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Longtime friends organist Greg Zelek and Madison native and award-winning trumpeter Ansel Norris team up for a FREE live-streamed concert this Tuesday night

April 26, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

Two longtime friends and fellow musicians will team up this Tuesday night, April 27, to close this season’s organ concert series, sponsored in the Overture Center by the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

It will be live-streamed online because of the pandemic restrictions on attendance.

The concert features the critically acclaimed MSO organist Greg Zelek (below left) and Ansel Norris (below right), an award-winning trumpeter who is a native of Madison.

The program includes works by Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn and Samuel Barber among others.

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. CDT. It is FREE but you must register. The concert will be available to registered listeners for unlimited access through May 31.

Here is a link to the MSO website where you can register. It also has more information about the program and biographies of the two performers: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/norris-zelek-2021-streamed/

Here is more background. It appeared in the latest issue of the email newsletter of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO), of which Norris was a member for many years:

Ansel Norris and Greg Zelek first met in 2010 as high school seniors who had both been selected as finalists in the YoungARTS Awards. The YoungARTS Award is a big competition with just a small percentage of students selected for the $10,000 prize from the thousands of high school applicants. In classical music that year, 12 students became finalists and assembled in Miami for a week of master classes with internationally recognized arts leaders.

Ansel Norris attended as an outstanding trumpeter from Madison East High School and Greg Zelek attended as an outstanding high school organist from the New World School of the Arts in Coral Gables, Florida.

“We hit it off right away and it came to me later what a great story this was,” Norris (below) mused. “Greg had grown up in south Florida and now was living in Madison, and I had grown up in Madison and was now living in south Florida.

“You know, there really is a synergy with trumpet and organ. The sounds are produced in a similar way and the way the sounds blend together is really special. Even then, I imagined a concert together.”

Ten years later, the two friends were dreaming up this concert when Greg was in Miami in February, 2020. And then the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Norris has distinguished himself as a solo, orchestral and chamber musician.

After graduating from East High School in Madison, he attended Northwestern University, from which he received a Bachelor’s degree in Music in 2016. From there he attended Rice University in 2019. Twice he was the first-prize winner at the National Trumpet Competition and a winner of the New World Symphony’s Concerto Competition. Then, at 26 years old, he became the first-ever American prizewinner in the International Tchaikovsky Competition’s Brass division. (You can hear Norris perform in the competition’s semi-finals in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Playing as soloist with orchestras is a special pleasure for Ansel, and he has enjoyed performances in front of the Mariinsky Orchestra, New World Symphony and his hometown Madison Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Also a chamber musician, Ansel won a Bronze Medal at the Fischoff International Competition with his friends from the Lincoln Chamber Brass.

Ansel Norris currently resides in Naples, Florida, where he enjoys an eclectic musical career with the Naples Philharmonic. In a place without cold weather, the Naples orchestra could potentially play music safely outside all winter. But Ansel shook his head, “For the most part we’ve been indoors. The orchestra gets tested for COVID each week and we play on a stage with musicians spaced 10 feet apart. HEPA filters are positioned everywhere. Playing 10 feet apart is just crazy. You absolutely cannot depend on the musical cues you were trained to depend on.”

Norris remembers growing up in Madison where there was a “fine legacy for trumpet players. It was so great I didn’t want to go away to Interlochen, even with a full scholarship.” He studied privately with John Aley and attended WYSO rehearsals on Saturdays, which he absolutely loved.

And now this Tuesday, this 2009 Bolz Young Artist Competition finalist will be returning to the Overture stage with his good friend Greg Zelek, who are both amazing and accomplished young musicians.

As Greg Zelek (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) writes: “Concerti of Bach and Haydn will bookend this program filled with music that is both written and arranged for this electrifying pairing of instruments. Mr. Norris’ remarkable technique and soaring lyricism will be on full display while our Mighty Klais both supports and shimmers in this exhilarating performance you won’t want to miss!” Register here for Tuesday’s concert!

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: A veteran reviewer bids farewell with a rave review of this summer’s last concert by the Willy Street Chamber Players and UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor

July 29, 2019
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By Jacob Stockinger

Here is a very special posting, the final review that will be written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker.

Barker (below), who is dealing with medical issues, is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who wrote for The Capital Times, Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who, until two weeks ago, hosted an early music show once a month on a Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gave pre-concert lectures in Madison.

Please use the comment section to join The Ear in thanking Barker for his many years of public service and wishing him well.

