The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: The 14th annual Wisconsin Flute Festival takes place this Saturday and offers a FREE concert at 5 p.m. Plus, a FREE recital of French flute music is this Friday at noon

ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale, at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, will feature flutist Iva Ugrčić, flute and pianist Kyle Johnson performing an all-French program of music by Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen, Claude Debussy and Jules Bouquet. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m.

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following information to post:

The 14th annual Wisconsin Flute Festival will take place this coming Saturday, March 4.

The Wisconsin Flute Festival brings together flutists and music lovers of all ages from Wisconsin and the greater Midwest.

The day’s events include workshops, performances, youth and collegiate competitions, a master class, and a 2,300-plus square foot exhibition hall with purveyors of fine flutes, music and accessories.

This year’s Festival will feature guest artist Lorna McGhee (below), principal flute of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Artist Lecturer in Flute at Carnegie Mellon University.

The 14th annual Wisconsin Flute Festival will begin at 8 a.m. in the Pyle Center at UW-Madison and will culminate in a FREE public concert beginning at 5 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall, in the Mosse Humanities Building, at UW-Madison.

This concert, “Landscapes and Love Songs,” will be performed by featured guest artist Lorna McGhee. (Sorry, The Ear has no details on the program.)

This year, an expanded variety of workshops and performances will be offered. Workshop topics will include circular breathing, articulation and vibrato, in addition to sessions on maximizing practice time, musicians’ health and interpreting musical pieces.

Participants will also have the opportunity to experience an interactive session with low flutes including; alto flutes, bass flutes and a contrabass flute (below).

Performances during the day will feature: electro-acoustic music; Telemann (below top) on historical flutes; lesser-known modern masters; Romanian composers; Latin music; Bach (below bottom) transcriptions; contemporary interpretation; and works for flute, clarinet and voice. Student soloists and chamber ensembles from UW-Whitewater and UW-Madison will present concerts.

For flutists shopping for an instrument, music or accessories, over a dozen companies and organizations from across the US will be on-site in the Festival’s exhibit hall. Technicians will be also available to evaluate instruments and conduct minor repairs.

Exhibitors include Altus Flutes, Atlantic Crossing Records, Brannen Brothers Flutemakers, Inc., Burkart Flutes & Piccolos, Di Zhao Flutes, Flute Center of New York, Flute Specialists, Flute World, Heid Music, The National Flute Association, Ward-Brodt, White House of Music and Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras.

Tickets are $20 to $35 for Festival participants. Tickets for non-flutist family members of participants (parents, siblings) are available for at a special rate of $5. Registration information is available online at wisconsinflutefestival.org. Tickets can be purchased at the Festival.

The evening concert beginning at 5 p.m. in Mills Hall, is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

The Wisconsin Flute Festival is a program of the Madison Flute Club.

About the Madison Flute Club

The Madison Flute Club was founded in 2002 and currently presents over 20 concerts each year to an audience of more than 1,500 community members. The club involves, on average, 35 active adult members and over 30 youth from the surrounding area.

To advance and achieve its mission, the Madison Flute Club has undertaken several large projects and partnered with numerous organizations and events in Dane County.

These projects include the commissioning and world premiere of a work for flute choir for Design MMoCA, successfully fundraising for a contrabass flute (the first such instrument in Wisconsin) and performing at the National Flute Association Convention.

Madison Flute Club ensembles and members have been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio’s The Midday with Norman Gilliland, WORT 89.9FM Madison and in the publication The Flutist Quarterly.

The 2017 Wisconsin Flute Festival is co-hosted by Madison Flute Club and UW-Madison Flute Studio.

Major funding is provided by: Heid Music, American Printing Company, Eric and Tobi Breisach, Distillery Marketing and Design, Karl Sandelin in honor of Joyce Sandelin and Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras.

Additional funding is provided by Altus Handmade Flutes, Breisach Cordell PLLC, and 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.