The Well-Tempered Ear

Why did obituaries for pop star Eric Carmen omit Rachmaninoff?

March 14, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

The American songwriter and pop singer Eric Carmen  (below) died in his sleep at 74 last Sunday. The cause has still not been revealed.

I haven’t checked out all the obituaries for Carmen, who fronted as the lead singer for The Raspberries before striking out on his own prolific and profitable career.

In the obits I did sample, I heard how the 2001 movie “Bridget Jones’s Diary” used Carmen’s “All By Myself” (1975) — with Renée Zellwegger on drums in the staring role — at the beginning of the hit film.

I heard how Céline Dion scored a huge hit with her version of the same song.

I heard praise quoted from the American superstar horror author, and sometimes amateur rock band member, Stephen King.

But all the obituaries thatI read on the web, saw on TV and heard on the radio omitted a central element of Carmen’s career in soft rock: his “theft” or “borrowing” — depending on what you think of his justification and the results of the lawsuit he lost — of music by Sergei Rachmaninoff (below).

Indeed, Carmen’s two biggest hits owe their irresistible melodies and harmonies — their tunes, if you will — to the Russian late Romantic composer (1873-1943). 

Carmen — who was a trained classical pianist —  certainly had a good ear, as his year-to-year, back-to-back hits demonstrated.

And he wasn’t ashamed to use what that ear heard and what he liked.

“All By Myself” uses a theme from the second movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1901). The main melody of the last movement also gave rise to the often recorded popular song “Full Moon and Empty Arms.”

Carmen’s “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again” (1976) uses the main theme from the slow movement of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 (1907).

If you liked Carmen’s songs, you just might like the original Rachmaninoff works, if you don’t already know them.

Here is a link to a story by Cynthia Dickison for yourclassical.org that not only recounts what happened with the lawsuit but also — with YouTube videos — offers comparisons between the original Rachmaninoff and Carmen’s reworkings.

https://www.yourclassical.org/story/2024/03/12/eric-carmen-sergei-rachmaninoff

Chances are very good that you will also hear the complete Rachmaninoff works on radio stations and in live performance a lot sooner and certainly a lot longer than you will hear Eric Carmen’s music.

Did you know about Eric Carmen’s “use” of Rachmaninoff?

What do you think of it?

What do you think it was ignored in obituaries?

The Ear wants to hear.


FREE birthday bash for Johann Sebastian Bach is this Saturday in Madison

March 7, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear thinks of this week’s Bach Around the Clock — which runs March 6-10 — as a double celebration.

The primary one is to mark the 339th birthday of composer Johann Sebastian Bach (below, March 20, 1685-July 28, 1750), whom many consider to be the Big Bang of Western classical music.

The second celebration is to honor the late Madison violist Marika Fischer Hoyt (below), who with help resurrected Bach Around the Clock in Madison after it had been dropped by Wisconsin Public Radio.

Talented, hard-working and congenial, Fischer — who died a year ago of cancer — was a fixture of the local music scene. She was a member of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and spent 20 years playing in the Madison Symphony Orchestra. An outstanding chamber musician, she also helped found and played in the Ancora String Quartet.

An avid proponent of early music using period instruments and historically informed performance practices, Fischer Hoyt helped found and play in the weekly free Just Bach concerts. She performed regularly with the Madison Bach Musicians and with an early music string group she helped found, Sonata à Quattro.

Here is a link to a complete schedule on the BATC website:

The Ear thinks Marika would be very pleased and proud of this year’s event.

It will feature Bach’s original choral and instrumental music in many genres and transcriptions. Soloists and groups of varying sizes will take part. And Bach’s music — so central to the repertoire and all levels of musicianship — will be performed by students (below are members of the Suzuki Strings), by amateurs and by professionals (in the YouTube video at the bottom) — making BATC a truly community-wide celebration of Bach.

The hours for the Birthday Bash concert, which used to run 12 hours, have been cut back to a reasonable and accessible 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent St., on Madison’s near west side. But a birthday cake will still be cut at the end.

And in case you want to duck in and out or catch certain performances or performers, here is a full program schedule for Saturday:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CIRby29h6wZjyngZgyMPpTrLNiMC_1OR/view

You can find links to all other events and programs — printed in blue — on the main website for the March 6-10 festival.

Performances by performers in their own homes and studios will air online as part of the Virtual Festival held of BATC’s YouTube channel, starting at midnight on this Sunday, March 10. Its runs without a time limit and can be accessed worldwide.

