The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: This weekend also brings holiday brass music, string music and new chamber music with voice to the UW. Plus, live radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera start this Saturday on Wisconsin Public Radio
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ALERT: This Saturday, Dec. 1, sees the start of the “Live From the Met” opera broadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio with Arrigo Boito’s opera “Mefistofole.” The weekly series, now in its 88th year, will continue through May 11. Starting time is usually noon. Here is a link to the radio broadcast season: https://www.wpr.org/metropolitan-opera-begins-its-88th-season
By Jacob Stockinger
As usually happens towards the end of the semester, concerts are backing up, especially on the weekends.
Yesterday, information about the two performances of the annual UW-Madison Winter Choral Concert on Sunday afternoon was posted. Here is a link: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/classical-music-two-performances-of-the-uw-madisons-popular-winter-choral-concert-takes-place-this-sunday-afternoon/
But much more is going on.
Take a look and listen:
SATURDAY
Non-music majors, take heart. If you attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, you can still play and perform while pursuing other studies.
At 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, the All-University Strings (AUS) will perform a FREE concert that is open to the public.
The group (below, in a photo by Jeff Miller for the UW-Madison) is comprised of two non-major string orchestras (named Orchestra One and Orchestra Too), and is open to all interested string players. No audition is required, seating order is voluntary, and there is no ranking within the sections.
The AUS program endeavors to be a true learning community, serving students from virtually every department and major with the goal of nurturing lifelong engagement in music and the arts.
Pedro Oviedo is the conductor, and the guest artists are The Hunt Quartet. (The string quartet is made up of graduate students at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music: Chang En Lu and Ava Shadmani, violins; Fabio Saggin, viola; and Alex Chambers-Ozasky, cello. They will be joined by Max Herteen, double bass.)
The appealing program includes:
Norman Leyden: Serenade for Strings
Karl Jenkins: Allegretto from “Palladio” (A neo-Baroque piece you might recognize from a De Beers “Diamonds Are Forever” ad. Listen to it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Eric Whitacre: October
Modest Mussorgsky, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel: “The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga)” and “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Pictures at an Exhibition
Astor Piazzolla: La muerte del angel (The Death of the Angel)
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Concerto Grosso
SUNDAY
At 12:30 p.m. the UW Horn Choir (below) will present its annual holiday concert at the Chazen Music of Art as part of the Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen series.
The FREE and public concert, directed and conducted by horn Professor Daniel Grabois, takes place in Brittingham Gallery No. 3.
The event will also be streamed live. Here is a link to the streaming portal as well as information about the program, which includes Bach and Mahler, the players and how to reserve seats:
https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/about/news/in-the-news/sunday-afternoon-live-with-the-uw-horn-choir/
At 8 p.m. in Morphy Hall, a FREE concert of chamber music by distinguished guest artists will be held.
The Brooklyn-based soprano-violin duo Cipher Duo (below top, Justine Aronson and Sarah Goldfeather) will team up with cellist Nicholas Photinos(below bottom), a member of the Grammy-winning chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird, for an evening-length performance of both new and reimagined music.
The program will include works by Sarah Goldfeather, Amy Beth Kirsten, David T Little, Dolly Parton and more.
On Monday, the performers will also give public master classes:
The Cello Master Class is Monday, Dec. 3, 12:15-2:15 p.m. in Morphy Hall.
The Violin-Voice Master Class: Monday, Dec. 3, 1:15-3:15 p.m. in Music Hall.
For more information about the program and performers, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/guest-artists-nicholas-photinos-cello-and-cipher-duo-voice-and-violin/
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Classical music education: The all-student Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) performs music by Mozart and Aaron Copland this coming Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, below in a photo by Steve Rankin) performs “Interplay,” featuring music by Mozart, Copland and Grieg.
There will be two performances.
The first is on Saturday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church (below), 203 Wisconsin Avenue, off the Capitol Square.
Then on Sunday, Aug. 5, MAYCO will perform at 12:30 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery 3 at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art as part of the monthly “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” series, which can be STREAMED LIVE by going to: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen-8-5-18/
Admission for the Saturday performance is $10 at the door; students by donation. The Sunday performance is FREE, and reservations can be made by going to the above link.
