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Classical music: The weeklong 21st annual Madison Early Music Festival is virtual and will be free online here and worldwide starting this Saturday

July 8, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement from the directors of the Madison Early Music Festival and the UW-Madison Division of the Arts to post:

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and concerns about public health for performers and audiences, the 21st annual Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) will be virtual.

It will be held as MEMF Online! from this Saturday, July 11, through next Saturday, July 18. It can be accessed at Facebook.com/MadisonEarly or madisonearlymusic.org.

All events are FREE. Lectures and special features begin at NOON (not 11 a.m., as first listed) and concerts begin at 7 p.m. (CDT). All events will be available nationwide and internationally.

The Madison Early Music Festival is internationally recognized as a top early music festival that features music from medieval, Renaissance and baroque eras from award-winning performers and distinguished faculty.

The uncertainty of the future for the arts and MEMF is daunting, but we have persevered and put together a virtual experience to showcase the musicians and faculty members that were supposed to perform this summer.

Each ensemble prepared a special video of highlights from past performances, and other faculty members recorded lectures.

Our focus was going to be “Musical Life from the Burgundian Court,” and the videos of the Orlando Consort, Piffaro, performances and lectures by Michael Allsen and Peggy Murray reflect that theme.

The other two ensembles, Trefoil and Nota Bene, sent us live concert recordings of Trecento and Italian repertoire.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are launching a fundraiser campaign to help support the artists that were to perform this season. It is critical that we help these musicians as many of them have lost substantial and irreplaceable income for the foreseeable future.

People can donate online at madisonearlymusic.org — where you can also see the concert programs — and click on the Support tab at the top of our home page. All money raised is for the MEMF musicians.

HERE IS A COMPLETE SCHEDULE OF MEMF ONLINE:

Different events will be released each day of the festival, but the content will be available after that time for later viewing.

Saturday, July 11, at 7 p.m.: Orlando Consort (below) in 15th-Century Chansons from the Library of Congress

Sunday, July 12, at 7 p.m.: Piffaro, The Renaissance Band: (below) Excerpts from Burgundian Beginnings and Beyond, Philadelphia

Monday, July 13, at noon: Michael Allsen (below), Musical Life and History at the Burgundian Court

Tuesday, July 14, at 7 p.m.: Trefoil (below): Trecento Music from Bowerbird Concert Series, Philadelphia

Wednesday, July 15, at noon: T-shirt challenge! Post a photo wearing a MEMF T-shirt! #MEMF2020; plus Lecture by William Hudson (below) on style in singing and ornamenting Baroque songs

Thursday, July 16, noon: Renaissance Valois Dance at the Burgundian Court, a lecture by Peggy Murray (below)

Friday, July 17, at 7 p.m.: Nota Bene viol consort (below) in Sonetti Spirituali; Italian Madrigals and Divine Poetry of the High Renaissance composed by Pietro Vinci (c.1525–1584) to settings of the poetry of Vittoria Colonna (1492-1547) Brandeis University in Boston

Saturday, July 18, at 7 p.m.: All-Festival Concert videos from previous festivals. There will be a sing-along of Pastime With Good Company! by King Henry VIII (below). It will be led by a virtual MEMF Faculty Ensemble. You can hear the popular song — also known as “The King’s Ballad” — in the YouTube video at the bottom. (You can download the music and lyrics at: https://memf.wisc.edu/annual/online-program/)

We hope to see everyone in 2021, and that a vaccine is approved to help us gather again as a community experiencing all the arts with musicians, artists and audiences — at MEMF in Madison and around the world.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The Library of Congress has commissioned new music about the coronavirus pandemic. You can listen to the world premieres from this Monday, June 15, through June 26

June 13, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The U.S. Library of Congress (LOC, exterior is below top and interior is below bottom) has started a new artistic project relevant to a public health crisis in both a historical era and the current times.

The LOC has commissioned 10 different short works, experienced in 10 different performance videos recorded at their homes — that pertain to the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 from American composers and performers.

