The Well-Tempered Ear
The Madison Symphony Orchestra cancels the remaining orchestra and organ concerts of the 2020-21 season and postpones its Beethoven celebration until next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) has canceled the remaining orchestral and organ concerts of the 2020-21 season due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A free online performance of “A Virtual Madison Symphony Christmas” will take place on Dec. 16 and stay posted through Dec. 31. For more information about the program and performers, plus a link to register and to hear that performance, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org
Plans for others online events – free or paid – have not been announced, although the MSO seems to be considering such steps. It also suggests that the 2021-22 season will be a postponed version of the same concerts planned this season to celebrate the Beethoven Year.
Here is the email from executive director Richard H. Mackie that the MSO sent out Monday:
Dear Friends of the Madison Symphony Orchestra,
As you know, the continuing COVID-19 crisis has curtailed planned performances of orchestras all over the world.
As more and more orchestras face the almost certain prospect that well-attended, full-orchestra concerts indoors will not be possible for the foreseeable future, at least until a successful vaccination program has brought COVID-19 under control, the remainder of many symphony concert seasons across America are now being cancelled .
We have previously cancelled our live, main stage concerts and education performances through January 2021 due to public health restrictions and the closure of Overture Hall.
Public Health Madison and Dane County restrictions continue to prohibit publicly attended indoor concerts. As a consequence, we have faced a painful decision in recent months regarding the fate of the rest of our 2020–2021 season.
I am grieved to announce that, under the present conditions — which offer no reasonable prospect of abatement until the summer, at least — we deem it an unfortunate necessity to cancel all previously scheduled Madison Symphony Orchestra concerts, Education and Community Engagement Programs, and Overture Concert Organ performances through May 2021.
Our June 2021 Concert on the Green remains on our schedule at this time.
We are prepared to issue refunds to our subscribers as we did in the fall. We will be communicating directly with our subscribers to provide options, including the option to donate the value of their tickets.
As we consider alternative programming opportunities for the spring, we will continue to welcome donations to our Musicians’ Relief Fund.
When we planned a joyous celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday, we could scarcely have imagined the devastation of the coronavirus in almost every aspect of our lives. But we are finding solace in successfully rescheduling this epic season just one year hence.
The emerging promise of vaccine development has rekindled our enthusiasm for making great music on a grand scale for our community with our Beethoven celebration. We all look forward to a new beginning with John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) and the orchestra in September 2021. (You can hear the original promotional preview in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Please stay tuned for some exciting news about next season. In the meantime, should there be a breakthrough opportunity to restore any of the cancelled orchestra or organ concerts, or educational and community services to the schedule, we will be prepared to do so.
We are committed to helping our orchestra and keeping great music alive in Madison. Thank you for your interest and continuing support.
Sincerely,
Richard H. Mackie, Executive Director
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Classical music: Saturday afternoon, Live From the Met in HD closes this season with an acclaimed production of “Dialogues of the Carmelites.” Here is a background story, two rave reviews, and next season’s 10 operas
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ALERT:The Brass Choirs of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras will present an afternoon of brass music this Saturday afternoon, May 11, at 2:30 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall, 455 North Park Street, in Madison. Directed by Tom Curry, the program features brass musicians from WYSO’s Concert, Philharmonia and Youth Orchestras. The concert is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLC. Music to be played is by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Giovanni Gabrieli, Charles Gounod, Edward Elgar, Paul Hindemith, Alan Hovahaness and Karel Husa.
CORRECTION: The Madison Youth Choirs will perform its “Legacy” concerts this weekend in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center on Saturday and Sunday — NOT Friday, as mistakenly listed and then corrected in the original post, which is below: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/classical-music-the-madison-youth-choirs-will-explore-the-theme-of-legacy-in-three-concerts-this-saturday-and-sunday-in-the-capitol-theater-of-the-overture-center/
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Saturday afternoon, May 11, the last production of this season’s “Live From the Met in HD” series, broadcast worldwide via satellite to cinemas, is Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites.”
By all accounts, it would be hard to end on a higher, stronger or more darkly dramatic note, given the outstanding music and performance of the score as well as the superb acting. (There is a brief preview of short scenes in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The world premiere of the opera took place in 1957 at La Scala in Milan, Italy. One of the most successful operas of the later decades of the 20th century, “Dialogues of the Carmelites” is a rare case of a modern work that is equally esteemed by audiences and experts, according to program notes from the Metropolitan Opera.
The opera focuses on a young member of the order of Carmelite nuns, the aristocratic Blanche de la Force, who must overcome a pathological timidity in order to answer her life’s calling. The score reflects key aspects of its composer’s personality: Francis Poulenc (below) was an urbane Parisian with a profound mystical dimension, and the opera addresses both the characters’ internal lives and their external realities.
The opera takes place between 1789 and 1794 in Paris and in the town of Compiègne in northeastern France, the site of the Carmelite nuns’ convent.
