The Well-Tempered Ear
This Sunday at 4 p.m., the Salon Piano Series debuts an online recital by pianist Kangwoo Jin. He plays music by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Liszt and Schumann. It is up until May 9
Leave a 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
This Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. CDT, the Salon Piano Series, hosted by Farley’s House of Pianos, will debut an online concert by pianist Kangwoo Jin (below, in a photo by Andy Manis).
The concert, which was recorded at Luther Memorial Church, costs $10 and will be available online through May 9.
The program is:
Scarlatti – Sonatas in D minor and D Major, K. 213 and 214 (ca. 1756-1757)
Beethoven – Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2, “Moonlight” (1801)
Liszt – Transcriptions for solo piano of the songs “Widmung” (Dedication) by Robert Schumann and “Litanei” (Litany) by Franz Schubert
Schumann – Symphonic Etudes, Op.13 (1830)
Bishop – Home, Sweet Home
Tickets are only available online at eventbrite.com. Service fees apply. Complete program and concert information is at salonpianoseries.org
PROGRAM NOTES
Jin has written the following program notes for The Ear:
“As a musician, I am always eager to share music with the public. I am very excited to be able to reach out to the audience with this unprecedented Salon Piano Series Virtual Concert.
“I believe music soothes our mental health in difficult times regardless of age, gender or race. I very much hope my performance will contribute to this collective healing we feel through music.
“I wanted to include three different styles, as I usually do for recitals. This time I have Baroque, Classical and Romantic music.
“I chose one of the most famous Beethoven sonatas in order to celebrate his 250th birth year (2020), which I did not have a chance to mark last year.
“This piece is popular with the title of “Moonlight,” which Beethoven (below) never intended. Five years after his death, the German critic Ludwig Rellstab used the word “Moonlight” in order to describe the first movement. But it was really inspired by the funeral march in Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni.” I try to bring out the tragic color of the first movement. (You can hear Jin play the exciting final movement of the sonata in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“I also wanted to play the virtuosic masterpiece “Symphonic Etudes,” Op. 13, by Robert Schumann (below), including the beautiful posthumous variations 4 and 5.
I find this piece special in the sense that Schumann intended to make this piece “symphonic.” He created multiple layers of voices in various ways through each etude and created orchestral sounds. This polyphonic writing with multiple layers and a thick texture is what makes this piece difficult to play.
“I also specifically wanted to include one of the piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt (below) of Schubert’s Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen (Litany for the Feast of All Souls), D. 343.
“Schubert (below) used the poem “Litany” by Johann Jacobi (1740-1814). It is written for comforting the deceased. Robert Capell, the author of the book “Schubert’s Songs” (1929), said about this lied: There was never a truer or more touching expression of simple devotion and consoled grief … “The music rises from a pure well of affection and humility.”
“I would like to dedicate this piece to all the people who suffered from Covid 19.”
BACKGROUND
Here is a link to Kangwoo Jin’s impressive website where you can see many photos, learn about his extensive career as a teacher and hear many samples of his playing: https://www.pianistkangwoojin.com
Praised for his “refined tone quality with powerful energy” (Chosun Daily Newspaper), Jin (below, in a photo by Steve Apps for the Wisconsin State Journal) concertizes nationally and internationally, including performances in Germany, Italy, China, Indonesia and South Korea.
He gave his debut concert at the Sejong Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea, sponsored by the Chosun Daily Newspaper. He has given live performances on Wisconsin Public Radio and WORT 89.9 FM.
Jin appears frequently as a guest artist at music festivals, universities and various concert series. Recent invitations include UW-River Falls, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and Tongji University in Shanghai. Kawai Pianos USA has also invited him as a guest artist at the annual Piano Technicians Guild Convention and Technical Institute in Florida.
Jin completed the Bachelor of Music degree at Hanyang University in South Korea, then earned his Performer Diploma and Master’s of Music at Indiana University, where he worked as an associate instructor.
He is the recipient of the J. Battista Scholarship for performance excellence at Indiana University and received the Collins Distinguished Fellowship for his doctoral studies, completed last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied piano with Christopher Taylor and piano pedagogy with Jessica Johnson.
