The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music education: Brother and sister alumni return to play cello and conduct in the fall concerts by Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras. Plus, hear a free concert of three solo cello suites by Bach on Friday at noon
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison 900 University Bay Drive, features cellist Leonardo Altino playing Suites Nos. 1, 5 and 6 for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m.
By Jacob Stockinger
WYSO will kick-off its 51st season with the Evelyn Steenbock Fall Concerts on this Saturday, Nov. 12, and next Saturday, Nov. 19. Nearly 500 young musicians will display their talents to the community during the concerts, which are dedicated to music teachers.
The Youth Orchestra concert on Nov. 19 will be performed at the River Arts Center in Prairie du Sac, where WYSO will welcome back two alumni guest artists: Kenneth Woods and Cynthia Woods.
Kenneth will be playing cello and Cynthia will be conducting in the Cello Concerto by British composer Philip Sawyers. (You can hear Kenneth Woods conduct the opening movement of the cello concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The Youth Orchestra, under the direction of James Smith, will also be playing Symphony No. 2 by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Overture to the opera “Der Freischuetz” by Carl Maria von Weber.
Cynthia Woods (below) is currently the Music Director of the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra and the conductor for the Youth Preparatory Orchestra at the New England Conservatory, where she serves on the violin, chamber and conducting faculty.
Along with her conducting activities, Ms. Woods is also a frequent speaker and writer. She has been a guest lecturer at institutions such as MIT and the Longy School of Music of Bard College, a panelist for radio shows such as WGBH’s Callie Crossley, and a frequent contributor to The Boston Herald’s State of the Arts blog. Cynthia was a member of WYSO from 1984–1989 in Concert, Philharmonia and Youth Orchestra.
For more background about Cynthia Woods, go to:
http://www.wysomusic.org/guest-artists/cynthia-woods/
Kenneth Woods (below) is currently the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra. As a cello soloist and chamber musician, Wood’s collaborators have included members of the Toronto, Chicago and Cincinnati symphonies, the Minnesota, Gewandhaus and Concertgebouw orchestras and the La Salle, Pro Arte, Tokyo and Aubudon String Quartets.
He also is currently cellist of the string trio Ensemble Epomeo, with whom he performs regularly in the UK, Europe, and the USA. He writes a popular blog, “A View From the Podium.” Kenneth was a member of WYSO from 1980–1986 in Concert, Philharmonia and Youth Orchestra. He also studied cello at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music with Parry Karp, of the Pro Arte Quartet.
For more background and an interview with Kenneth Woods, go to:
http://www.wysomusic.org/guest-artists/kenneth-woods-cellistconductor/
Schedule and Programs
November 12, 2016 – 1:30 P.M., Mills Hall
Philharmonia Orchestra
- Rimsky- Korsakov: Procession of the Nobles from Mlada
- Shostakovich: Finale from Symphony No. 5, Op. 47
- Prokofiev: Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliette, 2nd suite
- Shostakovich: Six Pieces from the First Ballet Suite Op. 84
November 12, 2016 – 4 P.M., Mills Hall
CONCERT ORCHESTRA (below)
- Jack Bullock: Okeanos
- James Curnow: Phoenix Overture
- Jaromír Weinberger: Polka from the Opera Schwanda, the Bagpiper
- Albert O. Davis: Moonlight Masquerade
- Richard Strauss: Allerseelen (All Souls’ Day) Op. 10 No. 8
SINFONIETTA
- Domenico Gallo: Sinfonia in G
- Grieg: A Nordic Lullaby Op. 68, No.5
- Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings
- Robert S. Frost and Mary Elledge: Tales from Sherwood Forest
- Brian Balmages: Wood Splitter Fanfare
- Norman Leyden: Serenade for String Orchestra
- Michael Korb and Ulrich Roever: Highland Cathedral
- William Owens: Carpathia
- Sebastian Yradier: La Paloma
November 19, 2016 – 7 P.M., River Arts Center
YOUTH ORCHESTRA (below)
- Symphony No.2– Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Overture to the opera “Der Freishuetz”– Carl Maria von Weber
- Cello Concerto– Philip Sawyers with Kenneth Woods – Cello, Cynthia Woods – Conductor
The Evelyn Steenbock Fall Concerts will be held in Mills Concert Hall in the UW Humanities Building, 455 N. Park Street, Madison, and at the River Arts Center, 105 Ninth St. Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.