Here is a link to the YouTube channel, which also has past performances

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHBRPHSGd_fNECp-qrWsqlQ

Have you attended or heard other Bach Around the Clocks?

What do you think of the celebration?

The Ear wants to hear.


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Apple Music Classical is now available for iPads

November 18, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

Apple Music Classical (logo is below) continues to make headway in the streaming service market.

Originally, it was only available on iPhones with an OS operating system. Then it became available on Google’s Android phones.

As of this week, it is now available on iPad, programmed for bigger formats.

The Ear finds the app particularly useful and cheap for checking out new releases. IT offers more than 5 million recordings.

Some critics complain, however, that the app is still not available for other Mac computers and Apple devices. But one imagines Apple is working on that too even as it continues to buy up other classical music labels. 

The recordings on the Hyperion label are now fully available on the app, thanks to that label’s decision to finally offer streaming. (The Ear particularly likes having accessibility to the recordings of prolific pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Stephen Hough as well as those of violinist Isabelle Faust and cellist Steven Isserlis.) 

The app also now has the complete catalogue of the critically acclaimed Swedish label BIS as well as the Pentatone label it started with.

Here is a story from MacRumors about the technical update, with almost 70 comments and some very good background and tips about how to use it — which you can also find in the YouTube video at the bottom:

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/16/apple-music-classical-comes-to-ipad/

And here are links to previous posts about Apple Music Classical and its release and expansion:

What do you think of Apple Music Classical?

Do you use it or plan to subscribe?

Like it or dislike it?

Why?

The Ear wants to hear.


UW-Madison master bassist Richard Davis dies at 93

September 13, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

First I saw him — particularly standing out because he was one of the very few Black professors on campus at that time.

Then I heard about him.

He was a prize-winning, critically acclaimed jazz bassist who was nationally and internationally famous and freelanced even while at the university.

But the first time I actually heard Richard Davis (below and in the YouTube video of a Fox News feature at the bottom) perform live at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught for decades after his arrival in 1977, he was playing in a small chamber orchestra that accompanied a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach.

It was a memorable and outstanding performance perfectly suited to the Baroque style of the music, far from the top-notch jazz combos, rock bands, symphony orchestras, conductors and individual star singers that he usually played with. 

I don’t think I ever saw or heard met a more complete musician, and I doubt I ever will. It is hard to think of a skill Davis hadn’t mastered — whether it was composing, improvising, performing, recording or teaching. 

Davis died last Wednesday — ironically on the first day of classes of the fall semester at the UW-Madison— after spending two years in hospice care. He was 93.

He received a major obituary in The New York Times. Here is a link (you might have to register):

And here is a link to his extended biography, with a discography and an impressive list of awards and honors, in Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Davis_(bassist)

Did you ever hear Davis live or on a recording? In what kind of music?

Did you ever perform or study with him?

What was he like as a person and an artist?

The Ear wants to hear.


How do you rank Beethoven’s five piano concertos? Which is your favorite set of recordings?

July 12, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

Lately, The Ear has been listening to the five piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven (below).

That, of course, is not counting the composer’s rarely performed piano transcription of his own violin concerto.

The five concertos are so different but so consistently great that they are always in demand for programming and always a pleasure to listen to as well, I imagine, to play.

Lately I have been sampling two new complete recordings that have received high praise from critics: one (below top) by the Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang, who won the Van Cliburn competition in 2009 and recorded his set, including a cadenza by him, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Nathalie Stutzmann; and the other, a complete live set (below bottom) by the American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, the winner of the 1970 Chopin competition, recently recorded at the Grand Teton Festival. 

Both are fine recordings and well worth listening to.

They made me once again recalculate my personal ranking of the five piano concertos. I don’t mean a ranking by quality or which one is the best, but simply which individual concertos I prefer to listen to by frequency. Here is any order: 4, 3, 5 (Emperor), 1, and 2.

How would you rank these five masterworks?

There are so many excellent recordings of these glorious works. I have listened to individual concertos and complete sets by Claudio Arrau, Emanuel Ax, Alfred Brendel (who has recorded them three times), Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, Daniel Barenboim, Murray Perahia, Leif Ove Andnes, Glenn Gould, Arthur Rubinstein (who recorded them twice), Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Jan Lisiecki, Rudolf Buchbinder, Krystian Zimerman, Yefim Bronfman; and on and on. It is hard to pick just one favorite and the idea of a “definitive” performance is impossible.

