The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: “Grace Presents” gets its own new website just in time for its FREE vocal concert of Hugo Wolf’s “Italian Songbook” this Saturday at noon. Plus, Karlos Moser and friends perform FREE Brazilian music at noon on Friday.

ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison,  900 University Bay Drive, features Brazilian Song and Dance with retired University Opera director and pianist Karlos Moser and guests. It runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m. in the Landmark Auditorium (below).

By Jacob Stockinger

There are quite a few free classical music organizations and concert presenters in Madison.

“Grace Presents” is one of the most up-and-coming. It provides an enjoyable and increasingly well-known a series of FREE and PUBLIC concerts of all kinds of music presented by Grace Episcopal Church (below), which is downtown at 116 West Washington Avenue on the Capitol Square.

The church itself is a fine place to hold a concert – classical, pop, folk and others. The dark wood and stained glass windows make for a beautiful venue, and the resonant acoustics add to the charm of the music.

When she was appointed the new coordinator this summer, Kelly Hiser (below) , a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, said one of her first priorities was to generate a website for the series.

Now her promise has become a reality – just in time for the FREE vocal concert by soprano Marie McManama and tenor Daniel O’Dea of Hugo Wolf’s “Italian Songbook” this Saturday from noon to 1 p.m. (To what your appetite, an excerpt of alive performance by Lucia Popp and Hermann Prey is at the bottom in a YouTube video.)

The work by Hugo Wolf (below, in a  1902 photo) is a song collection of 46 Italian vignettes translated into German, divided between male and female perspectives. wolf

Writes Hiser: I’m happy to let you know that Grace Presents now has a website, which you can find at http://gracepresents.org/

The concert itself offers sanctuary, a perfect short respite from the crowds and business of the Dane County Farmers’ Market, which will hold its to last market on the Square for this season on Saturday, Nov. 9.

Here is more about the performers, who have local ties, this Saturday.

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Marie McManama (below) is an accomplished opera singer and stage performer. Trained in classical voice at CCM in Cincinnati with both Bachelor’s and Masters degrees, McManama has performed in recital halls, concert halls, and operatic stages all over the country with the Madison Choral Project, Cincinnati Opera, St. Louis Symphony, San Francisco Festival Chorus, SongFest in Malibu, California, and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming.

Though her background is in performance, she completed her music education licensure in December 2012 and has been teaching in the Madison area since January. In addition to her singing, she grew up studying violin and ballet and has recently added piano, guitar, and flute to her solo instrument skills. She teaches private voice in Waunakee and elementary general music in Madison.

Daniel O’Dea (below) is a tenor from Chicago, Illinois. He is currently working towards his Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is the recipient of the Paul Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Fellowship. In Madison he has recently performed with Madison Choral Project and the role of Jean Valjean in “Les Mis” with Middleton Players Theater. He has recently performed with the Chicago Lyric Opera Chorus, Chicago Bach Project, Grant Park Symphony Chorus, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Rockford Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed in The Crossing choir in Philadelphia and with VAE Cincinnati.

He received his Artist Diploma in Opera from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), Masters of Music in Voice from CCM and Bachelor’s of Music in Vocal Performance from Westminster Choir College. He was an Apprentice Artist with Des Moines Metro Opera and is an alumnus of the Aspen Opera Theater Center, Brevard Music Center and the Chautauqua Institute.