For more information, visit www.mayco.org or www.facebook.com/madisonchamberorchestra.
ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA
MAYCO is a free summer festival ensemble dedicated to providing an intensive small orchestra experience for advanced high school and college musicians.
Founded in 2010 by music director Mikko Rankin Utevsky, the orchestra prepares a full program over the course of each one-week summer session, culminating in a public concert (below is a photo by Dennis Gotowksi of the concert this past June).
For The Ear, Utevsky (below top) and his general manager and concertmaster-wife Thalia Coombs (below bottom) answered some questions about the concerts:
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROGRAM?
The orchestra will be joined by guest soloist Trevor Stephenson (below), who is the artistic director and keyboard player of the Madison Bach Musicians. On fortepiano, he will solo in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, sometimes nicknamed the “Jeunehomme” Concerto. (You can hear the lively, tuneful and infectious last movement of the Mozart concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Stephenson has led workshops on historical performance practices with the orchestra in past seasons, and we’re delighted to work with him to bring one of Mozart’s weirdest and wildest youthful masterpieces to life.
The ballet suite from “Appalachian Spring” by Aaron Copland (below) is one of the defining works of his classic American sound, juxtaposing the pastoral beauty of the countryside with his trademark rhythmic vitality. We are performing the original chamber version, in which the clarity of texture illuminates the intricate internal structure of the piece.
Two high school students from our Conducting Apprenticeship Program will lead Grieg’s affecting miniature, “Last Spring,” for string orchestra. Cellist Elizabeth Strauss and violinist Monona Suzuki (below, in 2013) are this year’s Apprentices.
WHY IS THE CONCERT CALLED “INTERPLAY”?
We wanted to highlight the sense of conversation and interaction present in the two major works on this program.
The Mozart concerto is remarkable for the degree of interplay between soloist and orchestra. From the opening bars they are constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other’s sentences. It’s what gives the piece its unique sense of drama.
There’s a truism that Mozart made everything he wrote into an opera, and it’s certainly evident here: the melodies could have been lifted straight out of “The Marriage of Figaro.”
In the Copland work, it’s more about the intricacy of texture and the sense of playfulness in the way the various parts interact.
This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board; and by Dane Arts, with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
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Classical music: This Sunday afternoon, the Pro Arte Quartet and the Hunt Quartet team up for chamber music masterpieces by Mendelssohn and Schubert at the Chazen Museum of Art. You can hear the FREE concert live or stream it
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, on Sunday at 12:30 p.m., the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art offers monthly Sunday chamber music concert with two masterworks featuring the ensemble-in-residence at the museum for more than 30 years: the Pro Arte Quartet.
The program is, in essence, a showcase for master and apprentice ensembles.
This weekend’s “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen” will feature the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet in the last string quartet – No. 15 in G major, D. 887 — by Franz Schubert.
That’s the same quartet the opening of which was used so effectively by Woody Allen in the soundtrack of the great film “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” (You can hear the opening movement, played by the Juilliard String Quartet, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For more about the dramatic historical background of the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) — now the oldest surviving string quartet in history — go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/pro-arte-quartet/
Then, after intermission, together with the graduate student Hunt Quartet, the Pro Arte Quartet will perform the wonderful Octet in E-Flat Major, Op. 20, by Felix Mendelssohn, who composed this masterpiece at 16.
The Hunt Quartet is the graduate string quartet for the Mead Witter School of Music. As project assistants within the School of Music, the quartet performs concerts at the School of Music, University events, as well as community outreach.
Members work closely with faculty, including the Pro Arte Quartet, and with cello Professor Uri Vardi as their principal coach. Other artists who have worked with the Hunt Quartet include violist Nobuko Imai, violist Lila Brown and members of the Takacs String Quartet.
The quartet is also the integral part of the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s “Up Close and Musical” program, visiting area schools to teach students about fundamentals of music and the string quartet. This fall, the Hunt Quartet visited Lindbergh Elementary, Stoner Prairie Elementary, Blessed Sacrament School, Sauk Trail Elementary, Thoreau Elementary and Shorewood Hills Elementary.