And truth be told, I generally turn to different performers for different concertos. Martha Argerich has not recorded all five but I love her performances of Piano Concertos 1, 2 and 3. I admire the late Nelson Freire in the Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”). And I am very moved by Krystian Zimerman’s playing of the inspired and unconventional middle movement of the Piano Concerto No. 4 in the YouTube video at the bottom.

But overall the most consistent sets I continue to like are classics by the late Leon Fleisher and Richard Goode, who completely understands and captures what is special about Beethoven, as he demonstrated in his pioneering complete set of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas.

How would you personally rank the Beethoven pianos concertos as your favorites by appeal and listenability?

Which pianist in Beethoven’s five piano concertos do you listen to and like the most often?

Is there a complete set you find irresistible and recommend to others?  Or a particular recording of a particular concerto?

The Ear wants to hear.


Meet the medal winners of the 2023 Tchaikovsky Competition

July 5, 2023
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PS: Note that in the last blog post, originally The Ear mistakenly said the first session of the  First Unitarian Society summer sings for the public is on Tuesday, July 10. The correct day is MONDAY, JULY 10. The Ear apologizes for the error and any inconvenience.

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

The 17th international Tchaikovsky Competition (*the official logo is below) was held in Moscow and St. Petersburg from June 19 to July 1, 2023.

As usual, Russian contestants completely dominated the various categories and various medal levels. No surprise there.

Contestants from the United Kingdom, the United States and France also took home medals.

But Asian musicians continued to demonstrate their competition-winning talents. Many came from China — but not from Taiwan, Japan, Taiwan and North Korea. Quite noticeable, however, were the many contestants and medal winners from non-communist South Korea.

You might recall that South Korean contestants also won the Van Cliburn Competition last year and the Cliburn Junior and Chopin competitions earlier this year.

Clearly, South Korea is doing something special that works when it comes to music education. Indeed, music education is Asia seems especially successful, as was discussed in a previous blog post: 

For specific names of category winners with their placement and nationality, here are links:

PIANO: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/595.htm

VIOLIN: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/598.htm

CELLO: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/599.htm

VOICE: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/603.htm

BRASS: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/597.htm

WOODWINDS: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/602.htm

And the official website for the competition has lots of blogs and vlogs (video blogs); biographies of the contestants; repertoire; details about the competition including four orchestras and conductors (including Valery Gergiev, who supports Vladimir Putin and the Russian war in Ukraine); venues and history; and a photo gallery.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/

If you would like to hear many recitals and concerts from various rounds of the competition and the Laureate Concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, just go to YouTube and type Tchaikovsky Competition 2023 in the search engine.

In honor of Van Cliburn, the 23-year-old American who unexpectedly won the first Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 during the Cold War and found lifelong international acclaim, is this year’s gold medalist in the piano, Sergei Davydchenko from Russia.

He is playing the second and third movements of Tchaikovsky’s famous and popular Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23. 


Salon Piano Series posts pianist Kangwoo Jin playing the Liszt transcription of Schumann’s song “Dedication”

June 13, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has the following announcement to post from the Salon Piano Series.

As the series has done during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is offering a FREE excerpt from a past concert.

In this case, it is the South Korean pianist Kangwoo Jin (below, in a photo by Andy Manis) playing Franz Liszt’s solo piano transcription of Robert Schumann’s song “Widmung” (Dedication). which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom. It is a sensitive and lyrical performance full of unrushed songfulness.

It is often used as an encore, and was a favorite of Van Cliburn and others.

Here it was part of a larger program that Jin – who last summer received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin’s Mead Witter School of Music — did virtually and only during the pandemic.

For more information about the complete concert, go to: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/this-sunday-at-4-p-m-the-salon-piano-series-debuts-an-online-recital-by-pianist-kangwoo-jin-he-plays-music-by-scarlatti-beethoven-liszt-and-schumann-it-will-be-available-until-may-9/

Here is the announcement from the Salon Piano Series, which is sponsored by and held at Farley’s House of Pianos on Madison’s far west side near West Towne:

Please take a break from your day to see and hear Kangwoo Jin perform a portion of Franz Liszt’s Transcriptions for Piano.

This video was recorded (below), without an audience, at Luther Memorial Church on April 15, 2021 as part of the Salon Piano Series.

Over the years, many of you have supported the Salon Piano Series with your attendance, individual sponsorships and donations.

