The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Summer begins today with Make Music Madison. Plus, both American pianists have advanced in the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition

June 21, 2019
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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:

http://www.makemusicmadison.org

Here is an earlier post with more details about the worldwide event:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2019/06/15/classical-music-the-seventh-annual-make-music-madison-is-on-friday-june-21-and-features-17-different-free-classical-concerts-as-well-as-dozens-of-performances-of-jazz-folk-blues-hip-hop-swing-a/

But that’s not the only news today.

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:

https://tch16.medici.tv/en/news/piano-first-round-results/

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:

https://tch16.medici.tv/en/

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.


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