The Well-Tempered Ear
The Madison Symphony Orchestra seeks matching funds as it launches a musicians’ relief fund to reach $355,000 by Nov. 5
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO, below in a photo by Peter Rodgers) has announced that a Musicians’ Relief Fund has been established with the goal of securing $355,000 to cover 100% of the orchestra payrolls for the canceled September through December 2020 subscription concerts.
This initiative is in addition to the compensation already provided to its musicians for canceled services from April 2020 to date.
To launch the fund, the MSO Board of Directors has committed current Symphony resources to guarantee 52% of the $355,000 total — $184,000 — and has informed the orchestra that the September and October orchestra payrolls will be paid in full.
MSO is seeking community support to help us raise another $171,000 to assure the orchestra’s compensation for the canceled November and December 2020 subscription concerts.
All contributions to this effort will directly support the musicians. An Anonymous Donor has launched the appeal with a $50,000 lead gift. The campaign seeks to raise the additional funds by Nov. 5, 2020.
All contributions to the MSO Musicians’ Relief Fund are tax-deductible and will be used for musicians’ compensation.
Donations can be mailed to the Madison Symphony Orchestra, 222 W. Washington Ave., Suite 460, Madison WI, 53703.
An online donation form is found at madisonsymphony.org/relief-gift.
To contribute gifts of appreciated stock or to discuss other options, contact Jeff Breisach, Manager of Individual Giving, at jbreisach@madisonsymphony.org.
“The 91 members of the Symphony are a core cultural asset of the greater Madison community,” said MSO Board President Ellsworth Brown (below). “We are committed to doing all we can to assist them through the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.”
“While some MSO musicians have other day jobs, many rely heavily on the wages they earn performing with this Symphony, as well as other orchestras and ensembles in the region,” said MSO Executive Director Rick Mackie (below). “The cancellations of services have caused stress and anxiety for our artists.”
The MSO has demonstrated support of its musicians since April of this year, compensating the orchestra for all canceled rehearsals and performances.
Generous donors, strong financial management and a federal Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Loan enabled the Symphony to pay 100% of the orchestra payrolls for the April and May subscription concerts, the spring youth education programs, HeartStrings®, Madison Opera and Overture Presents engagements, and Concert on the Green.
These unexpected paychecks provided relief to the MSO staff and to our musicians (below, with music director and conductor John DeMain in a photo by Peter Rodgers) were forthcoming with their individual appreciation.
HERE ARE SAMPLES OF THE MUSICIANS OF THE MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA EXPRESSING THEIR GRATITUDE FOR COMPENSATION RELIEF
“I am very grateful that our organization values the health of its musicians and patrons yet also understands the financial difficulty imposed on musicians by being unable to work due to the pandemic. The MSO is a gem of an organization, and if you haven’t heard it enough lately, please let me reiterate my gratitude.”
“WOW! I am humbled to be a part of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Thank you so much for valuing the musicians and honoring us with payment for cancelled rehearsals and performances. The news made me cry.”
“As someone who makes a living totally from teaching and playing, this has been an incredibly difficult time. I lost half of my students, because they do not want to study online, and of course, all gigs were cancelled. I am truly grateful to you for making this possible. You have no idea how much this will help not only financially, but mentally as well. THANK YOU!!!
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Classical music: Meet Alexander Gonzalez, the new assistant band director at the UW-Madison who is also a UW alumnus
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following press release from the UW-Madison about its new assistant band director. Like many of his musician colleagues at the UW-Madison, he is likely to see his duties curtailed because of the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19.
After the completion of a national search, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music is pleased to announce the hiring of Alexander Gonzalez (below, in a photo by Robb McCormick) as the new assistant director of bands.
Gonzalez will conduct the Tuesday Night University Band, assist the University of Wisconsin Marching Band, direct the Men’s Hockey Band, and teach courses in conducting.
Gonzalez comes to Wisconsin after studying conducting at Ohio State University as a Doctorate of Musical Arts candidate, where he worked with all concert ensembles and the marching band. Alongside his studies, he was the director of the Professional School Orchestra and taught conducting at Capital University’s Conservatory of Music.