We look forward to bringing you world-class musical performances in our unique salon setting again soon.

Please stay tuned for the announcement of our 2021-22 season.

Sincerely,

Salon Piano Series


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Songs by Black composers trace their cultural realities in a free online UW performance TONIGHT of “Verisimilitudes.” Plus, the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition perform Sunday.

April 24, 2021
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ALERT: This Sunday, April 25, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition at the UW-Madison will perform in a winners’ concert. Included in the program are the popular and dramatic “Appassionata” Sonata, Op. 57, and the famous and innovative last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op 111. Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMF0Hd1MJwMg. Click on “Show More” and you can see the full programs and biographical profiles of the winners.

By Jacob Stockinger

The concert could hardly be more timely or the subject more relevant.

Think of the events in and near Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S.; of the Black Lives Matter movement and social protest; of the political fight for D.C. statehood and voting rights – all provide a perfect context for an impressive student project that will debut online TONIGHT, Saturday, April 24, at 7 p.m.

The one-hour free concert “Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown and Tan” originated at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. It seems an ideal way for listeners to turn to music and art for social and political commentary, and to understand the racial subtexts of art.

Soprano Quanda Dawnyell Johnson (below) created, chose and performs the cycle of songs by Black composers with other Black students at the UW-Madison.

Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/-g5hjeuSumw

Click on “Show More” to see the complete program and more information.

Here is the artist’s statement: 

“Within the content of this concert are 17 art songs that depict the reality of the souls of a diasporic people. Most of the lyricists and all of the composers are of African descent. In large part they come from the U.S. but also extend to Great Britain, Guadeloupe by way of France, and Sierra Leone.

“They speak to the veracity of Black life and Black feeling. A diasporic African reality in a Classical mode that challenges while it embraces a Western European vernacular. It is using “culture” as an agent of resistance.

“I refer to verisimilitude in the plural. While syntactically incorrect, as it relates to the multiple veils of reality Black people must negotiate, it is very correct. 

“To be packaged in Blackness, or should I say “non-whiteness” is to ever live in a world of spiraling modalities and twirling realities. To paraphrase the great artist, Romare Bearden, in “calling and recalling” — we turn and return, then turn again to find the place that is our self.

“I welcome you to… Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown, and Tan”

Here, by sections, is the complete program and a list of performers:

I. Nascence

Clear Water — Nadine Shanti

A Child’s Grace — Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson

Night — Florence Price (below)

Big Lady Moon — Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

II. Awareness

Lovely, Dark, and Lonely — Harry T. Burleigh

Grief –William Grant Still (below)

Prayer — Leslie Adams

Interlude, The Creole Love Call — Duke Ellington

III. The Sophomore

Mae’s Rent Party, We Met By Chance –Jeraldine Saunders Herbison

The Barrier — Charles Brown

IV. Maturity

Three Dream Portraits: Minstrel Man, Dream Variation; I, Too — Margaret Bonds (below)

Dreams — Lawren Brianna Ware

Song Without Words — Charles Brown

Legacy

L’autre jour à l’ombrage (The Other Day in the Shade) — Joseph Boulogne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges, below)

The Verisimilitudes Team

Quanda Dawnyell Johnson — Soprano and Project Creator

Lawren Brianna Ware – -Pianist and Music Director

Rini Tarafder — Stage Manager

Akiwele Burayidi – Dancer

Jackson Neal – Dancer

Nathaniel Schmidt – Trumpet

Matthew Rodriguez – Clarinet

Craig Peaslee – Guitar

Aden Stier –Bass

Henry Ptacek – Drums

Dave Alcorn — Videographer

Here is a link to the complete program notes with lyrics and composer bios. And a preview audio sample is in the YouTube video at the bottom: https://simplebooklet.com/verisimilitudesprogramnotes#page=1


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This Sunday at 4 p.m., the Salon Piano Series debuts an online recital by pianist Kangwoo Jin. He plays music by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Liszt and Schumann. It is up until May 9

April 22, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

This Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. CDT, the Salon Piano Series, hosted by Farley’s House of Pianos, will debut an online concert by pianist Kangwoo Jin (below, in a photo by Andy Manis).

The concert, which was recorded at Luther Memorial Church, costs $10 and will be available online through May 9.