The Hunt Quartet is sponsored by Kato Perlman and the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
This year’s members (below, from left, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) are Kyle Price, cello; Vinicius “Vinny” Sant’Ana, violin; Blakeley Menghini, viola; Chang-En Lu, violin.
The concert starts at 12:30 p.m. CDT in Brittingham Gallery 3 and will runs until about 2 p.m. It is free and open to the public. You can attend in person. But you can also live-stream the concert.
Here is a web page with more information about the groups, the program, attendance and a link for streaming:
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Classical music: Two performances of the annual Winter Choral Concert, to benefit the homeless, are this Sunday afternoon at 2 and 4. Other UW groups also perform during a busy end-of-semester week
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By Jacob Stockinger
As always happens towards the end of a semester, the tempo of the performances at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music picks up and accelerates.
One highlight this week is two performances of a traditional choral concert.
Under conductor and UW choral program director Beverly Taylor (below), six of seven UW-Madison choirs — Chorale, Concert Choir, Madrigal Singers, University Chorus, Women’s Chorus, Masters Singers – will perform their annual winter concert twice this Sunday afternoon.
The two performances, at 2 and 4 p.m., will be at Luther Memorial Church, located at 1021 University Avenue.
Consider arriving early since these concerts are often very well attended.
Choirs will perform choral works as individual ensembles and jointly.
Holiday carols are part of the program and concert-goers are invited to sing along.
Sorry, but no composers or titles of works have been provided.
Professor John Chappell Stowe (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) will perform organ music for the season.
A free-will offering is accepted at the end of the program with proceeds after expenses donated to “The Road Home,” an organization that provides housing and food to homeless families.
THURSDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, guest artists flutist Patricia Surman (below) and pianist Michel Keller will give a FREE recital. There is no word on the program, but if you want to know more background about the two musicians, go to:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/guest-recital-patricia-surman-flute/
FRIDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, UW bassoonist Marc Vallon (below top, in a photo by James Gill) will perform a FREE program called “Breaking New Ground” that features the music of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, Anton Webern and Yannis Xenakis among others. UW pianist Christopher Taylor (below bottom) will also play the last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, by Ludwig van Beethoven.
For the complete program, go to: http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/breaking-ground-with-marc-vallon-and-friends/
SATURDAY
At 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, the All-University Strings (below in a photo by Jeff Miller of the UW-Madison), which is made up of students from all fields and not just music, will perform a FREE concert under conductor Matt Chan. No word on composers or works on the program.
SUNDAY
At 12:30 p.m. in the Brittingham Gallery No. 3 of the Chazen Museum of Art, the Wingra Wind Quartet will perform on “Sunday Live at the Chazen.” Admission is free.
The program includes: “Piano Piece” by Richard Strauss and arranged by Marc Vall0n; Wind Quintet by Theodor Blumer; “Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for Woodwind Quartet” by Elliott Carter; “Opus Number Zoo” by Luciano Berio.
Members (below, from left, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) are: Marc Vallon, bassoon; Timothy Hagen, flute; Alicia Lee, clarinet; Aaron Hill, oboe; and Joanna Schulz, horn.
You can digitally stream the concert live by going to this website: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/about/news/in-the-news/sunday-afternoon-live-with-the-wingra-wind-quintet/
For more background about the Wingra Wood Quintet, go to: http://www.music.wisc.edu/wingra-woodwind-quintet/
At 1 p.m in Mills Hall, the UW Concert Band (below top), under conductor Scott Teeple, will perform a FREE concert.The program features UW trombonist Mark Hetzler (below bottom). The program includes “Psalm for Band” by Vincent Persichetti (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom) “Silver Lining” by Anne McAninch, a UW doctoral student in composition; and “Falling” by Mark Hetzler.
At 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, University Bands will perform a FREE concert. No word on the program.
MONDAY
At 8:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, the UW Early Music Ensemble, under director Jeanne Swack will mark the 250th anniversary of the death of Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann (below) by performing music of Telemann, Johann Joachim Quantz, Barbara Strozzi and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. No word on a specific program. For more information, go to: http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/early-music-ensemble-3/
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Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet turns in outstanding performances of Beethoven and Shostakovich, and revives a neglected quartet by Danish composer Niels Gade
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music radio show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. He also took the performance photos for this review.
