The Ear has received the following information to post:
John W. Barker (below right), local music critic for Isthmus and The Well-Tempered Ear and an arts supporter extraordinaire, will present “Handel and Other Friends,” a fundraiser for the Handel Aria Competition, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street, on this Wednesday night, April 26, at 7:30 p.m.
Claire Powling, Rebecca Buechel and Talia Engstrom from the U.W. Madison Opera Program singing Handel duets
A highlight of the evening will be the official announcement of the seven national finalists in the Fifth Annual Handel Aria Competition (below is contestant and winner soprano Chelsea Morris).
Tickets to the April 26 fundraiser are $25 general admission, and $40 for special donor seating. They are available in advance at Orange Tree Imports, 1721 Monroe Street, online at Brown Paper Tickets, and at the door.
We are delighted to have received over 100 applicants from Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and 26 states — including Hawaii — for this year’s competition. Please plan to join us on Friday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall in the Humanities Building, University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music for the Fifth Annual Handel Aria Competition.
The Madison Bach Musicians, under the direction of Trevor Stephenson, will again accompany the finalists. In addition to the professional judging for first, second and third prize, there will be a cash prize for Audience Favorite. (In the YouTube video below is Christina Kay singing from Handel’s “Joshua” during the 2016 Handel Aria Competition.)
ALERT: The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and its acclaimed music director Andrew Sewell are pretty busy these days playing the accompanying music for the Madison Ballet‘s multiple performances of Peter Tchaikovsky‘s holiday ballet “The Nutcracker.”
Then on this coming Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Blackhawk Church in Middleton, the WCO, the WCO Chorus, the Festival Choir of Madison and guest soloists, all under the baton of Sewell, also give their annual and usually sold-out performance of George Frideric Handel‘s oratorio “Messiah.” The Ear has been told that this year’s performance is also close to selling out to. For more information and tickets, go to:
At 8 p.m. this Saturday night, Dec. 10, the Madison Bach Musicians (below top) will give their sixth annual Baroque Holiday Concert.
The event will once again be held in the beautiful and sonorous sanctuary (below) of the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Avenue.
There is a free pre-concert lecture by the always witty, informative and entertaining MBM founder, artistic director and harpsichordist Trevor Stephenson (below) at 7:15 p.m. NOTE: Trevor Stephenson will also discuss the upcoming holiday concert and play excerpts from past ones TODAY AT NOON on The Midday program aired by Wisconsin Public Radio.
The program will feature: a cappella (solo vocal) masterworks by Orlando di Lassus and Josquin des Prez performed by a vocal quartet; a Christmas Cantatafor soprano and strings by Alessandro Scarlatti—featuring soprano soloist Chelsea Morris (below top); a trio sonata by Johann Joseph Fux; an intriguing Partita for two scordatura violins (scordatura means the open strings are re-tuned into a new interval configuration!) by Heinrich Biber; the Sonatina in A minor for baroque bassoon and continuo by Georg Philipp Telemann ― with soloist and UW-Madison professor Marc Vallon (below bottom, in a photo by James Gill); one of the Christmas Cantatas, BWV 122, Das neugeborne Kindelein (The Newborn Baby) by Johann Sebastian Bach (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom); and a bonus feature ― a preview of MBM’s upcoming April performance of Bach’s oratorio St. John Passion, the tenor aria Ach, mein Sinn.
Advance-sale discount tickets: $28 for general admission, $23 for students and seniors 65 and over. They are available at Orange Tree Imports, Farley’s House of Pianos, Room of One’s Own, and Willy Street Co-op (East and West) . You can also find online advance-sale tickets at madisonbachmusicians.org
Tickets at the door are: $30 for general admission; $25 for students and seniors 65 and over. Student Rush tickets are $10 at the door and go on sale 30 minutes before lecture (student ID is required)
Musicians will include: Chelsea Morris, soprano; Joseph Schlesinger, counter-tenor; Scott Brunscheen, tenor; Matthew Tintes, bass; Kangwon Kim and Brandi Berry, baroque violins; Marika Fischer Hoyt, baroque viola; Martha Vallon, baroque cello; Marc Vallon, baroque bassoon; and Trevor Stephenson, harpsichord
The Ear got a request from audio engineer Buzz Kemper. He wanted to write about streaming live the NEW monthly format of Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen.
