The Well-Tempered Ear
A changing Earth demands changing music to mark Earth Day
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today — Saturday, April 22 — is Earth Day 2023.
It is the 53rd annual celebration of the environment that was started on this date in 1970 by the former Wisconsin governor and U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (below bottom).
As the website “Self-Help Africa” says: “Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to highlight environmental issues across the planet and demonstrate support for environmental protection.
“First held in the United States on April 22, 1970, it has since become THE BIGGEST SECULAR CELEBRATION OBSERVATION DAY IN THE WORLD, and an opportunity to highlight the issues and environmental challenges affecting our world.”
Here is the official Earth Day website: https://www.earthday.org/
Music has always been part of how the world celebrates the event.
But lately the trend in music seems to parallel the trends in the global warming crisis and species extinctions.
So, for example, in British composer Debbie Wiseman’s “Carnival of the Endangered Animals” in 2022 is meant to parallel but update the famous “Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saëns.
Other titles of works by contemporary composers that reflect current realities about the natural world are: “The Lost Birds” by American composer Christopher Tin (below top); “Mass for the Endangered” by American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider (below middle); “The Rising Sea” Symphony by British composer Kieran Brunt; and “Glaciers in Extinction” by Italian flutist and composer Roberto Fabbriciani (below bottom).
You can hear these and other contemporary works plus a more familiar and traditional musical celebration of the Earth and nature by Beethoven. Just go this site for Colorado Public Radio:
Do you have a favorite among the new pieces?
Is there other music you think is appropriate to celebrate Earth Day and the natural world as they exist today?
What composers and pieces do you suggest listening to?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Madison Bach Musicians host a virtual online Baroque Tour starting this Saturday, April 24, and lasting through May 8
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following notice from Trevor Stephenson, the founder and artistic director of the Madison Bach Musicians (MBM), who will debut their season-closing concert live and online this coming Saturday night, April 24:
Stephenson (below) writes:
Since travel has been so very limited during the pandemic, Madison Bach Musicians is elated to conclude its 2020-21 season with a musical journey through both space and time, and invites you to join us from the intimacy and safety of your own home.
A Baroque Tour is a musical travelogue of instrumental masterworks from 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Luminaries like Handel, Vivaldi, Purcell and Buxtehude are in the mix on this program with their brilliant though lesser-known contemporaries such as Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (below top), Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Andrea Falconieri (below bottom) and Francisco Jose de Castro.
A Baroque Tour will explore the glorious sonic landscapes of Italy, Spain, France, England and Germany.
Our ensemble for this program consists of five strings plus harpsichord, and we are thrilled that baroque bassoon virtuoso Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill), who teaches at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, will join us for Vivaldi’s exuberant Bassoon Concerto in B-Flat Major. (You can hear the opening movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
A Baroque Tour will be broadcast via live-streaming from the acoustically spectacular sanctuary of Grace Episcopal Church on this Saturday evening, April 24. (Rebroadcasts will be available on demand through May 8.)
Tickets are $15 and available online at: https://madison-bach-musicians.square.site/product/a-baroque-tour-april-24-2021-livestream-on-demand-until-may-8/57?cs=true&cst=custom
If you wish to purchase tickets through the mail, use this downloadable form: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MBM-2020-21-Live-Stream-Ticket-Form-A-Baroque-Tour.pdf
Here is the schedule for the concert and related events:
From 7:30-8 p.m., in a pre-concert lecture, MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson will discuss the composers, the repertoire and the historical instruments.
The performance will run from 8 p.m. until approximately 9:15 p.m.
The evening will then conclude with a live Question-and-Answer session with the musicians who will be socially distanced on the concert platform.
Listeners should submit their questions—in advance or during the broadcast—via email to Karen Rebholz at madisonbachmusicians.manager@gmail.com.