By John W. Barker
Whether as a finale to the passing season or as a prelude to the upcoming one, the Ancora String Quartet (below) favored its admirers with a fine summer concert at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Regent Street last Saturday night.
The program offered three contrasting works.
It started off boldly with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108, a slashing three-movement work of nervous and disturbing energy.
So many of the quartets by Shostakovich (below) are autobiographical, or at least confessional, in character, and this one is a clear expression of both personal anxieties and political apprehensions. The Ancoras tore into it with gusto.
Niels W. Gade (below) is hardly a composer of instant recognizability, but he was at the center of Leipzig’s post-Mendelssohn world and then, when he returned to his native Denmark, he became the dominant figure in its musical life until his death in 1890. This is the bicentennial year of his birth.
Gade has left us some fine orchestral music that deserves frequent hearings. And his true legacy was his advancement — if with reservations — of his prize student, Carl Nielsen.
Gade’s late String Quartet in D, Op. 63, one of his three works in the form, is steeped in the stylistic qualities of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, without quite extending them. Still, it is altogether a listenable work, and we can thank the Ancora players for sharing with us.
The big event, however, was the concluding piece, Beethoven’s Quartet in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1, part of his set of six that marked his brilliant debut as a composer in this form.
Meant to show his extension of the work of Haydn and Mozart in this idiom, this quartet was worked on laboriously by Beethoven, to offer a kaleidoscopic array of moods and structures.
The first movement in particular is a proclamation of his lifelong skill in creating bold entities out of the most minimal motivic material, while the third and fourth movements are hectic displays of energy and imagination.
Perhaps most striking, however, is the slow movement, supposedly reflecting Shakespearian influences. Wonderfully vigorous in all movements, the Ancoras were particularly eloquent in that dark and tragic essay that looks to the tomb scene in “Romeo and Juliet.” (You can hear the slow second movement, played by the Takacs Quartet, which will perform next season at the Wisconsin Union Theater, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
It has become the custom with this group for one member to give a brief spoken introduction to each composition, and that practice worked particularly well for this program, giving the audience a comfortable sense of welcome and valuably pointing up things to listen for. (Below is violist Marika Fischer Hoyt explaining and deconstructing the Beethoven quartet.)
If you missed the concert, the Ancora String Quartet will repeat the program this coming Sunday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. for the “Afternoon Live at the Chazen” program. You can attend the concert in Brittingham Gallery 3 of the Chazen Museum of Art for FREE or live-stream it from the Chazen website.
Here is a link to the website with more information and a portal for streaming:
https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/visit/programs/#section6
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Classical music: This Saturday night the Ancora String Quartet will perform a program that features works by Beethoven, Shostakovich and Niels Gade
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By Jacob Stockinger
As it has often done over its 16-year history, the Madison-based Ancora String Quartet (ASQ) will mix a relatively unknown work by a neglected composer into a program of more established chamber music by more well-known composers.
The program it will perform this coming weekend — and then again at “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen” on Sunday, Aug. 6 — is no exception.
The program features: the String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108, by Dmitri Shostakovich; the String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 63, by Danish composer Niels Wilhelm Gade; and the String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1, by Ludwig van Beethoven. (You can hear the melodious opening of the quartet by Niels Gade in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Members of the Ancora String Quartet (below, from left, in a photo by Barry Lewis) are violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.
Various members the Ancora String Quartet perform with such professional groups as the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Bach Musicians; members also teach both privately and publicly, including at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
The first performance takes place this coming Saturday night (NOT Friday night, as mistakenly listed earlier in a erroneous headline), July 29, at 7:30 p.m., at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent St., on Madison’s near west side. There will be a FREE champagne reception after the concert
Tickets will be available at the door, and are for general seating. Ticket prices are $15 for the general public; $12 for seniors and students; and $6 for children under 12.