It is a timely topic because the once-a-month live chamber music concerts run from February through December on the first Sunday of the month. That means there is one this Sunday at 12:30 p.m. It offers a song recital of Mozart, Haydn, Schubert and Brahms with soprano Chelsea Morris (below top) and fortepianist Trevor Stephenson (below bottom) of the Madison Bach Musicians.
At bottom you can hear a YouTube video of Chelsea Morris singing an aria from the opera “Giulio Cesare” by George Frideric Handel that helped her win first prize in the 2014 Handel Aria Competition at the Madison Early Music Festival.
Traditions change and evolve, sometimes disappearing completely.
One long-running Wisconsin musical tradition has been saved from extinction, and indeed will not only continue, but will do so in a newer, more contemporary form.
Last spring, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen (below) — the much-loved, statewide live broadcast chamber music series – was abruptly canceled by Wisconsin Public Radio after a 36-year run. The cancellation looked very much like the death knell of this very long-running and vital live music showcase.
Public reaction was swift and strong, and almost completely negative, as you can see from the announcement on this blog:
The leadership at the Chazen, however, had a larger vision: Could the series be continued in some form, even without a broadcast outlet?
Museum Director Russell Panczenko (below) met with me and Steve Gotcher — my business partner at Audio for the Arts– as well as representatives from the Chazen and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music to discuss possibilities. The obvious solution was to do a series utilizing a more contemporary means of public distribution: live streaming via the Internet.
While the cancellation of the broadcasts was unwelcome news to me, the opportunity to be involved once again in this series was quite welcome indeed.
I have a unique history with Sunday Afternoon Live. From 1983 until 1998, I served as Technical Director continuously, and had a long stint as host as well.
On one Christmas edition of the show, I even appeared as a performer, singing a real duet by a fake composer, “Please, Kind Sir” by PDQ Bach, with fellow engineer Richard Moses. We discovered after the fact that Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison and his wife, violinist Rose Mary Harbison (below), were in attendance. (I’m glad we didn’t know this ahead of time.) The Harbisons had very kind words for our musical shenanigans.
With such a long and varied history with the show, I was delighted that Audio for the Arts, the audio company of which I am co-owner, would be involved in the new incarnation of the series. (Below is a photo of Buzz Kemper in his commercial recording studio.)
Along with the changes, there are several aspects that remain the same: Lori Skelton (below top), longtime producer and host of the series, has signed on once again. Also, the concerts will, as before, take place in Gallery III (below bottom), though on a monthly rather than weekly basis, and on the first Sunday of the month.
The dedication and commitment to this series by Lori Skelton, the Chazen Museum of Art and the musical community — in particular the UW School of Music — is commendable. Gratitude is also due to Kato Perlman, who provided a generous gift to get us started.
Take the afternoon of this upcoming Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014.
The best The Ear can figure, you have a choice of five trains to ride into the wreck, possibly two if you plan really carefully and everything — including the length of concerts, transportation time and the availability of parking — falls into place.
There are just too many events and too few weekdays to do separate blog posts on all of them. Besides, it will probably be helpful for scheduling –- if discouraging –- to see them all listed together.
A-l-l-l-l aboard:
Here, in timetable order, we go:
PRO ARTE STRING QUARTET
The Pro Arte Quartet (below top, in photo by Rick Langer), which is wrapping up its centennial anniversary and six centennial commissions with a gala FREE world premiere concert and dessert reception at the Wisconsin Union Theater on this Friday night at 8 p.m., will repeat the program in a FREE concert at the Chazen Museum of Art on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in the Brittingham Gallery No. 3 (below middle). It will be streamed live by Audio for the Arts. Go to www.chazen.wisc.edu on the day of the concert for a link.
The program includes the world premiere of the Clarinet Quintet “Howl” (based on the Beat poem by Allen Ginsberg) by American composer Pierre Jalbert (below bottom) by as well as String Quartet No. 2 in A Major (1824) by Spanish composer Juan Crisostomo Arriaga and the gorgeous Clarinet Quintet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Originally scheduled for Friday, Sept. 26, the Ancora Quartet (below top, in a photo by Barry Lewis), with guest violinist Wes Luke (below bottom, in a photo by Barry Lewis) filling in for Leanne League. The three regular quartet members are, from left, violinist Robin Ryan, violist Marika Fischer Hoyt and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.