Tags: #AmericanPlayersTheatre, #ArtsCenter, #ArtSong, #BachelorofMusic, #BaroqueEra, #BaroqueMusic, #BeethovenYear, #BeijingChina, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ChosunDailyNewspaper, #ChristianChurch, #ChristopherTaylor, #Classicalera, #ClassicalMusician, #CoronavirusPandemic, #CorpusChristi, #COVID-19, #DifficultTime, #DoctoralStudies, #DomenicoScarlatti, #DonGiovanni, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #Farley'sHouseofPianos, #FeastofAllSouls, #FranzLiszt, #FranzSchubert, #FuneralMarch, #GuestArtist, #HanyangUniversity, #HomeWebsite, #IndianaUniversity, #JacobStockinger, #JohannJacobi, #KangwooJin, #KawaiPianos, #LivePerformance, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #LutherMemorialChurch, #MajorKey, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MentalHealth, #MinorKey, #MoonlightSonata, #MusicCritic, #Musicfaculty, #MusicProfessor, #OnlineConcert, #OperaMusic, #PerformerDiploma, #PianoTechnician, #PolyphonicMusic, #ProgramNotes, #RobertSchumann, #RomanticEra, #RomanticMusic, #SalonPIanoSeries, #SchubertLieder, #SeoulSouthKorea, #ServiceFee, #ShanghaiChina, #SouthKorea, #SouthKorean, #SteveApps, #Sundayafternoon, #SymphonicEtudes, #TexasA&M, #TheEar, #TheUW, #Tongjiniversity, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UW-RiverFalls, #VirtualConcert, #VocalMusic, #WisconsinPublicRadio, #WisconsinStateJournal, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YouTubevideo, affection, afternoon, age, April, art song, Arts, arts center, audience, auhtor, available, Bachelor of Music, Baroque, Baroque music, beautiful, Beethoven, Beethoven Year, birth, Bishop, blog, Blog post, blog posting, Book, China, Chosun Daily Newspaper, Christian, Christian church, Christopher Taylor, church, Classical, Classical era, Classical music, classicalmusic, collective, Collins, color, comfort, complete, composer, Concert, concertize, console, contribute, convention, coronavirus, coronavirus pandemic, Corpus Christi, cost, create, dead, death, deceased, dedicate, dedication, degree, different, difficult, difficult time, diploma, doctoral studies, doctorate, Domenico Scarlatti, Don Giovanni, Early music, energy, era, etude, excited, exciting, expression, Facebook, Facebook post, Facebook posting, Farley's House of Pianos, feast, Feast of All Souls, fee, festival, final, Florida, forward, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, funeral march, gender, German, Germany, grief, guest artist, guild, Hanyang University, healing, hear, Home, home website, hope, host, humiity, imformation, impressive, Indiana University, Indonesia, instructor, intend, internationally, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Jacobi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Kangwoo Jin, Kawai, Kawai PIanos, Korea, layer, layers, lied, like, link, link'share, Liszt, litany, live performance, Ludwig van Beethoven, Luther, Luther Memorial Church, Madison, major key, masterpiece, May, Mead Witter School of Music, Mental health, minor key, Moonlight Sonata, movement, Mozart, multipile, multiple, Music, music critic, music faculty, music professor, Musician, nationally, Newspaper, online, opera, Orchestra, orchestral, pandemic, People, Performer Diploma, photo, photos, Pianist, Piano, piano technician, piece, play, playing, poem, Poetry, polyphonic, polyphony, popular, post, posthumous, posting, powerful, professor, program, program notes, Protestant, public, race, Radio, reach, recital, Robert Schumann, Romantic, Romantic music, Salon Piano Series, sample, Scarlatti, scholarship, Schubert, sense, Seoul, service, service fee, Shanghai, share, simple, Singing, Sonata, song, soothe, soul, Sound, South Korea, special, sponsor, Steve Apps, study, style, suffer, Sunday, Sweet Home, SweetHome, Symphonic Etudes, symphony, tag, Teacher, teaching, Texas A&M, texture, The Ear, theme and variations, thick, ticket, times, tone, Tongji University, touching, tragedy, Tragic, transcription, true, United States, universities, university, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, unprecedented, USA, UW, UW-Madison, UW-River Falls, variation, virtual, virtuosic, vocal music, voice, Website, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin State Journal, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, WORT, WORT-FM 89.9, WPR, write, YouTube
Classical music: This week at the UW-Madison highlights choral music
Leave a Comment
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR SHARE IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.
ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, featurestwo local musicians: oboist Laura Medisky and pianist Vincent Fuh.
The program features solo works for oboe, oboe d’amore and piano by Johann Sebastian Bach, Grażyna Bacewicz, and Camille Saint-Saens. Food and drink are allowed. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m. Due to construction, Friday Musicale concerts are being held in the Atrium auditorium through December.
By Jacob Stockinger
Two choral concerts are the big events this week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Here are the details:
FRIDAY
On this Friday night, Nov. 9, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Chorale, under director and conductor of Bruce Gladstone (below in a photo by Katrin Talbot), will present a FREE concert.
The program features “Lament of Gilboa” by Arthur Honegger (below top) and “Into the Silent Darkness” by Elizabeth Alexander (below bottom).
According to the School of Music’s website: “This concert explores opposites in a variety of ways (cold/hot, slow/fast, laughing/crying, life/death), inviting the listener to think about the gray areas in between.”
SUNDAY
On this Sunday afternoon, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m. in Mills Hall, there will be a FREE concert of combined choirs. Participating groups are Masters Singers, University Chorus and Women’s Chorus (below).
The program, to be performed under graduate student conductors Michael Johnson and Andrew Voth, features traditional folk music as well as works by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johannes Brahms (see the YouTube video at the bottom), Ralph Vaughan Williams and Aaron Copland.
For a long listing of specific works to be sung, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/combined-choirs-concert-masters-singers-university-chorus-and-womens-chorus/
Tags: #AaronCopland, #ArthurHonegger, #BeijingChina, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BruceGladstone, #CamilleSaint-Saens, #ChoralMusic, #ElizabethAlexander, #FacebookPost, #FirstUnitarianSocietyofMadison, #FolkMusic, #FranzJosephHaydn, #GiovanniBattistaPergolesi, #GrazynaBacewicz, #IntotheSilentDarkness, #JohannesBrahms, #JohannSebastianBach, #KatrinTalbot, #LamentofGilboa, #LauraMedisky, #LifeandDeath, #MastersSingers, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #NoonMusicale, #OboeD'Amore, #OboeMusic, #PianoAccompaniment, #PianoAccompanist, #RalphVaughanWilliams, #SeoulSouthKorea, #ShanghaiChina, #SouthKorea, #Sundayafternoon, #TaipeiTaiwan, #TokyoJapan, #TraditionalMusic, #UniversityChorus, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UWChorale, #VincentFuh, #VocalMusic, #Women'sChorus, #YouTubevideo, Aaron Copland, Arthur Honegger, Arts, audience, auditorium, Bach, Baroque, Beijing, Blog post, blog posting, Bruce Gladstone, Camille Saint-Saëns, China, choral music, Classical music, cold, composer, Concert, conductor, construction, crying, death, director, drink, Early music, earlymusic, Elizabeth Alexander, Facebook, fast, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Folk music, food, Franz Joseph Haydn, free, graduate student, gray, Grazyna Bacewicz, hot, Into the Silent Darkness, Jacob Stockinger, Japan, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Katrin Talbot, Korea, Lament of Gilboa, laughing, Laura Medisky, life, life and death, listener, Madison, Masters Singers, Mead Witter School of Music, Music, Noon Musicale, Oboe, oboe d'amore, opposite, opposites, performer, Pergolesi, Piano, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Seoul, Shanghai, singer, Singing, slow, South Korea, Student, Sunday, Taipei, Taiwan, traditional, traditional music, University Chorus, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Chorale, Vincent Fuh, vocal music, Wisconsin, women's chorus, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The future of Western classical music is in Asia – specifically China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Why is that?