NOTE: The Ancora String Quartet will perform the same program on “Sunday Afternoon Live From The Chazen” in Brittingham Gallery No. 3 at the Chazen Museum of Art on Sunday, Aug. 6, starting at 12:30 p.m. It will be live-streamed that day from the museum’s website, and then re-broadcast two weeks later at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 20, on WVMO, 98.7 FM, the “Voice of Monona.”
Here is a description of the program from the quartet:
“The ASQ offers a summer program of music from Europe’s northern, eastern and western corners. The Danish composer Niels Gade (below) reveals influences of Mendelssohn and Schumann in his lyrical and dreamy quartet. Seemingly from another planet, Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 7 is a masterpiece of ambivalent modernist paranoia, telling his story with brevity and wit.
“Last on the program is Beethoven’s first published string quartet, written on the cusp of the 18th century. It combines Haydn’s witty Classicism, and Mozart’s lyricism, with a vigor, brilliance and expansive vision that is Beethoven’s own. The second movement Adagio depicts in stark terms the tragic tomb scene from Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet,” while the other movements are distinguished by confidence, contrast, and contrapuntal complexity. ”
For more information about the performance and the quartet, including detailed biographies, go to:
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Classical music: Madison Bach Musicians will host its second summer chamber music workshops in Baroque and Classical music July 25-28 and is now accepting applications for participants and auditors. Plus, UW cellist Parry Karp repeats his recent recital this Sunday afternoon at the Chazen Museum of Art
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ALERT: Just a reminder that UW-Madison professor and Pro Arte Quartet cellist Parry Karp will repeat his recent program with pianist Eli Kalman this Sunday afternoon during “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen.” The FREE concert starts at 12:30 p.m. in the Brittingham Gallery 3. The program includes sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven and Cesar Franck plus preludes by Sulkan Tsintsadze. The recital can also be streamed LIVE.
Here is a link to more information about the performances and program:
And here is a link to the Chazen streaming site:
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has been sent the following information to post:
Madison Bach Musicians is excited to offer a Summer Chamber Music Workshop from July 25 to July 28, 2017, focusing on historically informed performances of baroque and classical music.
This workshop is open to intermediate and advanced players who are high school age and older. Participants will be assigned to an ensemble group, and music will be sent in advance to allow musicians to learn their parts beforehand. (Below is a group photo from last summer’s workshop that was taken by Mary Gordon.)
The workshop will include personalized ensemble coaching, master classes, a faculty concert, community lunches and a final closing concert for a supportive and appreciative audience.
Keyboard player Trevor Stephenson (below top), who founded and directs the Madison Bach Musicians, and violinist Kangwon Kim (below bottom) are the co-directors of the summer session.
Other faculty members include flutist Linda Pereksta (below top) and cellist Martha Vallon (below bottom).
All of this will take place in the beautiful and acoustically rich spaces of the First Unitarian Society of Madison.
Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis beginning Jan. 15, 2017. (Early application discount will be given until March 20.)
Instruments covered include the violin, viola, cello, harpsichord, fortepiano, piano, flute, recorder, oboe and bassoon.
For more information and full details as well as a schedule of classes, faculty and performances – which will include the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach (see the YouTube video at bottom) as well as music by Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli — go to:
http://madisonbachmusicians.org/education-and-outreach/summer-workshop/
For information about being an auditor and a schedule of concerts, go to:
Tags: Arts, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Cello, Cesar Franck, Chamber music, Chazen Museum of Art, Classical music, Concert, concerto, Corelli, Early music, Eli Kalman, flute, harpsichord, historically informed performance practices, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Music, Orchestra, Piano, Prelude, Pro Arte Quartet, recital, Sonata, streaming, Sulkan Tsintsadze, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Oshkosh, Viola, Violin, Vivaldi, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Here are memorable local concerts in 2016 from critic John W. Barker and The Ear. What ones would you add?
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ALERT: The FREE Friday Noon Musicales at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, resume this week after a break for Christmas, New Year’s and other holidays. This Friday, from 12:15 to 1 p.m., pianist Olivia Musat will perform music by Olivier Messiaen, Isaac Albeniz and Paul Constantinesco.
By Jacob Stockinger
It seems a tradition throughout the media to offer a roundup of the Year’s Best with a local slant.