THE MUSICIANS are:
Marc Vallon – baroque bassoon soloist
Kangwon Kim (below) – baroque violin
Emily Dupere – baroque violin
Micah Behr – baroque viola and baroque guitar
Martha Vallon – baroque cello and viola da gamba
James Waldo – baroque cello (and tambourine)
Trevor Stephenson – harpsichord
THE PROGRAM is:
HANDEL – Sonata in A major for Violin and Continuo, HWV 361
CHARPENTIER – Concerto for Four Viols, H 545
PURCELL – Trio Sonata in C major, Z 795
VIVALDI – Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major, RV 503
GUILLEMAIN – Sonata in A minor for Two Violins, Op. 5, No.1
BUXTEHUDE – Trio Sonata in G major, BuxWV 271
DE CASTRO – Trio Sonata in C major, Op. 1, No. 6
FALCONIERI – La Folia (Folías de España)
Here is a link to some brief biographies and interesting facts about these remarkable composers: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/april-24-a-baroque-tour-a-livestream-event/
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Classical music: How can classical music be made less white? Nine Black artists suggest changes. Which ones will work best?
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By Jacob Stockinger
With all the attention given to and urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement — and other demonstrations and protests against personal and systemic racism as well as white privilege — it comes as no surprise that questions are being raised about the overwhelmingly white world of classical music and how to change it.
Most of the local classical music groups The Ear knows of have posted statements of solidarity.
If he recalls correctly, they include the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO), the Middleton Community Orchestra, the Willy Street Chamber Players and many others.
But beyond declarations of solidarity with people of color, the music groups face deeper issues that require action, not just words, and remain more difficult to solve: How to attract more Black classical musicians? How to foster more Black composers? And how to attract more Black audiences?
Diversity and equity are long-term issues, and quite a number of possible solutions loom.
Would performing more pieces, both historical and contemporary, by Black composers (below) work?
Would hiring more Black resident musicians help?
Would booking more Black guest artists and soloists help? (Below is the young and upcoming British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.)
Would changing the music curriculum in schools help? (Some important Black composers are explored in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Would generating more support to and from the Black community help?
Last week The New York Times did a fine piece of work in addressing these issues.
The reporter and music editor asked nine different accomplished Black conductors, instrumentalists, singers, critics and administrators in classical music about how to solve the inequity. The interviews were condensed and edited into very readable statements.
Here is a link to that story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/black-classical-music-opera.html
Please read it.
Then let us know which suggestions you think should be attempted first and which solutions are most likely to work.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: This Saturday, Aug. 31, at 11 a.m. in Overture Hall is the last FREE Farmers’ Market organ concert of the season. On Sunday afternoon, guitarist Steven Meyer performs at the Chazen Museum of Art
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ALERT: Madison guitarist Steven Meyer will perform a FREE concert on “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” this Sunday, Sept. 1, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery 3. The program features music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Gustav Holst, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Fernando Sor, himself and others. Also included is music by the Beatles, jazz and folk music. For more information about the series, go to: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen8/
This Sunday’s performance will, as always, be live streamed starting at 12:30. Here is a portal link for streaming: https://c.streamhoster.com/embed/media/O7sBNG/OS1C0ihJsYK/iqf1vBMs3qg_5
By Jacob Stockinger
This Saturday morning, Aug. 31, will see the last FREE Farmers’ Market organ concert of the season.
The 45-minute concert, sponsored by the Madison Symphony Orchestra and played on the Klais concert organ, takes place in Overture Hall at 11 a.m. No tickets or reservations are needed and the public is welcome.
The performer is David Ball (below), who was trained at the Juilliard School in New York City and who is based in Orange County, California, at the Christ (formerly Crystal) Cathedral.
The program features music by French composer Jean Langlais, French composer Camille Saint-Saens, German composer Max Reger, British composer Herbert Howells, Argentinean composer Norberto Guinaldo, French composer Leon Boellmann, French composer Jeanne Demessieux, contemporary American composer Alan Terricciano and American composer John Philip Sousa. (You can hear David Ball playing a different work by Herbert Howells in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For the specific works and much more background about the performer, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/free-farmers-market-concert-2019-david-ball/
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Classical music: With much of Wisconsin underwater from historic flooding, Britten’s opera “Noah’s Flood” seems timely. Can you think of other works inspired by floods and natural disasters?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Right now much of Wisconsin lies underwater.