WYSO concerts generally run about an hour and a half in length, providing a great orchestral concert opportunity for families.
Tickets are available at the door, $10 for adults and $5 for youth 18 and under.
This project is supported by Dane Arts with additional funds from the Evjue Foundation, Inc., the charitable arm of The Capital Times. This project is also supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tags: alumni, Arts, Audubon, Bach, ballet, Bard College, blog, British, brother, Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Carl Maria von Weber, Cello, Chamber music, Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati, Classical music, Compact Disc, composer, Concertgebouw, concerto, conductor, Cynthia Woods, Dane Arts, Dmitri Shostakovich, English Symphony Orchestra, Europe, Evjue Foundation, fall, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Gewandhaus, Great Britain, Grieg, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ka Salle Quartet, Kenneth Woods, lullaby, Madison, Minnesota, MIT, moonlight, Music, Music education, music teachers, National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, New England Conservatory, opera, Orchestra, Overture, Philip Sawyers, Phillip Sawyers, polka, Prairie du Sac, Pro Arte Quartet, Radio, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Richard Strauss, Rimsky-Korsakov, River Arts Center, Romeo and Juliet, Serenade, Sergei Prokofiev, sinfonia, sister, solo, String Orchestra, strings, Suite, suites, symphony, Tchaikovsky, Teacher, The Capital Times, Tokyo String Quartet, Toronto, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, UK, United Kingdom, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, Viola, Violin, WGBH, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Youth Symhony Orchestras, WYSO, YouTube
Classical music: This year’s Token Creek Chamber Music Festival celebrates local ecological restoration with “water music”
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is an overview of the upcoming 27th Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, which starts this Saturday, Aug. 27, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 4.
TOKEN CREEK, WIS. – Years in the planning, summer 2016 marks the completion of a major ecological restoration project on the Token Creek Festival property in the northeast corner of Dane County, part of the watersheds vital to the hydrology of Madison and southeastern Wisconsin.
During the 1930s, one of the most important feeder streams in the area, and its only cold-water trout stream, was ruined when it was widened to support short-lived commercial interests and development. Now, decades later, in a monumental effort, that stream has at long last been relocated, restored and rescued.
Festival-goers will be able to experience the project firsthand on the opening weekend, when each concert is preceded by an optional stroll along the new stream, with conversation guided by restoration ecologists and project managers.
Celebrating this monumental ecological project, the season theme of this year’s Token Creek Chamber Music Festival is: Water Music. Virtually all of the works programmed evoke brooks and streams and rivers and water in its many forms, with its ritual meanings, associations, allusions, and as metaphor.
In keeping with the theme, the Festival has adopted Franz Schubert (below) as the summer’s featured composer. His poetic, melancholic, ultimately organic and inevitable relationship to the natural world was expressed in composition after composition, wedded to his intense involvement with the poetry of his era, itself so infatuated with birds, fields, clouds and streams.
The second program emphasis continues the festival’s most persistent theme: the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Three strands of Bach’s music previously explored at Token Creek will be taken up again. We will present our third complete cantata performance, O heiliges Geist und Wasserbad, a mysterious and poetic piece from early in the composer’s career, with soloists from the Madison Choral Project (below).
We will conclude our survey of the three Bach violin concertos, this year the E major, co-artistic director Rose Mary Harbison (below top) again as soloist. And we take up our sequence of fugues from The Art of Fugue, co-artistic director and composer John Harbison (below bottom), who has won the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “genius grant,” adding three more to his personal odyssey with this work, due to conclude in 2030.
NEW ARTISTS
Token Creek is pleased to introduce several new artists this season, including Grammy Award-nominated mezzo-soprano Margaret Lattimore, who has been praised for her “glorious instrument” and dubbed an “undisputed star…who has it all – looks, intelligence, musicianship, personality, technique, and a voice of bewitching amber color.”
