The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Competing concert “train wrecks” happen in summer too. Just look at TONIGHT with the FREE cello choir concert by the National Summer Cello Institute and the opening of the 24th season of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Increasingly, the regular concert season is filled with what The Wise Critic calls “train wrecks”: Competing, compelling and appealing events you have to choose between.
But now it happens in summer too.
Take tonight, when two competing concerts will conflict. The Ear would like to hear both and wishes the organizers would arrange it so there is not a conflict.
Here they are:
BACH DANCING AND DYNAMITE SOCIETY
BDDS asks in a press release:
So, what does this year’s theme “Guilty As Charged” mean?
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society is clearly a criminal enterprise. After all, we are named after the only major composer to ever spend a significant amount of time in jail, Johann Sebastian Bach.
Our crime at BDDS?
We’ve destroyed the stuffy, starched-collar atmosphere of traditional chamber music concerts and replaced it with a seriously fun vibe. We’ve broken down the barriers that separate audience and performer, making our concerts into riotously interactive events. Rather than leading audiences through a museum, we invite audiences to trespass into the creative and re-creative process right in the concert hall.
We own up to our crimes, and we proudly proclaim that we are GUILTY AS CHARGED.
GUILTY AS CHARGED features six programs, each performed multiple times and in multiple venues, and each named after some “crime.”
In the first program of six, tonight’s “Stolen Moments,” we feature music that has been stolen in some fashion: stolen from another composer, stolen from oneself, stolen from a completely different land and culture.
Felix Mendelssohn stole a chorale tune from Johann Sebastian Bach as the basis of the slow movement of his second cello sonata; Franz Joseph Haydn stole from himself to create his flute divertimentos; Ludwig van Beethoven stole Irish and Scottish folksong texts and tunes as the basis for his songs with piano trio accompaniment.
“Stolen Moments” will be performed at The Playhouse (below) in the Overture Center for the Arts, TONIGHT — Friday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m., and at the Hillside Theater at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, on Sunday, June 14 at 2:30 p.m.
Single general admission tickets are $40. Student tickets are always $5.
Various ticket packages are also available starting at a series of three for $114. First time subscriptions are half off.
For tickets and more information, including the specific pieces on the programs, visit www.bachdancinganddynamite.org or call (608) 255-9866.
Single tickets for Overture Center concerts can also be purchased at the Overture Center for the Arts box office, (608) 258-4141, or at overturecenter.com additional fees apply).
Tickets for the Hillside Theater (below) can be purchased from the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor’s Center on County Highway C, (608) 588-7900. Tickets are available at the door at all locations.
NATIONAL SUMMER CELLO INSTITUTE
Writes NSCI director UW-Madison cellist Professor Uri Vardi (below):
It would be great if you could remind your blog readers about the FREE NSCI cello concert tonight — Friday, June 12 — at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall.
The program will include solo pieces in the first half by:
Johannes Brahms, Bela Bartok, Franz Schubert, George Crumb, William Walton, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dmitri Shostakovich and Samuel Barber.
After intermission, we will play ensemble pieces:
Sonata in C major for Two Cellos by Luigi Boccherini
And the NSCI Cello Choir will perform the following pieces with UW-Madison graduate conducting student Kyle Knox (below):
Adagio from Violin Sonata No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach as arranged by Ohashi Akira
“Oblivion” (at bottom in a YouTube video) by Astor Piazzolla, arranged by P. Villarejo
Requiem by David Popper
Requiem “In Memory of Connie Barrett” by UW-Madison School of Music student composer Kyle Price
And “Hymnus for Twelve Cellos” by J. Klengel
Here is a link to the previous post on this blog about the cello institute this summer:
Tags: Alexander Borodin, Arts, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Baroque, Béla Bartók, Beethoven, Cello, cello choir, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, crime, David Popper, Dmitri Shostakovich, Franz Schubert, George Crumb, guilt, guilty, Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Music, Piano, Piazzolla, Rachmaninoff, Samuel Barber, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Walton, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison-based Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society gets its 24th three-week summer season underway this coming weekend. This year’s theme is “Guilty as Charged.” Here is part 1 of 2 with background and Week 1.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Our friends at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society – which The Ear named Musicians of the Year two years ago – will begin its new summer season this coming weekend.
The season features six concert programs performed over three weekends in three different venues and cities.
Here is the first part of two postings based on the BDDS press release. Part 2 will run tomorrow:
BACH DANCING AND DYNAMITE SOCIETY (BDDS) PRESENTS ITS 24TH ANNUAL SUMMER CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL — GUILTY AS CHARGED — JUNE 12–28, 2015.
This festival features 12 concerts over three weekends. Each weekend offers two different programs. Concerts will be performed in The Playhouse at Overture Center in Madison, the Stoughton Opera House, and the Hillside Theater at Taliesin in Spring Green.
Combining the best local musicians and top-notch artists from around the country, a varied repertoire and delightful surprises, BDDS presents chamber music as “serious fun” infused with high energy and lots of audience appeal, and makes this art form accessible to diverse audiences. Led by artistic directors and performers (below) Stephanie Jutt, flute, and Jeffrey Sykes, piano, 20 guest artists will perform in the festival.
So, what is the meaning of this year’s theme?
Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society is clearly a criminal enterprise. After all, we are named after the only major composer to ever spend a significant amount of time in jail, Johann Sebastian Bach.
Our crime at BDDS?
We’ve destroyed the stuffy, starched-collar atmosphere of traditional chamber music concerts and replaced it with a seriously fun vibe. We’ve broken down the barriers that separate audience and performer, making our concerts into riotously interactive events. Rather than leading audiences through a museum, we invite audiences to trespass into the creative and re-creative process right in the concert hall.