This past week has seen record-setting rain and historic flooding along with high winds and tornadoes that have left many towns and counties declared official disasters.
Then yesterday, Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency for the entire state. More rain and thunderstorms are predicted for all weekend and next week.
The flooding is not on the order of the deadly and destructive wildfires out west. But the situation seems nonetheless the kind of emergency or natural disaster that usually draws some kind of attention of the national media — on a smaller scale something like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria that devastated respectively, New Orleans, Houston and Puerto Rico.
But this time The Ear can’t recall seeing or hearing even mentions or 10-second spot reports about the flooding of a state capital on national news programs. Can you?
New programs always seem to focus more on weather stories when they occur on the coasts and in the south. And right now the media also appear preoccupied with offering ever more words about the deaths of Senator John McCain and singer Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul.”
But the situation got The Ear to thinking and searching.
Are there works of classical music inspired by flooding and other natural disasters?
And he doesn’t mean just music inspired by and celebrating calmer and less destructive water such as George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music” or Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony or Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Ebb and Flow” Music.
One important discovery that met the criterion was the children’s opera, “Noah’s Flood,” composed by British composer Benjamin Britten (below) in the wake of his own personal and home experience with floods – as you can see in the YouTube video below.
Can you think of other works composed in response to a natural disaster?
If so, in the comment section please leave the names of the work and composer and, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The King’s Singers will mark 50 years when they perform Saturday night at the Wisconsin Union Theater
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By Jacob Stockinger
The acclaimed a cappella singing group The King’s Singers (below) will be marking its 50th anniversary when it performs the annual Fan Taylor Concert – named to honor the first director of the Wisconsin Union Theater – on this Saturday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in Shannon Hall.
Tickets are $25-$45 general admission, $20 for youths and $10 for UW students. For more information, including the complete program, background, audio-video samples and how to purchase tickets, go to https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/the-kings-singers/. You can also phone 608-265-ARTS (2787) or go in person. See locations and hours here.
Celebrating their Golden Anniversary this year, The King’s Singers are widely acclaimed for the quality of their singing and diverse repertoire, which includes over 200 commissioned works from the world’s leading composers.
The commissioned arrangements come from a breadth of musical genres: jazz standards to pop chart hits, medieval motets to Renaissance madrigals, and new scores by young composers.
The upcoming concert is part of their 50th anniversary world tour, and the program showcases their signature blend, purity of tone, and diversity of repertoire, with selections ranging from Renaissance polyphony to brand new commissions celebrating the 50th anniversary.
This love of diversity has always fuelled The King’s Singers’ commitment to creating new music. A panoply of commissioned works by many of the greatest composers of our times – including Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, John Rutter, Toru Takemitsu, Sir John Tavener and Eric Whitacre – sits alongside countless bespoke arrangements in the group’s extensive repertoire.
One of these is called “To Stand in This House” by Nico Muhly (below), which sets various texts by scholars who originated at King’s College, Cambridge, where The Kings Singers were founded.
The program, GOLD, charts a journey through the music that has defined The King’s Singers so far, from Renaissance polyphony to art song to, naturally, close harmony favorites.
The group also looks toward the future with several commissions for the 50th season from composers and arrangers with who they have ties, including, in addition to Nico Muhly’s work, “We Are” by composer/conductor Bob Chilcott, himself a former member of The King’s Singers; and “Quintessentially” by Joanna and Alexander L’Estrange (below), which humorously tells the story of The King’s Singers’ past 50 years.
The King’s Singers was founded in 1968 at King’s College in Cambridge, England. They continually wow audiences across the globe in over 125 concerts a year. The group has won two Grammy awards and was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame for its vocal artistry and excellence. (You hear a sample from the group’s new anniversary album, “Gold,” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The Madison concert is presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater’s Performing Arts Committee.
This concert is 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. WORT-FM 89.9 is the media sponsor.