Ms. Lattimore will offer works of Franz Schubert and John Harbison on the Festival’s opening concerts, By the Brook (August 27 and 28), where she will be joined by pianist Molly Morkoski.
Ms. Morkoski (below), who last appeared at Token Creek in 2013, consistently garners praise for her refined virtuosity and “the bold confidence and interactive grace one wants in a devoted chamber music maker.” In addition to the opening program, Morkoski will also be heard on the season finale in Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet (Sept. 2 and 4).
On that same concert, tenor William Hite and pianist Kayo Iwama join forces in Schubert’s devastating and tragic song cycle, Die Schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Miller’s Daughter), in which a brook functions prominently as the protagonist’s confidante. (You can hear the legendary baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing “The Miller and the Brook” from the flowing song cycle in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini has called Hite (below) a “breathtaking communicator of spoken nuance” for his ability to reveal the meaning and emotion embodied in the text and the music, solidifying his reputation as an engaging and expressive artist.
http://www.williamhitetenor.com/
Kayo Iwama (below) is associate director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music graduate vocal arts program, the master’s degree program for classical singers, and she also coordinates the vocal studies program at the Tanglewood Music Center. Her frequent concert partners include Dawn Upshaw and Lucy Shelton.
http://www.bard.edu/academics/faculty/details/?action=details&id=1838
VIOLS AND WILLIAM WARTMANN
Finally, the “technically faultless and consistently sensitive and expressive,” consort of viols, Second City Musick (below), based in Chicago, will offer a guest recital on Tuesday, Aug. 30, anchored by John Harbison’s The Cross of Snow.
Craig Trompeter, Russell Wagner, Anna Steinhoff at the Planetarium, Chicago, May 30, 2013
Commissioned by local businessman and philanthropist William John Wartmann (below) in memory of his wife, mezzo-soprano Joyce Wartmann, this evocative new piece, on texts of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, blends the ethereal lushness of violas da gamba with the haunting clarity of the countertenor voice, here Nathan Medley (below bottom), to explore the emotions of grief, loss and love.
At its first performance in Chicago last May, a local critic praised both the work and the musicians: “The Chicago-based ensemble was ideally suited to premiere this profoundly affecting work, and the shared sensibility between composer and performers was noticeable.”
Tuesday’s program will also include works of Henry Purcell, William Byrd, John Jenkins and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Other festival artists this season include vocalists Rachel Warricke, Sarah Leuwerke, Daniel O’Dea, and Nathan Krueger; violinists Rose Mary Harbison, Laura Burns, and Isabella Lippi; Jen Paulson, viola; Karl Lavine, cello; Ross Gilliland, bass; Linda Kimball, horn; and John Harbison, piano.
HERE ARE FESTIVAL PROGRAMS AT A GLANCE:
Program 1: By the Brook – Schubert, Bach and Harbison
Saturday, Aug. 27: 6:45 p.m. – optional guided stream stroll*; 8 p.m. – concert
Sunday, Aug. 28: 2:45 p.m. – optional guided stream stroll*; 4 p.m. – concert
*(The stream stroll is free, but reservations are recommended)
Program 2: Music for Viols, Then & Now
Tuesday, Aug. 30, at 7:30 p.m.
Program 3: Water Colors = Two Schubert Masterworks
Friday, Sept. 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 4 at 4 p.m.
Concert tickets are $32 (students $12). The preview stream stroll on opening weekend is free to concertgoers, but advance reservations are recommended.
Reservations can be made in several ways:
- Online: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/token-creek-chamber-music-festival-2016-tickets-26070692142
- Website (printable order form): www.tokencreekfestival.org
- Phone: 608-241-2525 (voicemail only, please leave a message)
- Email: info@tokencreekfestival.org
- U.S. mail: P.O. Box 5201, Madison WI, 53705
Performances take place at the Festival Barn, on Highway 19 near the hamlet of Token Creek (10 minutes north of Madison) with ample parking available. The venue, indoors and air-conditioned, is invitingly small—early reservations are recommended.
More information about the Token Creek Festival and all events and artists can be found at the website, www.tokencreekfestival.org or by calling 608 241-2525.