We own up to our crimes, and we proudly proclaim that we are GUILTY AS CHARGED.
GUILTY AS CHARGED features six programs, each performed multiple times and in multiple venues, and each named after some “crime.”
In “Stolen Moments” we feature music that has been stolen in some fashion: stolen from another composer, stolen from oneself, stolen from a completely different land and culture.
Felix Mendelssohn stole a chorale tune from Johann Sebastian Bach as the basis of the slow movement of his second cello sonata (heard at bottom in a YouTube video with cellist Lynn Harrell and pianist James Levine).
Franz Joseph Haydn stole from himself to create his flute divertimentos; Ludwig van Beethoven stole Irish and Scottish folksong texts and tunes as the basis for his songs with piano trio accompaniment.
“Stolen Moments” will be performed at The Playhouse in the Overture Center for the Arts, on Friday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m., and in the Hillside Theater at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, on Sunday, June 14, at 2:30 p.m.
“Rob the Cradle” features the music or poetry of artists who died tragically young, robbing the world of their creative talents.
The Flute Sonata by Dick Kattenburg, a light-hearted and joyous work, was written at the age of 18 shortly before he died in a Nazi concentration camp.
The powerful “Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok” by Dmitri Shostakovich feature the luminous poetry of the man many considered Russia’s finest poet, a man whose life was cut short by the conditions of early Soviet years.
Both programs feature the talents of two great singers—bass-baritone Timothy Jones (below top) and soprano Emily Birsan (below bottom) — familiar to BDDS audiences as the voices of Robert and Clara Schumann from our 2013 season.
“Rob the Cradle” will be performed in The Playhouse of the Overture Center for the Arts, on Saturday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m., and at the Hillside Theater at Taliesin in Spring Green, on Sunday, June 14, at 6:30 p.m.
For the fourth year, BDDS will also perform one free family concert, “What’s So Great About Bach?” an interactive event that will be great for all ages. Together with the audience, BDDS will explore interwoven layers of melody. Everyone will be up on their feet helping to compose for the musicians on stage.
This event takes place 11–11:45 a.m. on this Saturday, June 13, in The Playhouse of the Overture Center. This is a performance for families with children of all ages and seating will be first come first served.
CUNA Mutual Group, Pat Powers and Thomas Wolfe, and Overture Center generously underwrite this performance.
BDDS Locations are: the Stoughton Opera House (381 E. Main Street, below top); the Overture Center in Madison (201 State Street); and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Hillside Theater (below bottom, County Highway 23 in Spring Green).
Single general admission tickets are $40. Student tickets are always $5.
Various ticket packages are also available, starting at a series of three for $114. First-time subscriptions are half off.
For tickets and information visit www.bachdancinganddynamite.org or call (608) 255-9866.
Single tickets for Overture Center concerts can also be purchased at the Overture Center for the Arts box office, (608) 258-4141, or at overturecenter.com additional fees apply).
Hillside Theater tickets can be purchased from the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center on County Highway C, (608) 588-7900. Tickets are available at the door at all locations.
TOMORROW: PART 2 WITH WEEKS 2 AND 3
Tags: accompaniment, Alexander Blok, artists, Arts, audience, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, BDDS, Beethoven, Cello, Cello Sonata, Chamber music, charged, children, Clara Schumann, Classical music, concentration camp, concerto, cradle, crime, culture, Dick Kattenburg, divertimento, Family, Felix Mendelssohn, flute, folk, folksong, Frank Lloyd Wright, German language, guilty, Haydn, interactive, Irish, Jacob Stockinger, jail, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, melody, Museum, Music, Nazi, Piano, Piano Trio, poem, Poetry, Robert Schumann, Romance, Russia, Scottish, Shostakovich, Sonata, song, songs, Soviet, Soviet Union, Taliesin, text, tune, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The opera world is divided over accusations of sexual harassment against superstar tenor Placido Domingo. Here is how John DeMain reacted. How do you react and what do you believe?
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By Jacob Stockinger
By now, you have probably heard about the allegations of sexual harassment recently made anonymously against the still-active superstar Spanish tenor Placido Domingo (below), 78, who holds the record for the most opening-night appearances at the Metropolitan Opera.
What you might not have heard is how divided the opera world is over those accusations, which are now being formally and independently investigated.
Much of that division falls along lines of Europe versus the United States. The former has so far not cancelled upcoming appearances while the latter was quick to. And Domingo has been defended by famed Russian soprano Anna Netrebko (below, with Domingo).
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, sexual misconduct and sexual assault continue to be perhaps the most controversial issues amid many similar or more serious criminal allegations against conductors James Levine, Charles Dutoit and Daniele Gatti as well as many teachers and orchestra players.
Perhaps the best account of the divided reactions came in a story from The New York Times. Here it is:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/arts/music/placido-domingo-opera-harassment.html
One sign of the difficulty in dealing with the situation can be found in the carefully worded, balanced and empathetic Facebook comment by maestro John DeMain, the music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the artistic director of the Madison Opera.
DeMain has often worked with Domingo, perhaps most notably in the famous 1992 Concert for Planet Earth in Rio de Janeiro, which DeMain conducted. (You can hear Domingo singing an aria by Puccini and see DeMain conducting the orchestra in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Says DeMain (below in a photo by Prasad): “Thinking about the Placido Domingo controversy. While I’m not in a position to take sides in this very sad situation, I would just like to say that in my many interactions with this great tenor over many decades, I personally never witnessed him do anything that was inappropriate. He was always a kind and gentle person to me and my family. I wish him and his family well through this difficult time.”
Here is a link to DeMain’s Facebook page if you would like to read comments from others or leave one of your own: https://www.facebook.com/jldemain
How do you react to the accusations?
What do you believe should happen to Domingo?
The Ear wants to hear.
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