The Well-Tempered Ear

It’s requiem time for the UW Choral Union

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By Jacob Stockinger

It’s official.

The UW Choral Union (below), a campus-community singing group with a 130-year history, is dead.

It was killed off last spring by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.

The death was quietly announced in June but became even more official Monday night. That is when Dan Cavanagh (below top), the new director of the School of Music, and Mariana Farrah (below bottom), the new choral activities director, held what was advertised as a public “conversation” in the Hamel Music Center. 

Here is link to a posting about the event by one former self-described Friend of the Choral Union. At the end of the story you will find other background links:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/

From what The Ear understands, about 60-70 people attended the “conversation.”

Before the post-mortem, some former Choral Union participants held out hope that the two administrators might be open to revisiting and perhaps reversing the decision to end the Choral Union.

They were the optimists.

And they were wrong.

Others were pessimistic and thought that the long-overdue public reply to disappointment and criticism wouldn’t change anything. They said the meeting was designed from the beginning to be a kind of hand-holding and whitewashing to soothe those who had ruffled feathers over the decision, and was meant to use the occasion to make themselves look good to both the public and the university administration.

They were the pessimists.

And they were right. 

Unfortunately, The Ear couldn’t make it to the event. But he has heard from several trustworthy sources who did attend.

They agree in their accounts of what happened.

Apparently Cavanagh and Farrah were congenial and patient. They gave lots of reasons, some vague, why the long and popular tradition had to end. The reasons ranged from fiscal constraints and staff shortages to pedagogical practices.

But many who attended apparently remained doubtful, judging from their questions and the answers they received.

The pessimists — or at least the skeptics — said the two were just trying to make the decision more palatable to the same public that has widely disapproved of the move and that has threatened to withhold donations to the School of Music.

But Cavanagh made the future of the Choral Union clear when he said, according to several sources: “We are not restarting Choral Union as we know it.”

Whatever that means besides it is over and done with.

The Ear still suspects that something that fishy is going on and that the details of the process are being withheld. Not only has the School of Music killed off the Choral Union, but it has also killed off the Madrigal Singers (below in a joint concert last year with the UW Chorale Lab Choir).

In addition, the sold-out traditional Tudor Holiday Dinners (below) — dating back 90 years at the Wisconsin Union — have been discontinued in favor of some less impressive celebration of winter called “Frosty Bites” with the Wisconsin Singers and various a cappella groups from campus. (See https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/special-events/frosty-bites/)

Did The Ear get anything wrong? Should he correct something?

What do you thinks explains the move to end the Choral Union after it survived for 130 years, through two world wars and the Great Depression?

Were you there at the Choral Union meeting?

What did you think of the conversation and the explanations that you heard?

Do you have any other reaction to or ideas about the demise of the Choral Union?

The Ear wants to hear.