The program is:

Scarlatti – Sonatas in D minor and D Major, K. 213 and 214 (ca. 1756-1757)

Beethoven – Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2, “Moonlight” (1801)

Liszt – Transcriptions for solo piano of the songs “Widmung” (Dedication) by Robert Schumann and “Litanei” (Litany) by Franz Schubert

Schumann – Symphonic Etudes, Op.13 (1830)

Bishop – Home, Sweet Home

Tickets are only available online at eventbrite.com. Service fees apply. Complete program and concert information is at salonpianoseries.org

PROGRAM NOTES 

Jin has written the following program notes for The Ear:

“As a musician, I am always eager to share music with the public. I am very excited to be able to reach out to the audience with this unprecedented Salon Piano Series Virtual Concert. 

“I believe music soothes our mental health in difficult times regardless of age, gender or race. I very much hope my performance will contribute to this collective healing we feel through music.

“I wanted to include three different styles, as I usually do for recitals. This time I have Baroque, Classical and Romantic music.

“I chose one of the most famous Beethoven sonatas in order to celebrate his 250th birth year (2020), which I did not have a chance to mark last year.

“This piece is popular with the title of “Moonlight,” which Beethoven (below) never intended. Five years after his death, the German critic Ludwig Rellstab used the word “Moonlight” in order to describe the first movement. But it was really inspired by the funeral march in Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni.” I try to bring out the tragic color of the first movement. (You can hear Jin play the exciting final movement of the sonata in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

“I also wanted to play the virtuosic masterpiece “Symphonic Etudes,” Op. 13, by Robert Schumann (below), including the beautiful posthumous variations 4 and 5.

I find this piece special in the sense that Schumann intended to make this piece “symphonic.” He created multiple layers of voices in various ways through each etude and created orchestral sounds. This polyphonic writing with multiple layers and a thick texture is what makes this piece difficult to play.

“I also specifically wanted to include one of the piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt (below) of Schubert’s Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen (Litany for the Feast of All Souls), D. 343.

“Schubert (below) used the poem “Litany” by Johann Jacobi (1740-1814). It is written for comforting the deceased. Robert Capell, the author of the book “Schubert’s Songs” (1929), said about this lied: There was never a truer or more touching expression of simple devotion and consoled grief … “The music rises from a pure well of affection and humility.” 

“I would like to dedicate this piece to all the people who  suffered from Covid 19.”

BACKGROUND

Here is a link to Kangwoo Jin’s impressive website where you can see many photos, learn about his extensive career as a teacher and hear many samples of his playing: https://www.pianistkangwoojin.com

Praised for his “refined tone quality with powerful energy” (Chosun Daily Newspaper), Jin (below, in a photo by Steve Apps for the Wisconsin State Journal) concertizes nationally and internationally, including performances in Germany, Italy, China, Indonesia and South Korea.

He gave his debut concert at the Sejong Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea, sponsored by the Chosun Daily Newspaper. He has given live performances on Wisconsin Public Radio and WORT 89.9 FM. 

Jin appears frequently as a guest artist at music festivals, universities and various concert series. Recent invitations include UW-River Falls, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and Tongji University in Shanghai. Kawai Pianos USA has also invited him as a guest artist at the annual Piano Technicians Guild Convention and Technical Institute in Florida.

Jin completed the Bachelor of Music degree at Hanyang University in South Korea, then earned his Performer Diploma and Master’s of Music at Indiana University, where he worked as an associate instructor.

He is the recipient of the J. Battista Scholarship for performance excellence at Indiana University and received the Collins Distinguished Fellowship for his doctoral studies, completed last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied piano with Christopher Taylor and piano pedagogy with Jessica Johnson.


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A busy weekend of online concerts features the UW Symphony, Edgewood College, Madison Opera, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Bach Around the Clock and more

March 25, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

With only a little over a month left before the academic year ends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it’s not surprising that the last weekend in March is very busy with noteworthy – and competing – online concerts.

Each morning at 8 through Friday, Bach Around the Clock will release the last concerts of its 10-day online festival. You can find the programs – including the finale Friday night at 7 with Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 — and link for streaming here: https://bachclock.com/concert-schedule

The weekend starts tonight with one of The Ear’s favorite groups during the Pandemic Year: the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra

Here is a day-by-day lineup. All times are Central Daylight Time:

TONIGHT, MARCH 25

The UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra (below) performs a FREE virtual online concert TONIGHT starting at 7:30 p.m.