Tags: accompaniment, accompany, allusion, Art of Fugue, Arts, association, Bach, Bard College, baritone, Baroque, bass, birds, Byrd, Cantata, Cello, Chamber music, Chicago, choral music, Classical music, clouds, commission, composer, concerto, countertenor, Dane County, Dawn Upshaw, development, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Early music, ecology, fields, Franz Schubert, fugue, genius grant, Grammy, grief, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Horn, Jacob Stockinger, Jenkins, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Harbison, John Jenkins, Kayo Iwama, lieder, loss, Love, Lucy Shelton, MacArthur Fellow, Madison, Madison Choral Project, Margaret Lattimore, metaphor, Mezzo-soprano, Molly Morkoski, Music, natural world, nature, New York Times, organic, Piano, poetic, Poetry, premiere, Pulitzer Prize, Purcell, restoration, Rose Mary Harbison, Second City Musick, sing, singer, solo, Sonata, song, song cycle, stream, streams, Tanglewood Festival, tenor, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, Trout, Trout Quintet, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viol, Viola, Violin, vocal music, vocalist, water, Water Music, watershed, William Hite, William Wattmann, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. So here are guides to this summer’s local, national and even international festivals of classical music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Get out your datebooks.
Madison now has great classical music year-round, including in the summer, which long ago ceased being an artistic desert.
LOCAL
This summer’s offerings include:
The 25th anniversary season, filled with new music but also tried-and-true treasured masterpieces, of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society that runs June 10-26:
http://www.bachdancinganddynamite.org
The 17th annual Madison Early Music Festival, which runs from July 10-16 and will focus on William Shakespeare in honor of the 400th anniversary of his death:
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/
The annual Madison Savoyards’ production of Gilbert & Sullivan will stage “The Gondoliers” for six performances July 29-Aug. 7:
The second season of the Willy Street Chamber Players (below):
http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org
The 27th annual Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, which runs Aug. 27-Sept 4 and this year features music celebrating water and the natural world. Programs include music by Johann Sebastian Bach, English Renaissance music of John Dowland, William Byrd and Henry Purcell and a Wisconsin premiere by composer and co-director John Harbison plus Franz Schubert’s song cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin” and his equally famous masterpiece, the “Trout” Piano Quintet:
Plus there are a lot of smaller groups including the Madison Summer Choir and the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, both of which have received critical acclaim. And there is the Green Lake Festival. Some I might also include the six Concerts on the Square by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, which this year features a hefty dose of classical fare.
NATIONAL
But if you don’t stay around town and hit the road instead, there is a lot that might interest you in the way of summer music festivals around the country. There are festivals of chamber music, orchestral music and opera.
And The Ear has always wanted to attend the Bard Music Festival (below), which emphasizes the cultural context of the music, and the Mostly Mozart Festival. One of these years! (You can hear from co-artistic director and Bard College president Leon Botstein how the unique Bard Music Festival is run in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a roundup by The New York Times, which put all kinds of genres together. Just scroll down until you hit the Classical Festivals section that was compiled and annotated by the Times’ trustworthy critic Vivien Schweitzer:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/arts/summer-festivals.html?_r=0
Here is a fairly comprehensive national guide from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Classical_music_festivals_in_the_United_States
Here is a guide from two years ago, done by NPR or National Public Radio, that includes the Madison Early Music Festival and divides up the selection by regions of the country:
And for good measure, for those taking international vacations here is a guide to international music festivals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_festivals
Happy hunting and choosing. Then happy and safe traveling. And finally Happy Listening.
The Ear hopes you have a classic “classical” summer.
Tags: Arts, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Bard College, Baroque, Byrd, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, concerto, critic, Dowland, Early music, Europe, festival, Franz Schubert, Gilbert and Sullivan, international, Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Harbison, local, London, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Summer Choir, Mostly Mozart, Music, national, National Public Radio, natural world, nature, New York Times, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Piano, Purcell, song, summer, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, travel, Trout Quintet, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, Viola, Violin, vocal music, water, William Shakespeare, Willy Street Chamber Players, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Meet Dame Ethel Smyth –- a Victorian feminist and forceful composer as well as an advocate of women’s rights and same-sex relations.