It is called The Boccaccio Project after the Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio (below), a 14th-century Italian writer who wrote “The Decameron,” a series of stories told by 10 people who fled from Florence, Italy, to find refuge in the countryside during the Black Plague.

The musical works will start being premiered on weekdays this coming Monday, June 15, at the Library of Congress website. The works will also be broadcast on social media including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The website, which now has a complete list of performers and works, will soon have a complete schedule of world premieres, running on weekdays from Monday, June 15, to Friday, June 26. Then the manuscripts will be transferred to the LOC archives.

Here is a link: https://loc.gov/item/prn-20-038/

Many of the names will be unfamiliar to the general public. But an excellent story about the background and genesis of the project, including music samples, can be found on National Public Radio (NPR), which aired the story Friday morning.

Here is a link to that 7-minute story (if you listen to it rather than read it, you will hear samples of the music): https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/875325958/a-new-library-of-congress-project-commissions-music-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic

And here are some of the participants, who are noteworthy for their ethnic and geographic diversity:

Flutronix (below) includes flutist Allison Loggins-Hull, left, and composer Nathalie Joachim.

The work by composer Luciano Chessa (below top) will be performed by violist Charlton Lee (below bottom), of the Del Sol Quartet:

And the work by Damien Sneed (below top) work will be performed by Jeremy Jordan (below bottom):

The new project strikes The Ear as a terrific and timely undertaking — the musical equivalent of the photographic project, funded and staffed by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during The Great Depression of the 1930s. That project yielded enduring masterpieces by such eminent photographers as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.

But several questions arise.

How much did the project cost?

Will the general public be able to get copies of and rights to these works to perform? One assumes yes, since it is a public project funded with public money.

And will this project give rise to similar projects in other countries that are also battling the pandemic? New art – literature, films, painting, dance and so on — arising from new circumstances seems like something that is indeed worth the undertaking.

Listen to them.

What works stand out for you?

What do you think of the project?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Trevor Stephenson announces the new season of the Madison Bach Musicians on YouTube. It features smaller concerts and familiar comfort music

May 15, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

At a time when so many concerts are being canceled, it is especially welcome when a local ensemble announces plans for the 2020-21 season.

To announce the 17th season of the Madison Bach Musicians — a period-instrument group that uses historically informed performance practices — the founder and artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below), who also plays the harpsichord, fortepiano and piano, has made and posted a 13-1/2 minute YouTube video.

The season will also be posted on the MBM website in early June, and will also be announced with more details about times and ticket prices via email and postal mailings.

In the video, Stephenson plays the harpsichord. He opens the video with the familiar Aria from the “Goldberg” Variations and closes with two contrasting Gavottes from the English Suite in G minor.

As usual, Stephenson offers insights in the programs that feature some very well-known and appealing works that are sure to attract audiences anxious to once again experience the comfort of hearing familiar music performed live.

One thing Stephenson does not say is that there seems to be fewer ambitious programs and fewer imported guest artists. It’s only a guess, but The Ear suspects that that is because it is less expensive to stage smaller concerts and it also allows for easier cancellation, should that be required by a continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

If the speculation proves true, such an adaptive move is smart and makes great sense artistically, financially and socially given the coronavirus public health crisis.

After all, this past spring the MBM had to cancel a much anticipated, expensive and very ambitious production, with many out-of-town guests artists, of the “Vespers of 1610” by Claudio Monteverdi. Nonetheless, MBM tried to pay as much as it could afford to the musicians, who are unsalaried “gig” workers who usually don’t qualify for unemployment payments.

“Hope and Joy” is a timely, welcome and much-needed theme of the new season.

The new season starts on Saturday night, Oct. 3, at Grace Episcopal Church downtown on the Capitol Square, and then Sunday afternoon, Oct. 4, at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton.

The program is Haydn and Mozart: songs composed in English and German by Haydn plus songs by Mozart; the great violin sonata in E minor by Mozart; and two keyboard trios, one in C major by Haydn and one in G major by Mozart.

