The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: FREE percussion, brass and wind concerts are featured this week at the UW-Madison
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By Jacob Stockinger
In the week before Spring Break, the Mead Witter School of music at the UW-Madison will feature FREE concerts of percussion, brass and wind music.
TUESDAY, MARCH 10
At 7:30 p.m. in the Collins Recital Hall of the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave., the percussion department will give a FREE recital. No program is listed.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11
At 7:30 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall, guest percussionist-composer Mark Stone (below) will give a FREE solo recital of original compositions for mbira and gyil.
The program will include music for the newly invented array mbira, an American-made 120 key lamellaphone. Stone will also share music composed for the Dagara gyil, a xylophone from Ghana as well as mbira traditions of South Africa and Uganda.
Also on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, the acclaimed Wisconsin Brass Quintet will give a FREE faculty recital.
The program is:
Johann Sebastian Bach – Contrapunctus IV from “Die Kunst Der Fuge” (The Art of Fugue). You can hear Canadian Brass perform it in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Andre Lafosse – “Suite Impromptu”
Werner Pirchner – “L’Homme au marteau dans la poche” (Man With a Hammer in His Pocket)
Rich Shemaria – “Pandora’s Magic Castle”
Per Nørgård – “Vision”
The 2019-2020 Wisconsin Brass Quintet (below) is: Jean Laurenz and Gilson Silva, trumpets; Daniel Grabois, horn; Mark Hetzler, trombone; and Tom Curry, tuba.
Please note: In spring 2020, Mark Hetzler will be on sabbatical. His replacement will be Will Porter (below), instructor of trombone at Eastern Illinois University . Read about Porter here
THURSDAY MARCH 12
At 7:30 p.m. in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, the UW Wind Ensemble will give a FREE concert.
The ensemble will perform under the batons of director Scott Teeple (below) and guest conductor Ross Wolf.
The program is:
Frank Ticheli: “Apollo Unleashed” from Symphony No. 2
Ching–chu Hu: In Memory Of…*
With special guest The Hunt Quartet
*World Premiere Performance/UW Band Commissioning Member
Morten Larudisen/Reynolds: “Contre Qui, Rose”
Beverly Taylor, guest conductor.
Jodie Blackshaw: Symphony, “Leunig’s Prayer Book”*
*Wisconsin Premiere
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Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet will go on a 10-day tour of Germany next August, then tour Wisconsin the follwing month
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By Jacob Stockinger
If you went to the Ancora String Quartet’s summer concert last Saturday night, you not only heard some outstanding performances of music by Dmitri Shostakovich and Ludwig van Beethoven – along with some rarely heard music by Danish composer Niels Gade.
In case you missed it, here is a review:
You also got the lowdown on some big news for the chamber music group that just finished its 16th season. Members (below from right in a photo by Barry Lewis) are violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb. (You can hear an earlier membership of the quartet performing music by Grieg in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In August of 2018, the Ancora String Quartet will go on a 10-day tour of Germany. (They could have been gone for longer, a quartet member explained, but the time is limited by some of the day jobs that some members have.) They will perform concerts in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Kassel and in some castles along the Rhine River.
The string quartet will perform with Melinda Paulsen (below), a mezzo-soprano who is based in Frankfurt, where she also teaches. Born in America, she studied music at Swarthmore College and has made a name for herself in Germany singing and recording operas as well as cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The quartet and Paulsen are deciding on suitable repertoire for that combination of voice and string quartet, which includes works by Richard Wagner, Ottorino Respighi and Samuel Barber.
Then in September, the singer will come to Wisconsin and tour the state with the Ancora String Quartet. The stops in both countries are still being finalized, but Madison and the UW-Whitewater, where the cellist teaches, seem to be sure bets, according to a quartet member.
In other news, according to the quartet’s spokesperson, the Ancora will also soon announce its new season, and there will be some special fundraising concerts during the coming season.
The Ancora, with help from Audio for the Arts, will also soon post some recent concerts on YouTube.
The Ear sends his congratulations and thinks the quartet has been working hard, and turning in many outstanding performances, for many years in order to deserve and get this kind of honor.
Bravo!
Tags: America, Ancora String Quartet, Arts, Audio for the Arts, August, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Cantata, castle, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Concert, Frankfurt, fundraiser, Germany, Grieg, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Kassel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Mezzo-soprano, Music, Niels Gade, opera, recording, Respighi, Rhine River, Richard Wagner, Samuel Barber, Season, September, Shostakovich, sing, singer, Singing, String quartet, Swarthmore Colllege, tour, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Whitewater, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wiesbaden, Wisconsin, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
New York Times critics name their Top 10 online concerts in April. They start today with a Good Friday performance of Bach’s “St. John Passion.”
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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
More people are getting COVID vaccines, but concerts will remain virtual and online for quite a while yet, especially if a fourth wave or another spike hits the U.S. and the world.
So here, once again, are the Top 10 online choices for April listening picked by the classical music critics for The New York Times.
This being the weekend of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, it couldn’t be more timely.
The first choice, which starts steaming today, is perfect for both occasions. It is a production of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. John Passion.” It is conducted by THE Bach performers – the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque soloists, all conducted by Bach expert John Eliot Gardiner.
Gardiner has recorded and toured the world with Bach’s cantatas and oratorios. He also wrote the well criticially acclaimed book “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven.”
If you like Bach, you are in for some good listening this month. Pianist Jeremy Denk (below) will also perform the complete first book of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” at the end of the month. (You can hear the famous first prelude, popular with students and amateurs but also used in a sacred setting by Schubert and Gounod, in the Youtube video at the bottom.)
You may recall that Denk performed Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” several years ago at the Wisconsin Union Theater, which also hosted an online concert by Denk this season in a program of Brahms and the two Schumann’s – Robert and Clara.
You can also hear chamber music, including a concert of contemporary composers by the Attacca Quartet.
And there is a period performance of “Pelleas and Melisande” by Debussy (below). It will attempt to recreate how the opera score sounded when it was first performed in 1902.
The ever-inventive music educator Leon Botstein will conduct a concert of music by Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein and Tania Leon.
German baritone Benjamin Appl will perform the famous song cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin” (The Beautiful Miller’s Daughter) by Franz Schubert. It streams from the faned Wigmore Hall in London.
One of the most intriguing choices is the score to Philip Glass’ “pocket opera” based on the short story “In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka.
The well-known conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen (below), who is also the new music director of the San Francisco Symphony after Michael Tilson Thomas retired last year. Much of the program is Salonen’s own music, along with Minimalist music by Steve Reich and Terry Riley.
There are also “Monumental Trios, featuring piano trios by Brahms and Beethoven, performed by members of the Chamber Music of Society.
And of course there will be a world premiere of the Symphony No. 2 by Huw Watkins (below is his Wikipedia bio with a photo in case you haven’t heard of the composer).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huw_Watkins
For more details, here is a link to the Times story. Click on the headline. It includes some commentary by the critic who chose each piece. You will also find links to the artist and organization plus the debut date and how long the post will remain available. Please note that all times are Eastern Daylight Time.
Do you have other concerts you recommend for streaming – local, regional, national or international?
Please leave your selection in the Comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Happy listening.
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