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By Jacob Stockinger
You probably don’t know the name Ethel Smyth (pronounced smaith, below).
The Ear certainly didn’t.
But then he came across this fascinating account of her life and work.
Smythe was friends with Peter Tchaikovsky and Johannes Brahms.
An early feminist leader for same-sex equality, she fell in love with the much younger writer Virginia Woolf.
And her muscular music and politically charged operas reminded people of Richard Wagner.
Now she has been resurrected thanks to Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College who also directs the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Music Festival. He staged her 1904 opera “The Wreckers.” (At bottom, you can hear a YouTube performance of the Overture to “The Wreckers.”)
Tom Huizenga, of the outstanding Deceptive Cadence blog, wrote this profile and appreciation for NPR, or National Public radio:
Tags: American Symphony Orchestra, Arts, Bard College, Bard Music Festival, blog, choral music, Classical music, Deceptive Cadence, England, Ethel Smyth, feminism, feminist, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Leon Botstein, lesbian, LGBT, Music, New York City, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Overture, Peter Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, same-sex, The Wreckers, Tom Huizenga, UK, United Kingdom, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Victorian, Virginia Woolf, vocal music, women's rights, YouTube
Classical music: Mexican modern composer Carlos Chavez gets his first full examination and hearing from the Bard Music Festival this weekend and next.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Do you know much about the 20th-century Mexican composer Carlos Chavez (below, in a portrait by famed photographer Paul Strand)?
Despite the emphasis on cultural diversity these days, have you heard much of his music in concerts halls, on recordings and on the radio? (You can hear his Symphony No. 2 in a YouTube video at the bottom. Furthermore, YouTube has quite a lot of the music written by Carlos Chavez.)
Judging from The Ear’s own experience, probably not.
But that may be about to change.
Once again the Bard Music Festival -– under the direction of Bard College president Leon Botstein (below) who also directs the American Symphony Orchestra -– is known for taking on neglected composers or neglected aspects of well-known composers.
This year is no different.
Starting this weekend and continued next weekend, the Bard Music Festival will explore the world and music of Carlos Chavez, who was the foremost Mexican modernist.
Like his American colleague Aaron Copland, Chavez (below) helped to free the classical music of both North America and South America from the grip of European music and especially the excesses of late German Romanticism.
Here is a link to the website of the festival, the center of which is the concert hall (below) designed by architect Frank Gehry. Looking at the schedule will give you some idea of the range and quality of the events and concerts that are planned.
http://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/
Perhaps the best preview appeared in The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/arts/music/carlos-chavez-mexican-modernist.html?_r=0
Tags: American Symphony Orchestra, Arts, Bard College, Bard Music Festival, Carlos Chavez, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, concerto, Frank Gehry, Jacob Stockinger, Leon Botstein, Mexico, Music, New York City, New York Times, North America, Orchestra, Paul Strand, Piano, South America, The New York Times, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin
Classical music: Pianists Peter Serkin and Julia Hsu will play works for piano-four hands by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms this Saturday night at Farley’s House of Pianos.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Our friends at Farley’s House of Pianos write to the blog with news of a noteworthy piano concert this Saturday night:
Renowned American pianist Peter Serkin (below top) and Julia Hsu (below bottom) will perform piano, four-hand pieces by Schumann, Bizet, Mozart and more, as part of the Salon Piano Series concerts held at Farley’s House of Pianos at 6522 Seybold Road on Madison’s far west side near West Towne.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. this Saturday night, April 4 and will include an introduction by Karlos Moser (below), a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of music and former longtime director of the University Opera at the UW-Madison School of Music.
The program includes: Six Etudes in the Form of Canons for Pedal-Piano, Op. 56, by Robert Schumann; Three Pieces from “Jeux d’Enfants” (Children’s Games) by Georges Bizet; the Sonata in B flat Major, K. 358, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the Allegro ma non troppo in A minor (the dramatic and lyrical “Lebenssturme” or “Lifestorms” that you can hear in a live performance in a YouTube video at the bottom), D.947, and the Rondo in A Major, D.951, by Franz Schubert; and Four Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms.
Tickets are $45 and are expected to sell quickly. They are available online at www.salonpianoseries.org and http://www.brownpapertickets.com/profile/706809 or at Farley’s House of Pianos, (608) 271-2626.