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Classical music: The Madison Choral Project features a world premiere when it performs a “timeless” program this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Choral Project (below) bills itself as Madison’s only professional and paid choir, and judging by the results, the a cappella group has succeeded, creating many loyal fans. (You can hear a sample performance — of a world premiere, no less — in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Such success is in large part thanks to the efforts of its founder, director and conductor Albert Pinsonneault (below). Originally a music professor at Edgewood College, Pinsonneault now works at Northwestern University.
He commutes from his home in Madison where he continues his work with the Madison Choral Project.
You can sample his and the choir’s impressive music-making this weekend at two performances in two different venues of a concert called “Drown’d in One Endlesse Day.”
Here are details:
“Drown’d in One Endlesse Day” features a world premiere of Wisconsin composer Eric William Barnum (below).
The Madison Choral Project champions new music. But also on the eclectic program are new and old pieces exploring the transformational moments when “time seems to stop.”
Featured composers and compositions include: the motet Komm, Jesu, Komm by Johann Sebastian Bach; “Crucifixus” by Antonio Lotti (below top); There is an Old Belief by the British composer Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (below second); Credo by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (below third, in photo by Getty Images); I Live in Pain and Last Spring by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer David Lang (below fourth); and Entreat Me Not to Leave You by Dan Forrest (below bottom).
PERFORMANCES:
On Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.: CHRIST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 944 East Gorham Street in Madison on the near east side
On Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.: St. ANDREW’S EPISCOPAL,
1833 Regent Street in Madison on the near west side
Tickets are $40 for preferred seating; $24 for general admission; and $10 for students.
To buy tickets online (they are also available at the door) as well as to see more background, reviews, information and several videos of MCP performances, go to:
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Classical music: On Friday night, UW bassoonist Marc Vallon and friends perform a FREE concert of music from the Baroque and modern eras. You can also hear a FREE concert of songs and guitar music at noon.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Although the major classical music event on Friday is the concert, at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center, by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, with violinist-wife and cellist-husband soloists Soh-Hyun Park Altino and Leonardo Altino, there are two other concerts worth noting.
This Friday’s FREE Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, will feature guitarists and singers Helen Avakian and Dave Irwin (below). They will perform music by Peter Mayer and Enrique Correa as well as traditional Greek music.
On Friday night at 7:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, UW-Madison bassoonist Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill) and friends will perform a faculty recital of music from the Baroque and modern eras, including arrangements by Vallon himself.
The other performers are: John Chappell Stowe, harpsichord; Aaron Hill and Zachary Pulse, oboe; Daniel Fung and Satoko Hayami, piano; and David Scholl, contrabass.
The program includes:
Franz Schubert: Sonatina for Violin D. 384 (written in 1816) by Franz Schubert
Jan Dismas Zelenka (below ): Sonata No. 5 for two oboes, bassoon and continuo, ZWV 181 (1720-22), which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.
INTERMISSION
Marc Vallon: Cantus II for bassoon and piano (2017)
Béla Bartók (below), Five Romanian Folk Songs (1907-1910), arranged by Marc Vallon. Bagpipers-Bear Dance- The Peacock- Lamento- White Lily
Various authors, Three English songs (ca. 1965) arranged by Marc Vallon
Tags: #FranzSchubert, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #WisconsinChamberOrchestra, arranged, arrangement, Arts, bagpipe, Baroque, Bartok, Bassoon, Béla Bartók, bear, Bela, Britain, Chamber music, Classical music, classicalmusic, composer, continuo, contrabass, dance, Early music, England, English, era, faculty, First Unitarian Society of Madison, folk, Franz Schubert, free, friend, Greek, harpsichord, Jacob Stockinger, Jan Dismas Zelenka, lily, Madison, Marc Vallon, modern, Music, Oboe, peacock, perform, photo, Piano, professor, program, recital, Romania, Romanian, Sonata, sonatina, song, tradition, traditional, UK, Unitarian, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison, Violin, white, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, YouTube, Zelenka
Classical music: Let us celebrate Brit Grit after the Manchester terrorist attack with Elgar’s Symphony No. 1
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By Jacob Stockinger
First came the unforgettable.