“We are thrilled to welcome Alexander and his wife Haley to the University of Wisconsin Marching Band family,” said Associate Director of Bands Corey Pompey (below). “Alexander is a supremely gifted musician and pedagogue whose role is integral to the success of our band program. He is thoughtful, engaging and direct. Our students will benefit in immeasurable ways from what he has to offer.”
Prior to his studies in Ohio, Gonzalez was a public school educator in Colorado and Florida, where he taught an array of courses at middle school and high school levels.
While participating in his Master’s degree in Wind Conducting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was the director of the Middleton High School Symphony Orchestra’s Wind Octet and worked in education and community outreach with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Alexander Gonzalez conducting the UW-Madison’s University Band in Michael J. Miller’s “Tribute for Band” in Mills Hall in 2014.)
“I am beyond excited to return to a place I consider home,” said Gonzalez (below). “The bands at UW-Madison were integral in forming the educator I am today. And I am equally excited to create a musical environment where present and future students can feel as loved, challenged and respected as I did.”
Gonzalez holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Florida and is an active member in the National Association for Music Education, the College Band Directors National Association, the National Band Association, Phi Mu Alpha, Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma.
“Professor Gonzalez brings with him a wealth of knowledge from his background in teaching music at the public school and college levels,” said Director of Bands Scott Teeple (below). “He is an extraordinary musician, pedagogue and individual. Alexander’s contributions to the UW Band program and the Mead Witter School of Music will deepen the musical experiences of our students. We consider ourselves fortunate to have him as a member of our team.”
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Classical music: On Fridays in July, the critically acclaimed Willy Street Chamber Players will offer both past performances and some new performances to be live-streamed
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following public announcement to post from the Willy Street Chamber Players (below), a terrific chamber music group that he named as “Musicians of the Year” in 2016.
For more details and to subscribe to their email list, go to: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org
WE MISS YOU!
Today — July 10 – would have been the day of our first concert of 2020.
Although it’s sad to think about what could’ve been, we look forward to new beautiful experiences with all of you in the years to come.
In the meantime, we have some exciting news!
We didn’t want you to go without your weekly Friday evening Willy Street Chamber Players fix this July, so we have put together some video memories that we’ll be sending out over the next few weeks.
Check your inbox on Fridays this month — you may want to add us to your email address book — for a weekly archived performance.
This week would’ve been one of our favorite events: our annual admission-free Community Connect performance at the Goodman Community Center.
In honor of that, we’d like to share a fun tidbit from 2017’s performance – Astor Piazzolla’s invigorating “Four, for Tango!” (Editor’s Note: You can see it and hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
We hope this short preview will get you excited for archived performances from Immanuel Lutheran Church in the coming weeks.
We’ll also be announcing some special live-streamed performances happening later this summer. We can’t wait to share what we have in store!
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Classical music: The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra uses a new website and a new brochure to announce its new Masterworks season plus other innovations
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By Jacob Stockinger
In many ways, there is much that is familiar or tried-and-true about the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below, in a photo by Mike Gorski) and its new Masterworks season for 2020-21.
But in other ways it seems as if the WCO is reinventing and rebranding itself – perhaps under the direction of its new CEO Joe Loehnis – as the ensemble starts a double anniversary: its 60th season of existence and its 20th year under the baton of music director Andrew Sewell (below in a photo by Alex Cruz).
As in past years, the WCO programs feature a mix of familiar composers and works with new and neglected ones. It also features both new and returning guest soloists.
Start with what’s new.
The new WCO home website – like the new brochure that has been mailed out — has been redesigned, with more visuals and more information about the 34-member orchestra. The Ear finds both the new brochure and the new home page to be more attractive, better organized and easier to use. Take a look for yourself: https://wcoconcerts.org
There also seems to be a heightened emphasis on donations and raising money, including a new organization called “Friends” that brings special benefits for $30 or even more perks at $8 a month.