The concert will be preceded by a 7 p.m. talk about Igor Stravinsky with modern musicologist and Penn State Professor Maureen Carr as well as conductor Oriol Sans and Susan Cook, UW musicologist and director of the Mead Witter School of Music.

The program is: Suite from the opera “Dido and Aeneas” by Henry Purcell, with student conductor Alison Norris; Duet for Two Violins and String Orchestra by the contemporary American composer Steve Reich; and  the Neo-Classical “Apollon musagète” (Apollo, Leader of the Muses) by Stravinsky. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear an excerpt of the Stravinsky played by the Berlin Philharmonic with Simon Rattle conducting.)

Here is the link to the talk and concert. Click on more and you can also see the members of the orchestra and the two violin soloists: https://youtu.be/2rgHQ4lWTV8

For more information about the program, including notes, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-madison-symphony-orchestra/

FRIDAY, MARCH 26

At 7:30 p.m. the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will post for three days the third of its four online chamber music concerts (below). There will be excerpts of music by Beethoven and Brahms as well as complete works by Jessie Montgomery and Alyssa Morris.

Tickets to the online on-demand event are $30, with some discounts available, and are good through Monday evening.

Here is a link to more about this concert, including program notes by conductor and music director Andrew Sewell, and how to purchase tickets: https://wcoconcerts.org/events/winter-chamber-series-no-iii

At 8 p.m., the music department at Edgewood College will give a FREE online Spring Celebration concert. It will be livestreamed via music.edgewood.edu

The performers include: the Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Sergei Pavlov (below); the Guitar Ensemble, under the direction of Nathan Wysock; and the Chamber Winds, directed by Carrie Backman.

Highlights include the Guitar Ensemble’s performance of Wish You Were Here, by David Gilmour and Rogers Waters, and the Chamber Winds epic Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Chamber Orchestra, which will perform live, will feature Musical moment No. 3, by Franz Schubert and Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27

At noon, in Grace Episcopal Church on the Capitol Square downtown, there will be a FREE online concert. Grace Presents: “A Patient Enduring”: This early music program of medieval conductus (a musical setting of metrical Latin texts) and ballade, English lute song, and duets from the early Italian Baroque features two sopranos, Grammy-winnner Sarah Brailey (below) and Kristina Boerger, with Brandon Acker on lute and theorbo.

Here is a link: YouTube.com/GracePresentsConcerts

You can also go to this webpage for a link: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/grace-presents-a-patient-enduring/

At 3 p.m. the Perlman Trio, a piano trio that is made up of UW-Madison graduate students, will give a FREE online concert. The program includes piano trios by Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. 

Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/EAjK0DfWB3A

Here is a link to the complete program plus background, names and photos of the performers as well as to the performance: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/perlman-piano-trio/

At 7 p.m. the UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quntet (below) will perform a FREE pre-recorded online concert. Here is a link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7eobSnfr8

And here is a link to the page with more background information about the faculty members – including bassoonist Marc Vallon (below top) and flutist Conor Nelson (below bottom) – and to the complete program: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/wingra-wind-quintet/

SUNDAY, MARCH 28

From 4 to 5:30 p.m., guest mezzo-soprano Julia Ubank (below) will give a free online recital with pianist Thomas Kasdorf.

The program features songs by Mahler, Debussy, deFalla, Jake Heggie and Ellen Cogen.

Here is the complete program plus a link to the recital: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/julia-urbank-voice-recital/

From 4 to 5:30 p.m. the Madison Opera will host a Opera Up Close cocktail hour discussion with four general directors of opera companies. Here is the website’s description:

“Four opera general directors walk into a chat room…. Stepping outside the Madison Opera family, Kathryn Smith (below, in a photo by James Gill) is joined by three colleagues: Michael Egel of Des Moines Metro Opera, Ashley Magnus of Chicago Opera Theater, and Lee Anne Myslewski of Wolf Trap Opera.

“From how they got into opera, to the ups and downs of running an opera company, their favorite productions, funniest moments, and more, it will be a unique and entertaining afternoon.

Here is a link with more information including the cost of a subscription: https://www.madisonopera.org/class/general-directors/?wcs_timestamp=1616947200

At 6 p.m., Rachel Reese, a UW-Madison doctoral student in violin, will give a lecture-concert about the Violin Concerto No. 2 by the rediscovered African-American composer Florence Price (below). She will be accompanied by pianist Aubrie Jacobson.

Here is a link to the concert plus background about Rachel Reese: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/rachel-reese-lecture-recital/


Posted in Classical music
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