By John W. Barker

I had to miss the first concert this summer by the Willy Street Chamber Players (below) on July 12; and the next one, on July 19, was cancelled because of power failures. But the final one, last Friday night, was well worth waiting for — one of the really memorable events of the year, I think.

The program, performed at the usual near East Side venue of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street, began with some short items.

First, there was a set of Three Nocturnes (1924) for piano trio — violin, cello and piano — by Ernest Bloch. They contain elements of the Hebraic sound that Bloch cultivated but also had their own individualities, the first two contemplative and the third marked “tempestuoso.” Interesting was Bloch’s alternating uses of muting the strings.

After this came an example of the short pieces for string quartet by the contemporary composer Jessie Montgomery, her “Voodoo Dolls” (2008). Much is packed into this five-minute piece. A few lyrical touches aside, it sounded like a hoedown gone crazy, full of quite novel sounds, including rhythmic thumping on the wood of the instruments.

All that was a curtain-raiser to the big event of the program: the Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, by Antonin Dvorak. This 40-minute work is one of the composer’s best-known chamber music compositions, and one of the standouts in the whole chamber music literature.

The very opening notes of the first movement bring a flood of warm well-being. (After hearing just that, I commented, “I haven’t felt such happiness in months.”)

The fecundity and richness of invention pervaded the entire work. For me, its high point is the second movement, in which Dvorak (below) used the Czech formula of the dumka, a kind of folk music lament that is paced slow-fast-slow-fast. (You can hear the Dumka movement, played by the Jerusalem Quartet and pianist Stefan Vladar, in the YouTube video below.)

Dvorak liked to play viola in chamber music, and so he always wrote some good things for himself. The sublime passages for viola in this movement were played with such transcendent beauty by Rachael Hauser (below) – who is leaving Madison for New York City — that I felt I was hearing the composer’s voice directly. Put simply, this was one of the greatest examples of chamber-music performance that I have ever heard.

All of the players, many of whom play in the Madison Symphony Orchestra, of course matched remarkable skill with humane vitality and vibrancy.

And a measure of the Willys’ standards was the fact that they were able to draw as a partner no less than that magnificent UW-Madison music school pianist, Christopher Taylor (below), who also performed the same Dvorak Piano Quintet in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he won a bronze medal. Much of his excellence here was demonstrated by the fact that he did not play the star, but joined with the Willys in perfect collegial integration.

This ends the Willy Street group’s fifth summer season. As a symbol of vibrancy and fresh spirit, they are among the most important of Madison’s classical music world today. They have drawn steadily growing audiences, and the house was truly packed for this concert. We can only hope that they will continue to brighten that world in the years ahead.

I am now ending my time as a music critic. I can think of no more satisfying a final review to write than of the Willy Street Chamber Players.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Here are the classical music winners of the 2018 Grammy Awards.

January 30, 2018
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By Jacob Stockinger

This posting is both a news story and a gift guide of sorts about recordings you might like to give or get.

It features the classical music nominations for and winners of the Grammy Awards, which were just announced this past Sunday night.

Read them and in the COMMENT section what you think of the recordings that you know and which ones you think deserved to win. (The Ear got about half right.)

You can also encouraged to comment on the Grammys in general.

NOTE: THE WINNERS HAVE AN ASTERISK AND A PHOTO, AND ARE BOLDFACED

HISTORICAL ALBUMS:

“The Goldberg Variations — the Complete Unreleased Recording Sessions June 1955” — Robert Russ, compilation producer; Matthias Erb, Martin Kistner & Andreas K. Meyer, mastering engineers (Glenn Gould)
*”Leonard Bernstein — the Composer” (below) — Robert Russ, compilation producer; Martin Kistner & Andreas K. Meyer, mastering engineers (Leonard Bernstein)

ENGINEERED ALBUM, CLASSICAL

“Danielpour: Songs of Solitude & War Songs” — Gary Call, engineer (Thomas Hampson, Giancarlo Guerrero & Nashville Symphony)
“Kleiberg: Mass for Modern Man” — Morten Lindberg, engineer (Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Trondheim Vokalensemble & Trondheim Symphony Orchestra)
“Schoenberg, Adam: American Symphony; Finding Rothko; Picture Studies” — Keith O. Johnson & Sean Royce Martin, engineers (Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony)
*”Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5; Barber: Adagio” (below) — Mark Donahue, engineer (Manfred Honeck & Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)
“Tyberg: Masses” — John Newton, engineer; Jesse Brayman, mastering engineer (Brian A. Schmidt, Christopher Jacobson & South Dakota Chorale)