The Ear already offered a national and international roundup. Here is a link to that, especially to the surprisingly rich roundup that he unexpectedly found on Wikipedia:
For a more local perspective, The Ear trusts and generally agrees with critic John W. Barker (below), who writes frequently for this blog and more often for Isthmus.
Here is a link to Barker’s list of memorable concerts in the Madison area, Because Isthmus mixes classical with other genres like pop, folk and jazz, you have to scroll down to “Classical cornucopia”:
http://isthmus.com/music/year-in-music-2016/
Although I agree with all the concerts that Barker mentions, he left out some that The Ear really loved. One was the absolutely riveting and moving performance in November by the Madison Symphony Orchestra under John DeMain of the momentous Fifth Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich.
For example just about everything that the Pro Arte Quartet does at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music is first-rate and memorable, whether they play in Mills Hall or on “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen Museum of Art.”
But this past fall, a free noontime concert by the Pro Arte with legendary pianist Leon Fleisher especially stood out. Together (below), they performed the Piano Quintet in F Minor by Johannes Brahms – an unquestionable masterpiece in an unforgettable performance.
The Ear would also add two events, both violin recitals, at the Wisconsin Union Theater.
Last spring Hilary Hahn (below top, in a photo by Peter Miller) turned in a stunningly superb recital. Then this fall, superstar Joshua Bell (below bottom) did the same. Both artists displayed terrific musicality combined with terrific virtuosity in generous and first-rate, ambitious programs.
He would add several summer concerts by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, especially the sizzling dueling violin concert (below) where the BDDS interspersed “The Four Seasons” buy Antonio Vivaldi with “The Four Seasons in Buenos Aires” by Astor Piazzolla.
The Ear would also add an experimental concert at which UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor (below) unveiled his reworked two-keyboard “Hyperpiano.” While the concert, which featured the “Goldberg” Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach, wasn’t successful musically, it certainly was intriguing, unusual and highly memorable, even with imperfect digital technology.
And The Ear also recalls a fine concert by the Rhapsodie Quartet (below) of the Madison Symphony Orchestra at the Overture Center.
And let’s not forget the University Opera’s production of “Falstaff” by Giuseppe Verdi that was impressively and successfully updated to Hollywood by director David Ronis.
The Ear is sure there are more memorable concerts that escape him right now. Madison just features so much wonderful music-making in the course of a year.
Moreover, The Ear is also sure you have your favorites – whether they are individual plays; small chamber music groups such as duos, string quartets and piano trios; larger ensembles like the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Union Theater; or entire events like the UW Brass Festival.
I am sure that fans of the innovative percussion group Clocks in Motion and the acclaimed Madison Choral Project have a concert or two to nominate.
So please use the COMMENT section to tell us what were your most memorable classical concerts in Madison during 2016.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: "Goldberg" Variations, Albeniz, Arts, Ástor Piazzolla, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Baroque, BDDS, brass, Brass Festival, Cello, Chamber music, Chazen Museum of Art, choral music, Christmas, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, Clocks in Motion, concerto, David Ronis, digital, duets, duo, Early music, Falstaff, First Unitarian Society of Madison, folk, Four Seasons, Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, Franz Schubert, Hilary Hahn, Holiday, Hollywood, Hyperpiano, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John DeMain, John Wilbye, Joshua Bell, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Choral Project, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Messiaen, Mozart, Music, New Year, New Year's, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, Paul Constantinesco, percussion, Piano, pop, Pro Arte Quartet, Quartet, quintet, Shakespeare, Shostakovich, Sonata, String quartet, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, symphony, technology, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, Verdi, Viola, Violin, Vivaldi, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Classical music: Broadcasts of operas from the Met and string quartets by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet are featured on old media and new media this Saturday and Sunday. Plus, the 89th Edgewood college Christmas Concert is tonight and tomorrow afternoon.
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ALERT: Edgewood College will present its 89th Annual Christmas Concerts tonight at 7 p.m. and Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in the St. Joseph Chapel, 1000 Edgewood College Drive.
Now expanded to two performances, the holiday concert features the Edgewood College choirs and Concert Band, along with audience sing-alongs, prelude music by the Guitar Ensemble, and a post-concert reception featuring the Jazz Ensemble.