8 Comments
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.
By Jacob Stockinger
It’s not just about Lang Lang.
The signs are everywhere.
They were present at a recent piano recital by elementary school, middle school and high school students that The Ear attended.
You see it at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and at top music schools, including the Curtis Institute of Music, across the U.S. and Western Europe. And you see it in youth groups such as the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (below).
Western classical music recording labels, such as Deutsche Grammophon and Sony Classical, are looking to develop new markets and so are signing more Asian musicians, such as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai String Quartet, and releasing more Asian performances. (Below is the Taiwanese-Australian, prize-winning violinist Ray Chen, who is also a master at using social media to build his meteoric career.)
All these items point to the same conclusion: The future of Western classical music looks more and more likely to be found in Asian culture and in Asia – specifically in China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. (Next season, prize-winning South Korean pianist Joyce Yang (below) returns to Madison, where she first gave a recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater, to solo with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.)
Consider some of the following:
There are, The Ear read somewhere, now more piano students in China than in all of Europe, North America and South America combined. And he is reading about more and more concert tours of China and other Asian countries by Western performers — even while in the U.S. the number of pianos in homes are on the decline.
Increasingly the winners of major international competitions — such as the Chopin competition, the Van Cliburn competition, the Tchaikovsky competition, the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium competition and the Leeds competition – come from Asia or are Asian. (Below, in a photo by Simon Fowler, is American pianist George Li, who immigrated from China as a child and attended Harvard and the New England Conservatory before winning a silver medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition. His concert career is now blossoming fast.)
In recent years, China has been building a lot of first-rate concert halls, opera houses and music schools. And the famed Juilliard School in New York City will open its second campus this fall in Tianjin, near Beijing.
China has certainly come a long way from the days of the Cultural Revolution when people could be imprisoned for listening to Beethoven, who is now a cultural icon in China — as you can hear at the bottom in the YouTube video of Li Jing Zhan conducting the orchestra at the Chinese National Opera in Beethoven’s No. 7. (Below is the striking new National Center for the Performing Arts in China.)
https://www.interlude.hk/front/culture-construction-chinas-new-concert-halls/
Nineteen of the 24 final competitors, ages 13-17, in the second Van Cliburn Junior Competition – which starts in Dallas, Texas, on May 31 and ends on June 8 – are Asian, Asian-American and Asian-Canadian, all with astonishingly impressive credentials and experience. It will be streamed live and free. Take a look and listen:
https://www.cliburn.org/2019-cliburn-junior-competitors/
Why this Asian shift is happening remains somewhat of a mystery to The Ear, although he had been thinking about for a long time.
Then he came across a op-ed column confirming the prevalence of Asian classical musicians. It was written by the American concert pianist and teacher Inna Faliks (below), who teaches at UCLA and who wrote convincingly about her recent concert experiences in China in The Washington Post.
Read it and see what you think, and tell us whether you agree:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-future-of-classical-music-is-chinese/2019/03/22/2649e9dc-4cb5-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html?utm_term=.7f149e0f8eb9
Why are Asians so interested in Western classical music and music education? And why do they respect it or even revere it so much?
Does it have to do with the “tiger mom” phenomenon of strong parental pressure to succeed and achieve?
Is it largely a function of population?
Is it because of the collective teamwork required to make a lot of chamber music and orchestral music, or with the intense and instructive teacher-student relationship?
Is it because the cultural depth and seriousness in Western music education – ing contrast to the increasingly pop culture of the West – that prepares students well for the training and intellectual discipline required in other educational fields and careers, including the STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)?
Is Asia simply fascinated by Western culture the same way that Western culture was fascinated by the exotic Asian cultures – especially in China and Japan — during the 19th century and earlier? Or is the West increasingly ignoring its own culture. (The Ear can’t recall any classical musicians performing at President Donald Trump’s White House. Can you?)
How do you see the situation and react to it? And what do you think about the causes and effects?