And the website seems more customer-friendly. There is a section on the website about “What to Expect,” which includes how to choose seats, how to dress, when to applaud and so forth. There is also a portal for streaming events and concerts.
There is more, much more, including the pre-concert dinners for the Masterworks concerts and the culturally diverse programs for the postponed Concerts on the Square (below), to run this summer on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. (NOT the usual Wednesdays at 7 p.m.) from July 28 to Sept. 1.
There seems to be more emphasis on Sewell, who this year provides extensive first-person notes about each program and the guest artists. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Sewell discuss the new Masterworks season with Wisconsin Public Radio host and WCO announcer Norman Gilliland.)
This season will see two performances of Handel’s “Messiah”: one on Saturday, Dec. 19, at the Blackhawk Church in Middleton; and another downtown on Sunday, Dec. 20, at the UW-Madison’s Hamel Music Center.
The Masterworks series of concerts – held on Friday nights at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center – will begin in late November rather than in late January. The six concerts include five new ones and the postponed appearance of harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, whose appearance this season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, on May 14.
Two of the concerts – on two Saturdays, Feb. 20 and April 10 – will also be performed in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield at the Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts (below).
You can read more about the community outreach and music education programs, especially the Youth and Education programs. They include the free Family Series and “Side by Side” concerts (below, in a photo by Mike DeVries for The Capital Times, WCO concertmaster Suzanne Beia, right, tutors a WYSO student); the Super Strings educational program; and the Young Artists Concerto Competition for grades 9-12.
Here are the Masterworks series:
NOV. 20 – Pianist John O’Conor (below) returns in a program of the Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” by Beethoven; the Septet by Igor Stravinsky; and the Symphony No. 1 in D Major by Luigi Cherubini.
JAN. 15 – Cellist Amid Peled (below, in a photo by Lisa Mazzucco) returns in a program of Cello Concerto No. 1 by Dmitry Kabalevsky and the Andante by Jacques Offenbach; plus the Wind Serenade in D minor by Antonin Dvorak; and the Symphony No. 34 by Mozart.
FEB. 19 – Violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky (below) in returns in Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons in Buenos Aires”; plus the Suite for Strings by Leos Janacek.
MARCH 19 – Grammy-winning Spanish guitarist Mabel Millán (below) making her U.S, debut in an all-Spanish program that features the Concierto del Sur (Concerto of the South) by Manuel Ponce; the Sinfonietta in D major by Ernesto Halffter; and the overture “Los Esclavos Felices” (The Happy Slaves) by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga.
APRIL 9 – Pianist Michael Mizrahi (below), who teaches at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wis., on the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Beethoven plus the Serenade No. 1 by Johannes Brahms.
MAY 14 — Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis (below) in the Harp Concerto by Alberto Ginastera; plus the Sinfonietta by Sergei Prokofiev and the Symphony no. 88 by Franz Joseph Haydn.
Single tickets, which go on sale in July, are $15 to $80. Season subscriptions are available now with seat preference through July 1, bring a discounted price with an extra 10 percent off for first-time subscribers.
For more information, go to the website at https://wcoconcerts.org; call 608 257-0638; or mail a subscription form to the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Attn: Subscriptions; PO Box171, Madison, WI 53701-0171.
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Classical music: UW-Madison’s Hunt Quartet performs a FREE MUST-HEAR concert of Beethoven, Schubert and Webern this Sunday evening. Plus, there is a FREE concert of Schubert’s song cycle “Winterreise” this Saturday afternoon at the UW-Madison
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ALERT: On Saturday night at 3:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, David Richardson, a first-year DMA candidate in Collaborative Piano at the UW-Madison, will be joined by a guest artist, baritone Alan Dunbar, for a FREE performance of the famous song cycle “Winterreise” (Winter Journey) by Franz Schubert. The Ear hears it promises to be an outstanding performance.
By Jacob Stockinger
There are many student recitals and concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison each season – many dozens and maybe even into the hundreds.
But still there are standouts.
One such standout is coming up this Sunday night at 6 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall. That’s when the Hunt Quartet, made up of very talented UW-Madison graduate students, will perform a FREE concert.