By Jacob Stockinger
Classical music meets old media and new media this weekend through opera and chamber music.
SATURDAY
This Saturday marks the beginning of the LIVE RADIO broadcasts of operas from the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City. This will be the 86th season for the radio broadcasts, which educated and entertained generations of opera lovers before there were DVDs, streaming and the “Live in HD From the Met” broadcasts to movie theaters.
The performances will be carried locally on Wisconsin Public Radio, WERN-FM 88.7. This Saturday, the starting time for Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” with Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko (below, in a photo by Richard Termine for The New York Times), is 11:30 CST. Other operas will have different starting times, depending their length.
This season runs from Dec. 3-May 15.
Radio has certain strengths, The Ear thinks. For one, it allows the listeners to focus on the music, to be less distracted or less enriched – depending on your point of view – by sets, costumes, lighting, the physicality of the acting and other stagecraft that is left to the imagination.
This season, there will be lots of standard fare including: Verdi’s “La Traviata” and “Aida”; Puccini’s “La Boheme”; Bizet’s “Carmen”; Beethoven’s “Fidelio”; Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and “The Flying Dutchman”; Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Salome”; and Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”
But you can also hear the new music and less frequently staged operas. They include the 2000 opera “L’amour de loin” (Love From Afar) by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which will receive its Metropolitan Opera premiere next week, on Dec. 10.
Here is a link to the complete season along with links to information about the various productions. Starting times are Eastern Standard Time, so deduct an hour for Central Standard Time or a different amount for your time zone:
http://www.metopera.org/Season/Radio/Saturday-Matinee-Broadcasts/
SUNDAY
On this Sunday afternoon, the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), longtime artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, will wrap up the first semester of “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen,” which used to air weekly on Wisconsin Public Radio but now is presented once a month, on the first Sunday of the month, directly by the museum.
The program this Sunday features the “Italian Serenade” by Hugo Wolf; the String Quartet No. 3 in F Major by Dmitri Shostakovich; and the String Quartet in A-Flat Major, Op. 105, by Antonin Dvorak.
The FREE concert takes place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3 of the Chazen Museum of Art and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Donors to the museum can reserve seats. Concerts by the Pro Arte Quartet, kind of the house quartet of the museum, are usually “sold out.”
But the concert can also be streamed live via computer or smart phone by clicking on the arrow in the photo and using the portal on the following website:
You might also want to arrive early or stay late to see the historic and rare First Folio edition (below) of the plays by William Shakespeare that is on display at the Chazen Museum through Dec. 11 to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of the Bard.
Tags: acting, Aida, Anna Netrebko, Arts, band, Beethoven, Bizet, Carmen, Cello, Chamber music, chapel, Chazen Museum of Art, Choir, choral music, Christmas, Classical music, computer, Concert, costume, DVD, Dvorak, Edgewood College, Finland, First Folio, guitar, Holiday, Hugo Wolf, Italian Serenade, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Kaija Saariaho, La bohème, La Traviata, lighting, Live From The Met in HD, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Met, Metropolitan Opera, Metropolitan Opera Live in HD, movie, Mozart, Music, new media, New Music, New York City, New York Times, old media, opera, Orchestra, Prelude, premiere, Pro Arte Quartet, Puccini, Radio, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Russia, Salome, sets, Shakespeare, Shostakovich, sing-along, smart phone, soprano, St. Joseph, stagecraft, streaming, String quartet, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, theater, Tristan und Isolde, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Classical music: University Opera’s updated Hollywood production of Verdi’s “Falstaff” proves a triumph on all counts. Plus, FREE Opera Scenes concert is Tuesday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a guest review by The Opera Guy of Giuseppe’s Verdi’s “Falstaff” as staged by the University Opera. Performance photos are by Michael Anderson.
By Larry Wells
In the past few years I’ve seen Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” set in the Spanish Civil War, Wagner’s Ring cycle re-imagined as the history of cinema, and Puccini’s “Turandot” presented as a performance by a traveling circus.
Thus, Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ set in 1930’s Hollywood seemed a reasonable reinterpretation, and so it proved at its final performance Tuesday evening by University Opera.