For more information about the Salon Piano Series, visit: http://salonpianoseries.org
The distinguished American pianist Peter Serkin has performed with the world’s major symphony orchestras with such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Barenboim, George Szell, Claudio Abbado, Eugene Ormandy and James Levine. A dedicated chamber musician, Serkin has collaborated with artists including violinist Pamela Frank and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
An avid exponent of the music of many contemporary composers, Serkin has brought to life the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Michael Wolpe, and others for audiences around the world. He has performed many world premieres written specifically for him, in particular, works by Toru Takemitsu, Oliver Knussen and Peter Lieberson. Serkin currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Longy School of Music. Serkin became friends with the Farleys in 1994 when he was in town for a concert and visited the Farley’s showroom (below).
Originally from Taiwan, Julia Hsu received scholarships to study at The Purcell School for young musicians at the age of 14. She has also studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London and at the Hannover Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Germany. Julia has collaborated with conductors Fabio Panisello, Lutz Koeler and cellist Ivan Moniguetti. She was a Festival Fellow at Bowdoin Music Festival, and a scholar at the Banff Centre, Canada before she became a Piano Fellow at Bard College Conservatory of Music in 2013.
The Salon Piano Series is a non-profit founded by Tim and Renée Farley to continue the tradition of intimate salon concerts at Farley’s House of Pianos.
Upcoming concerts include the internationally acclaimed Czech pianist Martin Kasík (below top), who will play the “Moonlight” and “Les Adieux” Sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven and Sonata No. 3 by Sergei Prokofiev, on Saturday, April 18, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. Jazz pianist Dick Hyman (below bottom) will perform on May 30 and 31, 2015, at 4 p.m. both days.
For ticket information and concert details see www.salonpianoseries.org.
All events will be held at Farley’s House of Pianos, 6522 Seybold Road, Madison, on Madison’s west side near the Beltline, and plenty of free parking is available. It is also easy to reach by bicycle or Madison Metro.
Tags: Arnold Schoenberg, Arts, Banff Centre, Bard College, Beethoven, Berlin Philharmonic, Bowdoin, Brahms, Canada, Canon, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Dick Hyman, etude, Farley's House of Pianos, George Szell, Georges Bizet, Germany, Grammy Award, Gustavo Dudamel, Hannover, Hungarian Dances, James Levine, Jazz, Julia Hsu, Les Adieux Sonata, London, London Symphony Orchestra, Longy School of Music, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Michael Wolpe, Moonlight Sonata, Mozart, Music, Music festival, New Music, Oliver Knussen, Orchestra, Pamela Frank, Peter Lieberson, Peter Serkin, Piano, piano-four hands, Prokofiev, Purcell School, Robert Schumann, rondo, Royal Academy of Music, Schubert, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Sonata, Stravinsky, Taiwan, theater, Toru Takemitsu, UK, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Yo-Yo Ma, YouTube
Classical music: Here are some suggestions for summer music festivals from NPR, the BBC and The New York Times that may help you plan your summer vacation.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear admits it: He is more of an armchair traveler than a true explorer of the globe and its many cultures and cultural events.
But that approach has its compensations. At least it gives me a certain satisfaction that my carbon footprint is smaller than many “eco-friendly” people and “greens” who say they worry about global warming and climate change but think nothing of hopping on a jet to travel thousands of miles.
But if I were to go on big trips, I might well plan some of them around the many wonderful classical music festivals that have sprung up in the area, the regional, the nation and the world.
Here is a link to 10 “can’t miss” classical music festivals. They include the always intriguing Bard Festival (below) that takes place near New York City on the Hudson River and in a concert hall (below) designed by celebrated architect Frank Gehry. Here is a link to the list on the terrific blog “Deceptive Cadence” on NPR:
The New York Times has a more international list that includes the Salzburg Festival (below top) in Austria and the self-consciously hip Bach Festival (below bottom and at the bottom in a YouTube video) in Leipzig, Germany:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/arts/international/a-summer-feast-of-classical-music.html?_r=0
The list of festivals from the BBC Music Magazine is understandably heavy on festivals in the United Kingdom:
http://www.classical-music.com/festival-guide-2014
The Ear also found it helpful to Google “2014 summer classical music festivals.” He found quite a few festivals that were not listed in the other guides.