Then came the unforgivable.
In the first case, I am talking about the woefully under-attended performance on Sunday afternoon at the Wisconsin Union Theater by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (below) under its outgoing maestro Edo de Waart.
The MSO played the Overture to the opera “Don Giovanni” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; “Schelomo: A Hebraic Rhapsody” by Ernest Bloch, with principal cellist Susan Babini as soloist; and the Symphony No. 1 by Sir Edward Elgar.
In each case, all sections of the orchestra performed stunningly well and the caliber of performance made you wonder: “Why don’t we hear this group more often?”
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra used to tour to Madison every year or so. It should do so again.
Then not long after the concert came word of the deadly terrorist attack by a suicide bomber at a pop concert in Manchester, England.
Sure, sometimes these things just happen. But coincidences can have power.
The Ear can’t think of a more stately and forceful statement of British fortitude and stoicism – the same grit that saw Britain through the Nazi blitz — than the poignant march-like opening of the first movement of Sir Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1.
Chances are you don’t know the symphony.
Chances are you know Elgar from his “Pomp and Circumstance” Marches, from his “Enigma Variations” for orchestra, from his Cello Concerto, from his Violin Concerto, from the violin miniature “Salut d’amour.”
But this is grand and great Elgar (below) who, like Brahms, turned to writing symphonies only late in his life.
We don’t hear Elgar’s first symphony often enough.
And this just happens to be the right time, both because of the world-class performance by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and because the symphony was premiered in 1908 — in Manchester — and then went on to be popular enough to have some 100 performances in its first year.
But it has fallen out of favor. The last time the Ear heard it live was years ago when the UW Symphony Orchestra played it under the baton of guest conductor and UW-Madison alumnus Kenneth Woods (below), who now leads the English Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Mahler Festival.
So here, in the YouTube video at the bottom, is a complete recording from the BBC Proms in 2012. Perhaps you will only listen to the opening movement, or even just the opening of the opening movement, with its moving theme that recurs throughout and then returns at the end.
But however much you listen to — and you shouldn’t miss the glorious slow movement – it seems a fitting choice to share today.
After all, as Leonard Bernstein once said: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
If you have another choice of music to listen to on this deadly occasion, leave word and a YouTube link in the COMMENT section.
Solidarity through music!
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Classical music: Native daughter violist Vicki Powell returns from her globe-trotting career to solo this Friday night in music by Vaughan Williams with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra
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By Jacob Stockinger
Madison has produced its share of important classical musicians who have gone on to achieve international reputations.
Among them was the composer Lee Hoiby (1926-2011).
More recently, there are the Naughton Twins, sister-duo pianists Christina and Michelle, who perform around the world.
And there is violist Vicki Powell (below), who was born in Chicago but started music lessons in Madison where she studied with the husband-and-wife team of violinist Eugene Purdue and Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm, both of whom have taught at the UW-Madison.
She then attended the Juilliard School in New York and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. (You can see her typical day at Curtis in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Powell, who recently finished a tour of Asia and whose playing has garnered rave reviews internationally, returns to Madison this Friday night to perform with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
WCO music director Andrew Sewell will conduct. Unlike Sewell’s typical eclectic programming that mixes music from different eras, this concert feature music from a single period – the mid-20th century.
It offers “Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge” by British composer Benjamin Britten, who studied with Bridge. Also included are two other British works: the Suite for Viola and Chamber Orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with Vicki Powell, and “Benedictus” by Sir Alexander Mackenzie. All three works are rarely performed.
The concluding work, on the other hand, is the popular and well-loved “Appalachian Spring” – a timely work for the coming of spring yesterday morning — by the American composer Aaron Copland.
For more information about the program, about how to get tickets ($10-$80) and about Vicki Powell, go to:
https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/masterworks-iv-2/
And here is a link to Vicki Powell’s website with a biography, concert bookings, recordings, reviews and her community outreach projects:
http://www.vickipowellviola.com
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