Too bad it has to compete with the special two-hour final episode of the popular PBS series “Downton Abbey,” which The Ear suspects will cut into the audience. Could they have moved the concert up to 5 or earlier? That would be nice, but maybe hall logistics made that impossible.
Anyway, the members of the string quartet were selected by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music faculty because they are outstanding performers and pedagogues.
Members are seen below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot. They are from left: Clayton Tillotson, violin; Blakeley Menghini, viola; Paran Amirinazari, violin; and cellist Andrew Briggs, cello.
The appealing all-masterpiece program is: String Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18 No. 5, by Ludwig van Beethoven; Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9, by Anton Webern; and the famous String Quartet in D minor, “Death and the Maiden,” by Franz Schubert. (You can hear the slow movement of the Schubert, based on a song he composed, played by the Alban Berg Quartet in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The Hunt Quartet is the graduate string quartet for UW-Madison’s School of Music. As Project Assistants within the School of Music, the Quartet performs concerts at the School of Music and university events, as well as part of community outreach.
Members work closely with faculty, including the Pro Arte Quartet, and have Professor Uri Vardi as their principal coach. Other artists who have worked with the 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.
The Hunt Quartet is generously sponsored by Kato Perlman and the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
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Classical music education: Madison Symphony Orchestra receives a major grant from Carnegie Hall to foster music education in the public schools.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Symphony Orchestra has always taken community outreach and music education seriously. To see that, all you have to do is attend one of their student concerts in Overture Hall at the Overture Center (below) that are invariably packed with enthusiastic young listeners (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson).
Perhaps those efforts also help to explain how the MSO, which is celebrating its 20th season under music director and conductor John DeMain recently received one of 58 Link Up grants given nationally by Carnegie Hall (below) in New York City to foster music education in the public schools.
Here is the official announcement with details:
“While education budgets are constantly cut, here is a NEW program from the Madison Symphony Orchestra that invests in education and should be welcome news to parents, teachers and the greater community!
“MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS LINK UP, NEW MUSIC EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR MADISON STUDENTS
“School children across Madison will get a unique musical opportunity this year.
“The Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is the recipient of a prestigious invitation from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute to present Link Up, a music education program that will reach over 900 fourth-grade and fifth-grade students in Madison.
“Link Up unites the classroom with the concert hall, giving young students the opportunity to explore music through a year-long curriculum of classroom activities, exploring rhythm, melody and orchestration using the musical instrument, the soprano recorder (below and at the bottom in a YouTube video of a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach).
“A culminating concert takes the students into Overture’s CAPITOL THEATER (below) to perform on their recorders WITH the MSO.
“Link Up will begin in September 2013 and finish with its interactive concert Thursday, May 15, 2014, at 10 a.m.
“The program is possible through a generous lead grant from the Madison Community Foundation in the amount of $40,000 over two years. Other donors for the pilot season of this program include the Alliant Energy Foundation, The Evjue Foundation Inc., the Madison Symphony Orchestra League, Associated Bank, US Bank, and the Capital Times Kids Fund.
“The MSO’s 2013-2014 Link Up partner elementary schools will include: Allis, Chavez, Gompers, Huegel, Lowell, Marquette, Muir, Nuestro Mundo, Sandburg, Shorewood, Thoreau, and Van Hise, all within the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD).
“The plan is to expand the program to schools outside of Madison in its second year.
“Link Up is a nationwide initiative; the MSO is one among 58 orchestras in the US and abroad chosen to present it.
“For more information, visit madisonsymphony.org/linkup or contact Michelle Kaebisch (below, in a photo y Katrin Talbot), the MSO’s Director of Education and Community Engagement, at (608) 257-3734 x225 or mkaebisch@madisonsymphony.org (Kaebisch, a violinist who p;lays with the MSO, is also the new conductor in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) to take over from Thomas Buchhauser, who retired at the end of last season.
“Be sure to mark your calendar now for the May 15, 2014, 10 a.m. Link Up event when fourth-graders and fifth-graders perform with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.’
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