Only four players will be required. They include: Stephenson on the fortepiano; concertmaster Kangwon Kim on baroque violin; James Waldo on a Classical-era cello; and soprano Morgan Balfour (below), who won the 2019 Handel Aria Competition in Madison.

On Saturday night, Dec. 12, in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, near Camp Randall Stadium, MBM will perform its 10th annual holiday concert of seasonal music.

The program includes several selections from the “Christmas Oratorio” by Johann Sebastian Bach; a Vivaldi concerto for bassoon with UW-Madison professor Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill) as soloist; and the popular “Christmas Concerto” by Arcangelo Corelli.

On Saturday night, April 24, at Grace Episcopal Church and Sunday afternoon, April 25, at Holy Wisdom Monastery, the MBM will perform a concert of German Baroque masterworks with the internationally renowned baroque violinist Marc Destrubé (below).

The program features Handel and Bach but also composers who are not often played today but who were well known to and respected by Bach and his contemporaries.

Specifically, there will be a suite by Christoph Graupner (below top) and a work by Carl Heinrich Graun (below bottom).

There will also be a concerto grosso by George Frideric Handel and two very well-known concertos by Bach – the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and the Concerto for Two Violins.

Here is the complete video:

What do you think of the Madison Bach Musicians’ new season?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
Tags: "Goldberg" Variations, #AntonioVivaldi, #ArcangeloCorelli, #ArtisticDirector, #BaroqueMusic, #BaroqueViolin, #BassoonConcerto, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BrandenburgConcerto, #CampRandall, #CampRandallStadium, #CapitolSquare, #CarlHeinrichGraun, #ChamberMusic, #ChristianChurch, #ChristmasConcerto, #ChristmasOratorio, #ChristophGraupner, #CityofMadison, #Classicalera, #ClaudioMonteverdi, #ConcertoGrosso, #COVID-19, #EnglishLanguage, #EnglishSuite, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FacultyMember, #FirstCongregationalUnitedChurchofChrist, #FranzJosephHaydn, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GermanLanguage, #Goldberg"Variations, #GraceEpiscopalChurch, #GuestArtist, #HandelAriaCompetition, #HealthCrisis, #HistoricallyInformedPerformancePractices, #HolyWisdomMonastery, #HomeWebsite, #JacobStockinger, #James Waldo, #JamesWaldo, #JohannSebastianBach, #KangwonKim, #KeyboardMusic, #LiveMusic, #MadisonBachMusicians, #MarcDestrubé, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MiddletonWisconsin, #Musicfaculty, #MusicProfessors, #OrchestralMusic, #PandemicPlaylist, #PeriodInstrument, #PeriodInstruments, #PianoTrio, #PublicHealth, #SaturdayNight, #SeasonalMusic, #SopranoSinger, #Sundayafternoon, #TheEar, #TheFortepiano, #TicketPrice, #TrevorStephenson, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #Vespersof1610, #ViolinConcerto, #ViolinMusic, #ViolinSonata, #VocalMusic, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #World-Renowned, #YouTubevideo, 2019, 2020, 2021, 21, adaptive, afford, afternoon, ambition, ambitious, announcement, annual, Antonio Vivaldi, anxious, appealing, Arcangelo Corelli, aria, artist, artistic, Artistic director, Arts, attract \anxious, audience, Bach, Baroque, blog, Brandenburg Concerto, Camp Randall, Camp Randall Stadium, cancel, cancellation, Capitol Square, Carl Heinrich Graun, cellist, Cello, Chamber music, Christmas, Christmas Concerto, Christmas Oratorio, Christoph Graupner, church, Classical era, Classical music, Claudio Monteverdi, close, comfort, composer, Concert, concertmaster, concerto, Concerto Grosso, contemporaries, contrast, Corelli, coronavirus, crisis, dance, December, detail, downtown, draw, Early music, easier, email, English, English language, English Suite, ensemble, expensive, Facebook, faculty, familiar, fewer, financial, First Congregational United Church of Christ, fortepiano, forward, founder, Franz Joseph Haydn, Gavotte, George Frideric Handel, German, Germany, gig, Grace Episcopal Church, great, guest, Handel, Handel Aria Competition, harpsichord, Haydn, hear, hearing, historically informed performance practices, Holiday, Holy Wisdom Monastery, home website, hope, import, inisght, international, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joy, June, Kangwoo Kim, Keyboard, like, link, live music, local, long-distance, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, mail, mailing, Marc Destrubé, masterpiece, masterwork, MBM, Mead Witter School of Music, Middleton, Monteverdi, Morgan Balfour, MorganBalfour, move, Mozart, Music, Musician, new, night, offer, open, orchestral music, out-of-town, pandemic, pay, payment, performer, period instruments, period-instrument, Piano, Piano Trio, plans, play, popular, post, postal, posting, price, professor, program, public, Public health, renown, respect, salary, Saturday night, Season, seasonal, seasonal music, sense, share, singer, Singing, smart, social, Sonata, song, soprano, specific, speculation, Spring, stadium, start, Suite, Sunday afternoon, suspect, tag, The Ear, theme, ticket, time, timely, today, Trevor Stephenson, trio, unemployment, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, unsalaried, usual, UW, UW-Madison, vesper, video, Violin, Violin Sonata, violinist, Vivaldi, vocal music, Website, welcome, well-known, winner, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, worker, YouTube