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR, CLASSICAL

Blanton Alspaugh
Manfred Eicher
*David Frost (below)
Morten Lindberg
Judith Sherman

ORCHESTRAL PERFORMANCE

“Concertos for Orchestra” — Louis Langrée, conductor (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra)
“Copland: Symphony No. 3; Three Latin American Sketches” — Leonard Slatkin, conductor (Detroit Symphony Orchestra)
“Debussy: Images; Jeux & La Plus Que Lente” — Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)
“Mahler: Symphony No. 5” — Osmo Vänskä, conductor (Minnesota Orchestra)
*”Shostakovich (below): Symphony No. 5; Barber: Adagio” — Manfred Honeck, conductor (Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)

OPERA RECORDING

“Berg: Lulu” — Lothar Koenigs, conductor; Daniel Brenna, Marlis Petersen & Johan Reuter; Jay David Saks, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra)
*”Berg: Wozzeck” (below) — Hans Graf, conductor; Anne Schwanewilms & Roman Trekel; Hans Graf, producer (Houston Symphony; Chorus of Students and Alumni, Shepherd School of Music, Rice University & Houston Grand Opera Children’s Chorus)
“Bizet: Les Pêcheurs de Perles” — Gianandrea Noseda, conductor; Diana Damrau, Mariusz Kwiecień, Matthew Polenzani & Nicolas Testé; Jay David Saks, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)
“Handel: Ottone” — George Petrou, conductor; Max Emanuel Cencic & Lauren Snouffer; Jacob Händel, producer (Il Pomo D’Oro)
“Rimsky-Korsakov: The Golden Cockerel” — Valery Gergiev, conductor; Vladimir Feliauer, Aida Garifullina & Kira Loginova; Ilya Petrov, producer (Mariinsky Orchestra; Mariinsky Chorus)

CHORAL PERFORMANCE

*”Bryars: The Fifth Century” — Donald Nally, conductor (PRISM Quartet; The Crossing)
“Handel: Messiah” — Andrew Davis, conductor; Noel Edison, chorus master (Elizabeth DeShong, John Relyea, Andrew Staples & Erin Wall; Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Toronto Mendelssohn Choir)
“Mansurian: Requiem” — Alexander Liebreich, conductor; Florian Helgath, chorus master (Anja Petersen & Andrew Redmond; Münchener Kammerorchester; RIAS Kammerchor)

“Music of the Spheres” — Nigel Short, conductor (Tenebrae)
“Tyberg: Masses” — Brian A. Schmidt, conductor (Christopher Jacobson; South Dakota Chorale)

CHAMBER MUSIC/SMALL ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE

“Buxtehude: Trio Sonatas, Op. 1” — Arcangelo
*”Death & the Maiden” — Patricia Kopatchinskaja & the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
“Divine Theatre — Sacred Motets by Giaches De Wert” — Stile Antico
“Franck, Kurtág, Previn & Schumann” — Joyce Yang & Augustin Hadelich
“Martha Argerich & Friends — Live From Lugano 2016” — Martha Argerich & Various Artists

CLASSICAL INSTRUMENTAL SOLO

“Bach: The French Suites” — Murray Perahia
“Haydn: Cello Concertos” — Steven Isserlis; Florian Donderer, conductor (The Deutsch Kammerphilharmonie Bremen)
“Levina: The Piano Concertos” — Maria Lettberg; Ariane Matiakh, conductor (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin)
“Shostakovich: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2” — Frank Peter Zimmermann; Alan Gilbert, conductor (NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester)
*”Transcendental” – Daniil Trifonov (below)

CLASSICAL SOLO VOCAL ALBUM

“Bach & Telemann: Sacred Cantatas” — Philippe Jaroussky; Petra Müllejans, conductor (Ann-Kathrin Brüggemann & Juan de la Rubia; Freiburger Barockorchester)
*”Crazy Girl Crazy — Music by Gershwin, Berg & Berio” — Barbara Hannigan (Orchestra Ludwig)
“Gods & Monsters” — Nicholas Phan; Myra Huang, accompanist
“In War & Peace — Harmony Through Music” — Joyce DiDonato; Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor (Il Pomo D’Oro)
“Sviridov: Russia Cast Adrift” — Dmitri Hvorostovsky; Constantine Orbelian, conductor (St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra & Style of Five Ensemble)