Of course, you still have to pay attention to the local media for word of local music festivals. This month, for example, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society (below) kicks off its annual three-weekend season of chamber music on Friday, June 13.
In July, to offer another example, the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. This year it is devoted to Italian music from 1300 to 1600, and will take place July 12-19. MEMF (below) made the New York Times listing last year, if I remember correctly, but not this year.
And then in late August the annual Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, which takes place in a renovated barn (below), will happen. The 2014 season is the 25th anniversary season. Specific programs of composers and works are not listed, although performers and concert titles or themes are given. The site says to check back soon for details:
Tags: architect, architecture, Arts, Austria, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Bach Festival, Bard, Bard College, Bard Music Festival, BBC, BBC Music Magazine, Chamber music, Classical music, climate change, Early music, eco-friendly, festival, Frank Gehry, global warming, green, Jacob Stockinger, jet, Johann Sebastian Bach, Leipzig, Leipzig Bach Festival, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Opera, Mozart, Music, Music festival, New York City, New York Times, NPR, opera, Piano, Salzburg Festival, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, travel, United Kingdom, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: The 24th annual Bard Music Festival finishes its look at the modernist titan composer Igor Stravinsky with an exploration of his late work. Here is a report by The New York Times critic Steve Smith.
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By Jacob Stockinger
As I promised last weekend, here is the update on the conclusion of the 24th annual Bard Music Festival held at Bard College in the Hudson River Valley.
Much or even most of the festival is directed by Bard College president Leon Bostein. Concerts are held in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts (below) that was designed by the noted architect Frank Gerhy.
This year’s theme was Igor Stravinsky, and the first weekend of the festival examined his Russian roots and his earlier work. Last weekend I offered the insightful account and assessment by The New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe, who has been named by some sources — including famed critic Norman Lebrecht — as the designated successor to senior music critic Anthony Tommasini.
Here is a link to that posting:
Lass weekend saw the conclusion of “Stravinsky and His World.” It examined later works, with an emphasis on his neo-Classical works (listen to the tuneful clarity of the YouTube video of Stravinsky’s “Pulchinella” Suite at the bottom performed by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic); the composer’s and culture’s reaction against Richard Wagner and the lushness of late Romanticism as well; and the general career and music of Stravinsky (below, in a photo by Richard Avedon) while he was in exile in France and the U.S.
The activities included a performance of “Perspehone” with Jean Stillwell as the narrator (below in a photo by Cory Weaver of the New York Times).
Also performing was the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein (below).
Here is a link to another perceptive assessment by another critic for The New York Times, Steve Smith (below):
I’m sure the festival was filled with great music, great performances and rare insights.
For that reason as I wrote last time, the Bard Music Festival is one that really tempts me. What other festival would treat music more as philosophy and history and less as entertainment? What other festival would devote itself, for example, to Camille Saint-Saens or Jean Sibelius?
Tags: American Symphony Orchestra, Bard College, Bard Music Festival, Berlin Philharmonic, France, Frank Gerhy, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Sibelius, Leon Botstein, neo-Classicism, New York Times, Pulcinella Suite, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Richard Wagner, Romanticism, Russia, Simon Rattle, Steve Smith, U.S., United States, YouTube
Classical music: This weekend will bring the conclusion of the exciting and intriguing Bard Music Festival that this year is exploring the music and world of Igor Stravinsky. Which music festivals do you recommend?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Many classical music festivals, in the summer and throughout the year, interest me and I would be happy to attend them. But only a relatively few really call me or beckon me or tempt me to attend.
One is the Van Cliburn competition for AMATEURS, not the professional one. Another is the Gilmore Festival, which chooses winners not really by individual competition – or at least conscious competition – but rather by judges who follow the careers of various pianists and then hand out the awards.
Another festival I would like to attend is the Oregon Bach Festival because Johann Sebastian Bach’s body of work is so rich. A fourth is the annual summer International Keyboard Festival at Mannes School of Music in New York City because it includes relatively unknown performers, intriguing programs and very intriguing master classes.