Classical music: This year’s LunART Festival in late June has been canceled and indefinitely postponed. Here are tastes of what is to come in new music commissions

April 21, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement to post from flutist Iva Ugrcic, the founder and executive director of the national award-winning LunART Festival (below), originally slated to take place in late June in various venues around Madison.

The event promotes and advocates for women in the arts including local artists and guest artists in music, poetry, dance, visual art and stand-up comedy. (You can see aerial choreography from last year’s festival in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Each year, the annual event also issues an international call for women composers to submit new works to be premiered during the festival.

“Like many others, we have been closely monitoring the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the world,” says Ugrcic (below), a doctoral graduate of the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.

“In order to protect the wellbeing of our guests, artists and team members, we have made the heartbreaking but necessary decision to postpone LunART Festival 2020 until further notice.” (Below is a past performance at the First Unitarian Society of Madison.)

“Once we establish a timeline to resume our celebration, you will be the first to know. In the meantime, our incredible third season is already being planned. It will feature works by over 40 women artists and composers from across the globe.

“These are exceptionally difficult times, but this too will pass, and we will all emerge from this more united than ever. Stay safe and healthy. We cannot wait to share the love and joy of the arts with you in person again. (Below is the festival in Promenade Hall of the Overture Center.)

“Warmest regards,
“The LunART Team” (Yana Avedyan, Leslie Damaso, Satoko Hayami, Allison Jerzak, Marie Pauls and Iva Ugrcic)

Ugrcic also provided additional information:

“I am still hoping that we would be able to hold the festival this summer. However, it is really hard to say right now.

“In the meantime, I have been in contact with all four of our Call for Scores winners: Alexis Bacon (USA, below top), Patricia Lopes (Brazil), Nicole Murphy (Australia) and Rosita Piritore (Italy, below bottom).

“We are finding ways to still promote their music and excite our audience about what they are going to hear and who they are going to meet when we get back together. So here are links to YouTube and some of the interviews we did with them:

Patricia Lopes (below): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAaZfD0Licc

Nicole Murphy (below): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoT4hg9hQSo

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: NPR explores musical responses to epidemics and pandemics from The Black Plague through HIV-AIDS and COVID-19. Do you know of any more?

April 15, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

For many centuries, artists of all kinds have responded to major social catastrophes or crises. (Below is “The Dance of Death” from the Wellcome Library in London).

Musicians and composers are among them.

Many musicians are now performing and then live streaming music in their homes because of the need for self-isolation and quarantining or social distancing.

But here we are talking about composers who tried to translate the tragedy of sickness into sound.

So it is with the coronavirus and COVID-19.

But the writer puts in it in a context that transforms it into a kind of tradition.

