, rev. 2009), by Judith Bingham (b. 1952); “The Bluebird”by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924); “Der Abend” (Evening), Op. 62, No. 2, by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897); “Lux caelestis” (Heavenly Light) (2004/2011), by Timothy Kramer (b. 1959)
And for more specifics about the two upcoming performances of this summer’s concert, visit:
http://www.isthmusvocalensemble.org/concert.html
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