Please leave your reactions and thoughts in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Share this:
Tags: #BeijingChina, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ChamberMusic, #ChineseNationalOpera, #ChopinInternationalPianoCompetition, #ClassicalMusician, #ClassicalRecording, #ConcertHall, #ConcertTour, #CulturalRevolution, #CurtisInstitute, #DallasTexas, #DeutscheGrammphon, #ElementarySchool, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #GeorgeLi, #HarvardUniversity, #HighSchool, #HongKong, #HongKongChina, #InnaFaliks, #JoyceYang, #JuilliardSchool, #LangLang, #LeedsCompetition, #LiJingZhan, #LiveStreaming, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MiddleSchool, #MusicEducation, #MusicSchool, #NationalCenterforthePerformingArts, #NewEnglandConservatoryofMusic, #NewYorkCity, #NorthAmerica, #OperaHouse, #OperaMusic, #OrchestralMusic, #ParentalPressure, #People'sRepublicofChina, #PerformingArts, #PersonalRelationship, #PopCulture, #PresidentDonaldTrump, #Prize-Winning, #PrizeWinner, #QueenElizabeth, #QueenElizabethCompetition, #RayChen, #RecordingLabels, #RecordLabels, #ShangaiQuartet, #ShanghaiChina, #ShanghaiSymphonyOrchestra, #SilverMedal, #SocialMedia, #SonyClassical, #SouthAmerica, #SouthKorea, #SouthKorean, #StreamedLive, #StringQuartet, #TchaikovskyCompetition, #TheEar, #TheWashingtonPost, #TheWest, #TianjinChina, #TigerMom, #UnitedStates, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VanCliburn, #VanCliburnInternationalPianoCompetition, #WesternCulture, #WesternEurope, #WhiteHouse, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #WisconsinYouthSymphonyOrchestras, #YouTubevideo, American, Arts, Asia, asian, attend, audience, Australia, Australian, Beethoven, Beijing, Belgium, blog, building, Canadian, career, cause, Cello, Chamber music, Child, children, China, Chinese, Chinese National Opera, Chopin International Piano Competition, Classical music, classical musician, classicalmusic, collective, comment, Compact Disc, Competition, composer, Concert, concert hall, concert tour, conclusion, conduct, conductor, construction, credential, Cultural Revolution, culture, Curtis Institute of Music, Dallas, decline, depth, Deutsche Grammophon, discipline, Donald Trump, Education, effect, elementary school, engineering, Europe, exotic, experience, Facebook, first-rate, forward, free, function, future, George Li, group, Harvard, high school, Home, Hong Kong, icon, immigrant, immigrated, immigration, imprison, Inna Faliks, instruct, instructive, intense, International Tchaikovsky Competition, item, Jacob Stockinger, Japan, Japanese, Joyce Yang, Juilliard School, Juilliard School of Music, Korean, Lang Lang, Leeds Competition, Li Jing Zhan, like, link, listen, live, look, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, market, Master, mathematics, Mead Witter School of Music, medal, media, member, meteoric, Middle school, Music, Music education, music school, music schools, Musician, mystery, National Center for the Performing Arts, New England, New England Conservatory, New York City, North America, number, opera, Opera house, Orchestra, orchestral music, parental pressure, parents, People, People's Republic of China, performer, Performing arts, personal relationship, Pianist, Piano, pop, pop culture, population, President, President Donald Trump, pressure, prison, prize, public, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth Competition, Ray Chen, reaction, recital, Record label, recording, relationship, respect, revere, rite, science, section, seriousness, Shanghai, share, silver, sing, social media, solo, Sony Classical, South America, South Korea, STEM, streamed, String quartet, Student, symphony, tag, Taiwan, Taiwanese, Teacher, teamwork, technology, Texas, The Ear, The Washington Post, The West, The White House, thought, Tianjin, tiger mom, tour, training, U.S., UCLA, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison, Van Cliburn, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Violin, violinist, Western Cuture, Western Europe, White House, winner, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, wrote, Youth, YouTube