CLASSICAL COMPENDIUM

“Barbara” — Alexandre Tharaud; Cécile Lenoir, producer
*”Higdon: All Things Majestic, Viola Concerto & Oboe Concerto” (below with the first movement of the Viola Concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom) — Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor; Tim Handley, producer
“Kurtág: Complete Works for Ensemble & Choir” — Reinbert de Leeuw, conductor; Guido Tichelman, producer
“Les Routes de l’Esclavage” — Jordi Savall, conductor; Benjamin Bleton, producer
“Mademoiselle: Première Audience — Unknown Music of Nadia Boulanger” — Lucy Mauro; Lucy Mauro, producer

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL COMPOSITION

“Danielpour: Songs of Solitude” — Richard Danielpour, composer (Thomas Hampson, Giancarlo Guerrero & Nashville Symphony)
*”Higdon: Viola Concerto” — Jennifer Higdon, composer (below)(Roberto Díaz, Giancarlo Guerrero & Nashville Symphony)
“Mansurian: Requiem” — Tigran Mansurian, composer (Alexander Liebreich, Florian Helgath, RIAS Kammerchor & Münchener Kammerorchester)
“Schoenberg, Adam: Picture Studies” — Adam Schoenberg, composer (Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony)
“Zhou Tian: Concerto for Orchestra” — Zhou Tian, composer (Louis Langrée & Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra)

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Classical music: Violinist and concertmaster David Kim will discuss becoming a professional musician and will give two public master classes plus a student performance of string music by Vivaldi, Massenet and Brahms

October 16, 2017
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement from the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about upcoming events:

“From oboist to organist, whether one performs pop or Prokofiev, every musician has a story of an intricate and sometimes unsettling pathway to a professional career.

“Violinist David Kim, (below) who will visit the School of Music TODAY and Tuesday, Oct. 16 and 17, is no different. Since 1999, Kim has been the concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

“On Tuesday at 7: 30 p.m. in Mills Hall, Kim will offer a talk, “From Prodigy to Professionalism – A Life in Music.” (Editor’s note: You can sample Kim’s terrific conversational style and accessible analysis in the interview with him about his violin in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

“He’ll describe his experiences and struggles to reach the pinnacle of his career, interspersed with performances of some of Mr. Kim’s favorite works. It will be a humorous, sometimes jarring, and often poignant story not to be missed.

“Kim’s talk will be followed by a concert with UW-Madison strings and pianist Thomas Kasdorf. The program will include “Sonatensatz” (Sonata Movement) by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897); “Banjo and Fiddle” by William Kroll (1901-1980); “Meditation” from the opera “Thais” by Jules Massenet (1842-1912); and “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).

“I’ve always shared anecdotes about my crazy upbringing,” Kim wrote in an email. “From the beginning, my story seemed to resonate, especially with parents. After all, who doesn’t have a story of an overzealous parent from some stage of life!

“Now I share my story numerous times each season and have been urged by many to write a book – a la the widely read book, ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom.’

“But that will probably never happen as I prefer speaking during my concerts and love seeing the audience react in person.”

“Join us for our “Conversation & Concert” with David Kim, our strings players and pianist Thomas Kasdorf (below), a UW-Madison alumnus and graduate student. Tickets are $15 for adults, $5 for students, except Mead Witter music majors, who receive free admission. Buy tickets here. They will also be sold at the door, starting at 6:30 p.m.

“Additional Events:  Violin Master Class is TODAY, Monday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m. in Morphy Hall;  Strings Orchestral Excerpts Master Class is on Tuesday, Oct. 17, at 11 a.m. in Morphy Hall. Both classes are free and open to the public.

“Learn more here: http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/david-kim-vivaldis-four-seasons/

Posted in Classical music
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The Well-Tempered Ear

Longtime friends organist Greg Zelek and Madison native and award-winning trumpeter Ansel Norris team up for a FREE live-streamed concert this Tuesday night

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Classical music: A veteran reviewer bids farewell with a rave review of this summer’s last concert by the Willy Street Chamber Players and UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor

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Classical music: Here are the classical music winners of the 2018 Grammy Awards.

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Classical music: Violinist and concertmaster David Kim will discuss becoming a professional musician and will give two public master classes plus a student performance of string music by Vivaldi, Massenet and Brahms

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