But a major orchestral festival that calls me strongly is the annual summer music festival at Bard College in New York State’s Hudson River Valley, whose president Leon Botstein plans and leads the events, (Below is Leon Botstein in conducting the American Symphony Orchestra last Saturday in a photo by Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times. At bottom, in a YouTube video, you can hear him discussing his “Classics Declassified” series.)
Critic Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times this past week gave a terrific account of the opening weekend of the festival, which this year is devoted to Igor Stravinsky (below). It will finish up this weekend and I expect to post something about its conclusion.
Woolfe (below) makes all the right points about why I find the festival at Bard so tempting, from the quality and importance of the music and often unusual repertoire to the fine performances and performers as well as the unusual angle or focal point that is often adopted.
Here is a link to Woolfe’s readable and detailed account. See if it doesn’t make you, like me, want to attend the festival:
Which music festivals have you most enjoyed and would recommend?
Which ones would you most like to attend?
The Ear wants to hear.
Classical music: Was composer Igor Stravinsky gay or bisexual, as a new book by Robert Craft claims? And if he was, how much does it matter? Did it affect his music? Were New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe and other writers even-handed and fair in exploring the “issue”?
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By Jacob Stockinger
With the rising social and political acceptance of marriage equality, or same-sex marriage, it is hard not to imagine that there will also be even more interest in gay history and whether great and important figures from the past will be “outed” as gay, lesbian and bisexual.
That is especially true of the pioneering 20th-century Russian modernist composer Igor Stravinsky (1881-1972, below top) -– 2013 is the centennial of his landmark ballet score “Rite of Spring” – who has been “outed” in the new book “Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories” by 90-year-old Robert Craft (below bottom, on the right with Stravinsky on the left), who was the composer’s longtime friend and assistant.
Specifically, Craft says, Stravinsky – who was married to women three times and was said to have been proud or even boastful of his heterosexuality — had affairs with Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov (below top), the oldest son of Stravinsky’s teacher, the famous Russian composer and orchestrator Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; with French composer Maurice Ravel (below middle, with Ravel on the left and Stravinsky on the right); and with Belgian composer Maurice Delage (below bottom).
Perhaps the most comprehensive and careful or even conservative treatment of the questions raised by Craft and his book (below), which was published by the thriving Naxos Records, came in The New York Times through the treatment by reporter and critic Zachary Woolfe.
Here is a link to that story by Zachary Woolfe (below):
Other writers and media outlets also covered the controversial story, which was bound to get attention, given the “virility” of Stravinsky’s most famous scores and the wide influence he had on modern music. Be sure to read the Comments sections, since you will there find many other points of view and debate from the “consumers.”
Here is a link to an excellent story on the radio website for the New York City radio station WQXR-FM. Be sure to read the many reader comments:
http://www.wqxr.org/#!/blogs/wqxr-blog/2013/jun/25/was-stravinsky-bisexual-if-he-was-so-what/
Here is another fine story from the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-stravinksy-craft-20130721,0,6906602.story
And here is how famed critic Norman Lebrecht (below) first treated the matter:
And then here is how Lebrecht later got pretty dour about Woolfe and the Times as well other critics or questioners of Craft’s claims:
One thing is for sure: Craft’s contentions and the validity of his proof as well as the effect of the claim will surely be analyzed and talked about a lot at the special Stravinsky festival in August at Bard College near New York City.
What do you think of the claim? True or false?
And if true, how much do you think it matters?
The Ear — who thinks almost all great art and great artists involve a real or symbolic transgression of sexual taboos — wants to hear.
So check out the sheer transgressive sensuality and even sexuality of the music and dance, with choreography by the famed PIna Bausch, and the dancers’ bodies in the YouTube video below:
Tags: Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov, Bard College, Belgium, bisexual, Craft, gay, Igor Stravinsky, Jacob Stockinger, Maurice Delage, Maurice Ravel, Naxos, Naxos Records, New York City, New York Times, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Norman Lebrecht, Pina Bausch, Rite of Spring, Robert Craft, Stravinsky, WQXR-FM, YouTube
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