Tom Huizenga, who writes for the “Deceptive Cadence” blog of NPR (National Public Radio), also provides audio samples of the work he is discussing.

He starts with The Black Plague of the 14th century and British composer John Cooke (below), who wrote a hymn to the Virgin Mary.

He offers an example of how Johann Sebastian Bach (below), who suffered his own tragedies, responded to a later plague in France in one of his early cantatas.

The story covers the HIV-AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and how both the disease and the government’s slow response to it inspired a symphony by the American composer John Corigliano (below).

The survey concludes with a contemporary American composer, Lisa Bielawa (below), who is in the process of composing a choral work that responds to the coronavirus pandemic.

Here is a link to the NPR story, which you can read and or else spend seven minutes listening to, along with the audio excerpts of the works that have been discussed.

Here is a link: https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2020/04/13/827990753/when-pandemics-arise-composers-carry-on

What do you think of the story?

Do you know of other composers or musical works that responded to epidemics, pandemics and other public health crises?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: This summer’s Madison Early Music Festival in July has been cancelled and postponed until next summer

April 9, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement from the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) to share:

Dear MEMF Family,

Due to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s decision to

suspend in-person courses, workshops and conferences

for the summer term because of the ongoing COVID-19

pandemic, the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF)

has been postponed until July 10–17, 2021.

This extraordinary situation has affected all of us and

we will miss seeing you this summer. Updates will be

posted on our website as they are available.

As you can imagine, this was a difficult decision

but a necessary one. We will miss sharing

the Burgundian experience with everyone —

MEMF is always the highlight of our summer.

We already miss our community of participants

gathering together in Madison, listening to concerts

in the new Hamel Music Center, learning from

our extraordinary faculty, dancing together in Great Hall

and relaxing on the Union Terrace. (In the YouTube video

at the bottom is an excerpt from the All-Festival Concert last year.)

The good news is, we have decided to simply move

the scheduled program forward to next season.

We sincerely hope that The Good, the Bold and the

Fearless: Musical Life at the Burgundian Court

will feature the same guest artists and faculty next year

and we hope you will be able to join us in 2021.

In the meantime, the Madison Early Music Festival

will continue to operate. For those who have already

registered, we will contact you about issuing refunds

and answering any other questions you might have.

Finally, we appreciate your support — you are the reason

that MEMF continues to offer such extraordinary programming,

concerts and instruction year after year. But we appreciate it

even more now.

If you can make a donation to help offset some

of the costs that this year’s Festival can’t recoup,

we would be extremely grateful. Your gift today

will ensure that we can return “better than ever” next year.

Please stay safe and healthy,

Cheryl, Paul and Sarah

Cheryl Bensman-Rowe and Paul Rowe, Co-Artistic Directors (below)

Sarah Marty, Program Director

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: This Wednesday night, four teenage soloists compete in this year’s Final Forte competition with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Attend it live for FREE, or watch and hear it live on PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio

February 23, 2020
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

This Wednesday night, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. in Overture Hall, the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below in a photo by Peter Rodgers), PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio will present the 14th annual “Wisconsin Young Artists Compete: The Final Forte.”

The concert of four teenage concerto competition winners features the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) led by Associate Conductor Kyle Knox (below).

The concert is FREE and open to the public. But audience members must register in advance, and arrive by 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, prior to the beginning of the live broadcast. Reservations are required. Call (608) 257-3734 or go online to register at https://madisonsymphony.org/finalforte

Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and close at 6:45 p.m. due to the live broadcast. The event runs until 8:30 p.m. No tickets will be issued at the door. Seating is general admission in select areas of the concert hall.

The four finalists (below, in a photo by James Gill who did all the contestant photos) were chosen from 10 semi-finalists in November.

They are:

Jessica Jiang (far left), who will perform the first movement from Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. (You can hear the Prokofiev movement, played by Martha Argerich, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Jonah Kartman (far right), who will perform the first movement from Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No 3.

Emily Hauer (third from left) who will perform the first movement from Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor.