They will instead perform the Ancora’s opening concert of the season on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. in the Landmark Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society where the quartet has been artists-in-residence. The program includes the “Sun” Quartet, Op. 20, No. 4, by Franz Joseph Haydn; the one-movement Quartet for Strings by Amy Beach, which uses Inuit tunes; and the final String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, composed by Felix Mendelssohn in honor of the death of his beloved sister Fanny. A champagne reception is included. Tickets at the door are $15; $12 for seniors; and $6 for children under 12.
Other performances of this program will take place on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m. at Eaton Chapel on the Beloit College campus, and on Sunday, Oct. 26, at 4 p.m. at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Fort Atkinson. In addition, the quartet has added the following dates: Monday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. at Oakwood Village West on Madison’s far west side at 6902 Mineral point Road, with FREE admission, followed by a Meet & Greet with the musicians; and on Thursday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Loras College Visitation Center: Gallagher Hall, in Dubuque, Iowa.
UW SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND SOPRANO ELIZABETH HAGEDORN
At 2 p.m. in Mills Hall, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Symphony Orchestra (below top, in photo by John W. Barker) with guest UW-Madison professor soprano Elizabeth Hagedorn (below middle) and conductor James Smith (below bottom) will perform a FREE concert.
The program includes the “Totenfeier” (Funeral Rites) music (the first draft of the First Movement from the Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”; and the “Rueckert Lieder,” both by Gustav Mahler; and also the Symphony No. 1 “Spring” by Robert Schumann.
EDGEWOOD COLLEGE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
At 2:30 p.m. in the St. Joseph Chapel, 1000 Edgewood College Drive, at Edgewood College, the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra (below top, in an old poster), conducted by Blake Walter (below bottom, in a photo by John Maniaci), will perform the “Ojai Festival Overture” by Peter Maxwell Davies, “Historic Scenes,” Op. 66, by Jean Sibelius and Symphony No. 53 in D Major “Imperiale” by Franz Joseph Haydn. Tickers are $5 at the door, free with an Edgewood College ID.
SOPRANO CHELSEA MORRIS AND FORTEPIANIST TREVOR STEPHENSON
At 3 p.m. in Christ Presbyterian Church, 944 East Gorham Street, there will be a voice concert and CD-release party with soprano Chelsea Morris and fortepianist Trevor Stephenson (both are below), the founder and leader of the Madison Bach Musicians, to celebrate the release of their new CD of songs by Mozart, Haydn and Franz Schubert. This past summer, Morris won top spot in the second annual Handel Aria Competition during the Madison Early Music Festival.
Trevor Stephenson will bring his 5-octave, 18th-century German fortepiano to accompany Ms. Morris and he also will play solo fortepiano works by Mozart and Beethoven.
He will give a brief talk about the Classical style and discuss how the fortepiano creates a thrilling sense of theatrical immediacy in the music of the 18th-century masters. Selections on the concert from Morris and Stephenson’s new CD: Songs by Mozart, Haydn & Schubert. A CD autograph signing will be held after the concert.
At 3:30 p.m. in the Overture Center for the Arts, “American Kaleidoscope,” the second performance of a multi-performing arts celebration of the Overture Center’s 10th anniversary, will take place, continuing from the all-day festival on Saturday.
All the resident performing arts companies — including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society — will do a second performance (the first is Saturday night). Here is a link:
ALERT: If you want to find out the latest news about the tour to Argentina by the Youth Orchestra (below) of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, here is a link to the blog:
As you probably already know, The Ear is running a bit behind.
That’s how busy even the summer season has become, when it comes to classical music in the Madison area. And reviews take a second seat to previews and advance Q&A’s that benefit the performers and audiences.
So over the next few days, I want to provide some critiques and reviews, and even more shout-outs, to various events that took place over the past couple of weeks. I hope you will forgive my tardiness.
You should also know that I am not going in chronological order because some things seem more important or more timely, and therefore more overdue, than others.
True, the second annual Handel competition is not strictly speaking a part of MEMF. But it is affiliated with MEMF. And since I have already covered the extraordinary MEMF opening concert “The Leonardo da Vinci Codex” by the Toronto Consort, I wanted to bring you up to date with the results of the aria competition, which has begun to attract national and even international attention.
Here are the big point to note: What a difference a year makes!
This year there was no unsatisfactory split or disagreement between the four judges and the public, as there was last year. BRAVO!!!!