“Falstaff,” drawn from three plays by Shakespeare, is Verdi’s final opera and a rare comedy. More importantly, gone are his familiar forms of a recitative followed by an aria with lots of oom-pa-pa orchestral accompaniment, now replaced with a conversational style that to me shows Wagner’s influence. It just doesn’t sound like Verdi, but it certainly sounds good.
I felt that the whole evening was a triumph.
The sets were beautifully dressed, the costumes were excellent and the lighting was effective.
The UW Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Smith, played wonderfully, although from where I sat the sound was occasionally muffled.
Thank goodness a new music building is being built, and I trust that there will be a theater within it that will accommodate operatic performances. The current Music Hall has its limitations, one being that much of the orchestra was playing underneath the stage and another being that for some reason the theater’s temperature cannot be controlled. It was stiflingly hot during the performance.
As for the singing and acting, the cast I saw was uniformly strong. Falstaff, performed by UW-Madison faculty member Paul Rowe (below), was very robust and was particularly affecting during his act III soliloquy. The Ear mentioned to me his Oliver Hardy mannerisms, and once I noticed that I was constantly amused.
Yanzelmalee Rivera as Alice was hilarious in her seduction scene and really came alive in Act III. Courtney Kayser as Meg was a compelling comic actress. Rebecca Buechel’s Mistress Quickly was an equally adept comic actress and had an excellent voice. Emily Weaver as Nannetta was a beautiful singer who shone in her third act moments as Queen of the Fairies. These four women had some outstanding ensemble moments, and I was constantly diverted by their antics as they outwitted the men.
Among the hapless male characters, Brian Schneider was a standout as Ford and the deep voice of Benjamin Schultz (below left, with Paul Rowe and Jiabao Zhang) made the minor character Pistola noticeable whenever he was on stage.
But the voice of the evening belonged to tenor José Daniel Muñiz (below right) as Fenton. He excelled not only in his solo moments but blended extremely well with his paramour Nannetta (Claire Powling, below left).
The outstanding ensemble work exhibited throughout the opera culminated in the grand fugue at the end of the opera, and the nearly full-house audience was blown away by those final moments. (You can hear the fugal finale, conducted by Sir George Solti, in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The 1930’s Hollywood concept worked well. It seemed completely fitting and was undoubtedly more amusing than it would have been had the opera been set in the time of Henry IV.
“Well done” to the University Opera’s new full-time director David Ronis (below center) for his imagination and direction. I look forward to his production of Benjamin Britten’s “Turn of the Screw” in early March.
And since this University Opera production and other events are being presented to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the exhibition of a First Folio at the Chazen Museum of Art, I want to put in a plug for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Sir John in Love” which has almost exactly the same plot as “Falstaff” and is woefully underperformed.
I also want to draw your attention the FREE Opera Scenes concert by University Opera that will be presented this Tuesday night, Nov. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall. Featured are singers, with piano accompaniment, in scenes from: Charles Gounod’s “Faust”; Claudio Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea“; Giacomo Puccini‘s “La Rondine”; Leonard Bernstein‘s “Trouble in Tahiti”; Gioacchino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”; Dominick Argento’s “Postcard From Morocco”; and Marc Blitzstein’s”Regina.”
Tags: accompaniment, Arts, Barber of Seville, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Charles Gounod, Chazen Museum of Art, choral music, Christina and Michelle Naughton, cinema, circus, Civil War, Classical music, concerto, Dominick Argento, Edo de Waart, Falstaff, Faust, Francis Poulenc, fugue, Giacomo Puccini, Gounod, Hollywood, Igor Stravinsky, Jacob Stockinger, La Forza del Destino, La Rondine, Laurel and Hardy, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Marc Blitzstein, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi, Music, Oliver Hardy, opera, Orchestra, Piano, Postcard From Morocco, Puccini, Ring cycle, Rossini, scenes, Shakespeare, Sir John in Love, Solti, Spain, Spanish Civil War, symphony, The Coronation of Poppea, Trouble in Tahiti, Turandot, Turn of the Screw, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, vaughan williams, Verdi, Wagner, wisconsin public radio, YouTube
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