Pianist Michael Wu (second from left) who will perform Liszt’s “Totentanz” (Dance of Death).

Videos to introduce each finalist are now available for viewing online.

Jessica Jiang: https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-jessica-jiang-qto5ir/

Emily Hauer: https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-emily-hauer-8ihe8s/

Jonah Kartman: https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-jonah-kartman-xsr1z6/

Michael Wu): https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-michael-wu-frbf66/

Rebroadcast dates on the Wisconsin Channel (WPT-2) will be Friday, March 6 at 8 p.m. and 11p.m.; Saturday, March 7, at 3 p.m.; and Thursday, March 12, at 3 a.m.

ABOUT THE FINALISTS

Jessica Jiang (below) is a junior at Madison Memorial High School. She took up the piano at the age of four and currently studies with Bill Lutes, Emeritus Professor at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. Jessica received the Steenbock Youth Music Award in the 2018 Bolz Young Artist Competition and took second place in Division III of the National Steinway and Sons Piano Competition in 2019.

Emily Hauer (below) is a home-schooled senior from Appleton. She began violin lessons at the age of two and currently studies with Ilana Setapen, associate concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Emily won the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra Young Artist Concerto Competition in 2017 and is currently in her fourth year as the concertmaster of the Fox Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Jonah Kartman (below) is a home-schooled senior from Glendale. He has been playing the violin for 13 years, and currently studies with I-Hao Lee at DePaul University’s School of Music. Jonah was a finalist in the 2019 Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s Audrey G. Baird Stars of Tomorrow competition, and a two-time winner and scholarship recipient in the Civic Music Association of Milwaukee Competition.

Michael Wu (below) is a senior at Sun Prairie High School. He began piano lessons at age five, and currently studies with Bill Lutes, Emeritus Professor at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. Michael received the Steenbock Youth Music Award in the 2017 Bolz Young Artist Competition and took first place in Division III of the National Steinway and Sons Piano Competition in 2018.

ABOUT THE FINAL FORTE

This competition has captured an enormous following and numerous honors, including an Emmy nomination, First Place in the “Special Interest” category from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association in 2007, and the fifth most-watched program in the February 2007 Nielsen ratings. The 2008 broadcasts reached more than 60,000 viewers and listeners in the Madison market alone and the 2009 broadcasts reached an estimated 200,000 statewide.

The Final Forte is funded by major support from Diane Ballweg, Stephen Morton, W. Jerome Frautschi, A. Paul Jones Charitable Trust, Julie and Larry Midtbo, Fred and Mary Mohs, and Elizabeth Olson, with additional support from Bell Laboratories, James Dahlberg and Elsebet Lund, Kato Perlman, Cyrena and Lee Pondrom, Sentry Insurance Foundation, Darcy Kind and Marc Vitale, Dr. A. Beyer-Mears, Nick and Judith Topitzes, the Focus Fund for Young Performers, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: On Wednesday at noon, Just Bach turns to C.P.E. Bach. At night, the Middleton Community Orchestra, with soloist Paran Amirinazari, plays the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Bruch plus works by Janacek and Sibelius.

February 17, 2020
2 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

This coming Wednesday, Feb. 19, features two noteworthy concerts, one by Just Bach at noon and the other by the Middleton Community Orchestra at 7:30 p.m.

Here are details:

JUST BACH

For this month’s FREE one-hour Just Bach concert (below, in a photo by John W. Barker) on this Wednesday at noon in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, attention will turn from father to son.

The concert features music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (below), the eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach.

The concert opens with a movement from the Sonata in A Minor, Wq. 70/4, H. 85, performed by organist Mark Brampton Smith.

The program continues with a recently rediscovered Cantata, “Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Stande” (I Am Content with My Station), featuring bass-baritone Professor Paul Rowe, and the Just Bach period-instrument players led by Kangwon Kim.

Just Bach co-founder and soprano Sarah Brailey (below) will lead the chorale sing-along, a beloved audience-participation feature of these programs.