This year, both the judges and the public — which had some pretty discerning listeners in it — agreed on the winner: She was Chelsea Morris (below), who might be familiar from other appearances in Madison with the Madison Bach Musicians and Trevor Stephenson, who whom she has released a CD of songs by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn and Franz Schubert.
Morris met all the criteria that Professor John W. Barker, an insightful critic and devoted Handelian, had outlined in his pre-concert lecture. He emphasized that it was not only about beautiful singing but also capturing the sense of drama in a role, of great diction, of ornamentation, of mastering the Handelian style.
Chelsea Morris did all of them, and the second time proved the charm. (You can hear her entry in last year’s aria competition in a YouTube video at the bottom.) And she is moving from Chicago to Madison as her base, where she will be a Studio Artist with the Madison Opera this coming season So The Ear hopes to score a Q&A with her soon. She won $1,000 and free tuition (worth just under $500) to next summer’s Madison Early Music Festival.
Morris sang “Svelato il cor ti vedo” and “L’amor que per te sento” from “Alessandro” and “O Sleep, why dost thou leave me?” from “Semele.”
Second Prize went to Daniel Moody (below), a countertenor who sang “Pomoe vane do morte! And “Dove aei, amato ben” from the opera “Rodelinda”:
Third Prize ($500) went to soprano Yukie Sato, a Tokyo native who is now based in Basel, Switzerland where she won a similar competition. With much drama, she sang “A Ruggiero crudel” and “Ombre palle” from “Alcina” and “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion” from the oratorio “Messiah.”
You read me right: Tokyo and Switzerland. This past year, some money had been raised to help pay travel expenses, and that paid off in the quality of singing, which was higher overall.
The applicants this time numbered 60, and they came from around the nation and world. That was whittled down to 30, and then 15 and then, in the end, to seven finalists (below) because the judges couldn’t agree on just six.
Each contestant had to sing one aria in Italian and another in English. The Ear likes that. It helped us in judging diction, and helped you to appreciate the range of Handel’s music. But The Ear wishes that in future competitions they would ban arias from “Messiah” since you hear that music enough already.
One downside: Held in Music Hall, the Handel aria smack-down drew an audience about half as big as last year, maybe 250 instead of the 500 in Mills Hall. No doubt that fact that admission this year was $10, while last year it was free, figured in that lower attendance. I would sure like to see it return to free admission, if possible. It is a great way to introduce people to the world of Handel, and draw a general audience –- not just specialists.
But another plus this year was that the singers were accompanied by a small five-person pickup orchestra or consort (below) made up mostly of faculty members and professional instrumentalists from the Madison Early Music Festival. The sound sure added authenticity and helped both the singers and the listeners get into the mood of Handel operas, which have been rediscovered big time. Plus, it was just more fun to listen to with great variety of sound, timbre and tone.
This year’s Handel Aria Competition was nothing short of a triumph. The competition is well on its way to becoming an impressive and fun Madison summertime institution. All thanks go, then, to founders and sponsors Dean and Orange Schroeder (below, holding a bust of George Frideric Handel), the business owners of Orange Tree Imports on Monroe Street, who are such reliable and generous supporters of Madison’s classical music scene.
THE ALL-FESTIVAL CONCLUDING CONCERT
A week ago tonight, the Madison Early music held its All-Festival Concert in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue. (MEMF had to use Music Hall and Luther Memorial as alternative venues this summer because Mills Hall at the UW-Madison School of Music was undergoing repairs.)
And speaking of triumphs, the thematic program was based on the sonnet cycle of “Triumph” by Petrarch (below), who examined the importance of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity. It is a work that both anticipates and sums up the emerging humanism of the Italian Renaissance.
There are not a lot of specific remarks I can make except that:
The program was well constructed by Grant Herreid (below), who also conducted it.
The orchestra played beautifully and produced big full sound enhanced by the church’s acoustics. Yet a balance was maintained, and vocal and instrumental parts blended.
The various soloists -– and there were many –- were impressive.
Lasting just over an hour, it was a perfect wrap up to a great festival.
Co-founders and co-artistic directors UW-Madison baritone Paul Rowe and Cheryl Bensman Rowe, who both sang in the chorus parts, also announced that next year’s theme will be Early Music in Central and Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia, Poland and Bohemia.