The Well-Tempered Ear
FREE birthday bash for Johann Sebastian Bach is this Saturday in Madison
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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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Classical music: Legendary American cellist Lynn Harrell, who performed in Madison, is dead at 76
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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
Legendary American cellist Lynn Harrell (below) died Monday at 76.
If his name sounds familiar, it could be because Harrell performed in Madison at least three times – twice with the Madison Symphony Orchestra (2007 and 2011), in concertos by Lalo and Victor Herbert, and a recital with pianist Yefim Bronfman at the Wisconsin Union Theater (1994).
No cause of death has yet been given, but various sources say it was unrelated to COVID-19 or the coronavirus pandemic.
To know more about his remarkable life and impressive career, go to his biography on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Harrell
Colleagues were quick to praise Harrell not only as a master musician – gifted with beautiful tone and sensitive, expressive interpretations — but also as a great teacher and a congenial man who made friends easily. He also cut promotional ads for National Public Radio (NPR) urging members to donate, as he himself did.
Here is an interview he did in 2011 with host Norman Gilliland for Wisconsin Public Radio:
https://www.wpr.org/shows/lynn-harrell
Here is a link to an obituary from The Violin Channel that features quotes from many musicians who admired Harrell:
https://theviolinchannel.com/cellist-lynn-harrell-has-passed-away-died-obituary-rip/
And here are tributes from many of his colleagues for British critic Norman Lebrecht’s blog “Slipped Disc”:
https://slippedisc.com/2020/04/lynn-harrell-tributes-pour-in/
A prodigy who made his Carnegie Hall debut at 17, Harrell, who studied at Juilliard and the Curtis Institute, was renowned internationally. He later taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
In 1994 he played a Papal Concert at the Vatican to mark the first commemoration and remembrance of the Holocaust. His performance there of Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei” for cello and orchestra can be seen and heard at the bottom in the most popular of Harrell’s many YouTube videos.
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