The program concludes with eight selections from the “Geistliche Oden und Lieder ‘Gellert Lieder’” (Sacred Odes and Songs ‘Gellert Songs’), performed by students of Paul Rowe (below, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson), accompanied by organist Mark Brampton Smith.

This will also be the first concert with a mother and daughter performing, with violinist Leanne League in the Just Bach players, and soprano Cecilia League in the Paul Rowe studio.

Performers are: Sarah Brailey, soprano; Paul Rowe, baritone; Kangwon Kim, violin 1 (below); Leanne League, violin 2; Katrin Talbot, viola; Anton TenWolde, cello; Mark Brampton Smith, organ; Allyson Mills, Cecilia League, Carly Ochoa and Ella Anderson, sopranos; and Jack Innes, Jake Elfner, Nick Schinner and Chase Kozak, baritones.

The concert is free and open to the public, with a goodwill offering collected.

Other Just Bach concerts this spring, all Wednesdays at noon are on: March 25, April 15 and May 20.

MIDDLETON COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA

At 7:30 p.m., the mostly amateur and critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (below) will perform its winter concert as part of its 10th anniversary season.

The concert takes place in the comfortable and acoustically pleasing Middleton Performing Arts Center (below, in a photo by Brian Ruppert) that is attached to Middleton High School, 2100 Bristol Street.

The program, under conductor-composer Steve Kurr, includes the “Lachian Dances” by Leos Janacek; “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius; and the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor by Max Bruch with guest soloist Paran Amirinazari (below). (You can hear the finale of the violin concerto, played by Sarah Chang, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Tickets are $15 for adults. Students are admitted free.

The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and auditorium doors open at 7 p.m.

There will be a meet-and-greet reception (below) with the orchestra players and audience members after the concert.

For more information about upcoming concerts, how to join the orchestra and how to support it, call (608) 212-8690 or go to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet will play several concerts of Beethoven and Randall Thompson over this coming weekend, including one at Olbrich Gardens on Friday night

February 5, 2020
2 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following information from the veteran Ancora String Quartet, which will play several performances of the same program over the coming weekend in several different cities.

Members of the Ancora String Quartet (below from left, in a photo by Barry Lewis), who also play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, are: violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.

RECITAL PROGRAM:

String Quartet No. 2 in G Major by Randall Thompson

String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven

CONCERT DATES:

Friday, Feb. 7, at noon

Interview with Wisconsin Public Radio host

Norman Gilliland on The Midday

WERN 88.7 FM

Friday, Feb.7, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Bolz Conservatory

3330 Atwood Ave., Madison

Tickets at the door: $5

Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m.

Park (“Freethinkers”) Hall

307 Polk Street, Sauk City

Tickets: $15 general, $12 children and seniors

Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. (UPDATE: THIS CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN OUTBREAK OF ILLNESS AT CHAI POINT. IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED.)

Chai Point Retirement Community

1400 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee

Free and open to the public

PROGRAM NOTES:

The program opens with an unusual work, the String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, by American composer Randall Thompson (below). Better known for his choral music, Thompson wrote this quartet in 1967 to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Harvard Musical Association.

The quartet is joyous and optimistic in character, with thoughtful and creative part-writing. The first movement brims with youthful energy, contained in smoothly flowing triplets.

The simple, graceful folk melody that opens the second movement continually reinvents itself in a set of charming variations. The third movement’s heartfelt tune expresses a deep content, setting up the finale, whose explosive energy erupts in a good-natured, light-hearted romp.

Beethoven (below) wrote the second piece on our program, the String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, 141 years before the Thompson and many centuries beyond it in subtlety, sophistication, intellectual rigor and emotional depth.

With six movements and lasting 40 minutes, it is the composer’s longest piece of chamber music, and it stretches limits in other ways as well. The original work, completed in 1825, contained the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) but Beethoven replaced that in 1826 with the Finale Allegro, the last full-scale movement he completed before his death in 1827.