Its historical basis is the martyrdom of a group of 16 Carmelite nuns and lay sisters from Compiègne, who chose to offer themselves as victims for the restoration of peace to France during the French Revolution.
The Met uses the classic John Dexter production of Poulenc’s devastating story of faith and martyrdom.
Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (below right) sings the touching role of Blanche and soprano Karita Mattila (below left), a legend in her own time, returns to the Met as the Prioress.
The conductor for the performance is the Met’s highly acclaimed new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who also leads the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal.
The high-definition broadcast of the live performance from the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City starts at noon and runs until 3:10 p.m. with two intermissions. (It will also air at noon on Wisconsin Public Radio.)
The encore HD showings are next Wednesday, May 15, at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
The opera will be sung in French with supertitles in English, German and Spanish.
Tickets for Saturday broadcasts are $24 for adults and $22 for seniors and children under 13. For encore showings, all tickets are $18.
The cinemas where the opera can be seen are two Marcus Cinemas: the Point Cinema on the far west side of Madison (608 833-3980) and the Palace Cinema (608 242-2100) in Sun Prairie.
Here is a link to the Marcus website for addresses and more information. You can also use them to purchase tickets:
https://www.movietickets.com/movies
Here is a link to the Metropolitan Opera’s website where you can find the titles, dates, casts, production information and video clips of all 10 productions this past season — PLUS an announcement, with dates and titles, for next season’s 10 productions (which feature five new productions but no Verdi):
https://www.metopera.org/season/in-cinemas/
Here is a background story that focuses on the French-Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who leads the orchestra in this production and is the new music director of the Metropolitan Opera:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/arts/music/met-opera-dialogues-des-carmelites.html
Here is a rave review of “Dialogues of the Carmelites” by senior classical music critic Anthony Tommasini for The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/arts/music/dialogues-des-carmelites-met-opera-review.html
And here is another rave review from New York Classical Review:
http://newyorkclassicalreview.com/2019/05/met-closes-season-with-a-riveting-devastating-carmelites/
Here are links to a synopsis and program notes:
https://www.metopera.org/discover/synopses/dialogues-des-carmelites/
https://www.metopera.org/season/2018-19-season/dialogues-des-carmelites/
And here is a Wikipedia history of the hi-def broadcast series that gives you more information about how many cinemas it uses, the enormous size of the worldwide audience – now including Russia, China and Israel — and how much money it makes for The Met.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Opera_Live_in_HD
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Classical music: WQXR radio names 19 musicians to watch in ’19. What do you think of the choices? Who would you add?
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By Jacob Stockinger
What will 2019 bring in the way of classical music?
What and who should we be looking at and paying attention to?
WQXR — the famed classical radio station in New York City – recently published its list of 19 to watch in ‘19, with detailed reasons for and explanations of their picks.
It seems like a pretty good choice to The Ear, although there is always something of a parlor game aspect to such projects.
Nonetheless, the list covers a fine variety – instrumentalists and vocalists, young and old, American and international, the well-known and the up-and-coming such as the opera singer Devone Tines (below, in a photo by Nikolai Schukoff).
Some names will be familiar to Madison audiences – such as pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Nicola Benedettti, the JACK Quartet and cellist Steven Isserlis — especially through their live appearances at the Wisconsin Union Theater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and the Madison Symphony Orchestra plus broadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio.
Here is a link to the list: https://www.wqxr.org/story/wqxr-presents-19-19-artists-collaborations-upcoming-year/
The Ear can think of some other musicians that he would add to the list.
An especially deserving one of them is the young American virtuoso pianist George Li (below, in a photo by Simon Fowler).
Born in China and brought as a child to the United States by his parents, Li attended Harvard and just finished his master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. (At the bottom, you can hear Li play virtuosic music by Liszt and Horowitz in the YouTube video of a Tiny Desk Concert at National Public Radio or NPR.)
Li won the silver medal in the 2015 at the 15th Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and had a lot of people talking about the energy and excitement of his playing. He was praised for both outstanding technical prowess and deep expressiveness.
He then took first prize at a piano competition in Paris.
Ever since, he has been steadily booked. At 23, the amiable Li has already toured China, Japan and Russia and seems to have a very busy schedule ahead of him, judging by his posts on Instagram.
He has also released his first recording on the Warner Classics label, a fine CD that received many positive reviews from critics, including this one.
The program includes Haydn’s Sonata in B minor, Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor “Funeral March,” Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme of Corelli,” and Consolation No. 3 and the popular Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt.
Given all the concertos he is now performing, it would not surprise one to see his next recording be a concerto, possibly the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto N. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, which brought him instant acclaim.
Here is a link to his website: http://www.georgelipianist.com
And here is a link to his entry in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Li
Keep your ears and eyes on George Li.
What do you think of the choices made by WQXR?
Who would you add to the list of musicians to watch in 2019, and why?
If possible, maybe you can include a YouTube link to a performance, live or recorded, in your comment.
The Ear wants to hear.
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