Op. 130 bristles with contrasts, and juxtapositions of extremes, on the micro-level to the macro-level, all contained in movements ranging from a short, gnarly Presto, to a graceful Poco Scherzo, to a lyrical, innocent Alla Danza Tedesco (In the Style of a German Dance), to the fabled Cavatina, which, Beethoven wrote, moved him to tears when he even thought about it. (You can hear the Cavatina in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

In performing Op. 130, the Ancora String Quartet tackles its 14th of the 16 Beethoven string quartets. The ASQ plans to perform Op. 59, No. 3, and Op. 131, in the summer and fall, to complete the Beethoven cycle in this, the Beethoven Year when we celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth.

For more information, go to: facebook.com/ancoraquartet and www.ancoraquartet.com

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Classical music: This week the UW-Madison hosts a faculty horn recital and two orchestral concerts – one by the visiting and innovative chamber orchestra The Knights and the other by UW students

February 4, 2020
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

This week is a busy one at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music with concerts on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

There are also FREE and PUBLIC master classes on Friday.

Here are details:

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 5

At 7:30 p.m. in the Collins Recital Hall of the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave., UW horn professor Daniel Grabois (below, in a photo by James Gill) – a member of the acclaimed Wisconsin Brass Quintet – will perform a FREE faculty recital.

Grabois will be accompanied by pianist Shuk-Ki Wong.

No specific program has been posted. But composers on the program include Eugene Bozza, Charles Gounod, Francis Poulenc, Wolfgang Plagge and a world premiere by Daniel Kessner.

THURSDAY, FEB. 6

At 7:30 p.m. in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, also in the Hamel Music Center, the UW Symphony Orchestra (below, with the UW Choral Union in the background) will give a FREE concert.

UW professor Oriol Sans (below), who is new to campus this year, will be the main conductor with Michael Dolan serving as a guest conductor.

The program is the “Appalachian Spring” Suite by Aaron Copland and the Symphony No. 9 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

SATURDAY, FEB. 8

At 8 p.m. in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, guest artists The Knights will give a concert that features UW clarinetist Alicia Lee (below), who is a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet and who toured with The Knights chamber orchestra during the decade she lived and worked in New York City.

Says Lee: “We are excited to bring a group with a fresh perspective that is run in perhaps a less traditional way,” Lee says of the residency. “This is a group of people with interesting, diverse approaches to a life in music. Many have been making music together for nearly 20 years, so the roots of both friendship and musical values run very deep.”

On Friday, Feb. 7, The Knights (below) will offer a one-day, on-campus residency that is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Opportunities include access to strings, wind, percussion and horn master classes; a workshop on music business; a side-by-side orchestral reading; and attendance at their rehearsal. All activities will take place in the Hamel Music Center. For a day-long schedule, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/the-knights/

You can hear rehearsals and commentaries by The Knights in the YouTube video at the bottom.

According to program notes: “The Knights is a collective of adventurous musicians, dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music.

“Driven by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they inspire listeners with vibrant programs that encompass their roots in the classical tradition and passion for artistic discovery.

“The orchestra has toured and recorded with renowned soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Bela Fleck and Gil Shaham, and have performed at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood and the Vienna Musikverein. Read more at: https://theknightsnyc.com”

The program for The Kreutzer Project concert on Saturday night is:

Colin Jacobsen: World premiere of a new work

Ludwig van Beethoven: Kreutzer Concerto  (based on the famous Kreutzer Sonata) arranged by The Knights for solo violin and chamber orchestra

INTERMISSION

Leos Janacek: The “Kreutzer Sonata”  String Quartet arranged by The Knights for chamber orchestra

Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dances  arranged by The Knights for chamber orchestra

General admission tickets are $30 and are available at the Campus Ticketing Office in the Memorial Union and by calling (608) 265-ARTS (2787) or visiting: https://artsticketing.wisc.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=83A6D957-B006-4ABC-AFB2-6485A8C4D94C.

Free rush tickets for UW-Madison students and music faculty are subject to availability. Visit the Hamel box office one hour before the concert.

Posted in Classical music
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