The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: UW festival will honor American composer George Crumb at 85. It runs from this Friday through Monday and features master classes as well as the acclaimed violinist Miranda Cuckson and the new music groups Nunc and Due East.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The acclaimed prize-winning composer Laura Schwendinger, who teaches composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, has sent the following announcement to The Ear:
Pulitzer Prize-winner George Crumb (below, b. 1929) is one of America’s foremost composers and one of the most influential and innovative composers of the latter half of the 20th Century.
UW-Madison composer and professor Laura Schwendinger, who is the Artistic Director of the UW-Madison Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, designed the 2015 CRUMB FESTIVAL – to take place from this Friday, March 20, through Monday, March 23, at the UW-Madison School of Music — to celebrate his 85th birthday.
“We wish to celebrate this unique and singular voice,” says Schwendinger. She describes Crumb’s influence in this way: “He is one of the most important, and influential composers of our time. He simply makes us listen to sound in a new way, and there are very few composers who can do that.”
The Festival will feature four concerts and nine works by Crumb.
Here is a schedule of events by each day.
FRIDAY
On Friday, March 20, at 8 p.m. in Music Hall, “Lakeshore Rush,” which features three all-star UW alumni, will be performing Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale).
SATURDAY
On Saturday, March 21, at 7:30 p.m. and also in the Music Hall, the UW Contemporary Chamber Ensemble (below top) will be presenting a concert featuring the Pro Arte String Quartet’s Parry Karp (below bottom) in Crumb’s Solo Cello Sonata and saxophonist Steve Carmichaelin’s Quest.
UW graduate student, conductor Kyle Knox will be conducting University of Southern California professor Donald Crockett’s “Whistling in the Dark” and Les Thimmig will be leading his saxophone quartet in a work by University of California-Davis professor Laurie San Martin, in her Miniatures for Saxophone quartet; a work by University of California-Berkeley Music Department Chair Cindy Cox will round out the program.
Schwendinger adds “none of these works could have been composed without Crumb’s influence, yet are distinctive examples of their composers’ individual styles.”
SUNDAY
On Sunday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, Nunc (below top, Latin for “now”), a New York-based music ensemble will perform, headed by the star violinist Miranda Cuckson (below middle), called “superb,” “deeply satisfying,” and “prodigiously talented” by the New York Times.
The program includes Eleven Echoes of Autumn, and the Four Nocturnes for violin and piano as well as works by Augusta Read-Thomas, Sebastian Currier, and Laura Schwendinger’s The Violinists in My Life, a work for which the third movement is dedicated to Cuckson. Schwendinger (below bottom) adds that “this work of hers, is much influenced by the drama of the Crumb’s Solo Cello Sonata.”
MONDAY
Finally, on Monday, March 23, at 8 p.m. in Morphy Hall, Due East (below), the flute and percussion duo of Erin Lesser and Greg Byer, lauded as “superb” (New York Times) and “brilliant” (New York Concert Review), will be joined by NYC-based harpist, Jacqui Kerrod, vocalist Amanda deBoer and bassist Mark Buchner, will be performing George Crumb’s colorful and enticing Madrigals (1-4) in a stunning multi-media presentation, which presents a “triptych video montage” that becomes a “magical and powerful environment,” along with works written for them by the Chicago Composers Consortium and also inspired by the works of Crumb.
The consortium has been a staple of Chicago’s New Music scene for 25 years now and has counted as part of its membership some of Chicago’s best-known composers.
In addition to the four concert offerings, Miranda Cuckson, Blair McMillen, Erin Lesser and Greg Beyer will all be offering master classes, and Nunc will be reading works by student composers as part of a composer workshop.
Schwendinger says “the festival is a fantastic opportunity for the next generation of composers to be exposed to Crumb and learn from the performers who play his music.”
Susan C. Cook (below), music historian and director of the UW-Madison School of Music, is currently teaching a course focusing on George Crumb. An expert in contemporary and American music of all kinds, Cook singles out Crumb as central to her own desire to study modern music.
“As an undergraduate at Beloit College, I first heard Crumb’s ‘Ancient Voices of Children,’ then less than a decade old, in a music theory course,” Cook says. “It simply grabbed hold of me, and I knew I wanted to understand how it came to be and share it with others.”
All events are open to the public.
Nunc and Due East are ticketed events. Visit the Events Calendar at www.music.wisc.edu for more information.
Here are some online resources, including YouTube videos:
Crumb Quest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dpy3_BVBIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJ0cJJLrRQ
Crumb: Vox Balanae
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uU_5cg9dG8
Crumb: Eleven Echoes of Autumn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYVw4BcRAgU
Links to other works on the concerts:
Donald Crockett Whistling in the Dark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKuymSYeHqk
“Violinists in My Life” with violinist Eleanor Bartsch and pianist Thomas Kasdorf performing with the UW Contemporary Chamber Ensemble in Mills Hall in 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNUc6-hJJV4
Sebastian Currier, Verge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7PDj8AS_cg
Featured performers in other works:
Due East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6LzjnyRijQ
Miranda Cuckson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chs6LxlOU78
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X4t-DIU2m0
Tags: ancient, anicent, Arts, Augusta Read Thomas, Cello, Chamber music, Chicago metropolitan area, children, Classical music, contemporary music, Davis, Due East, flute, George Crumb, Jacob Stockinger, Laura Schwendinger, Miranda Cuckson, Music, New Music, New York City, New York Times, Nunc, percussion, Saxophone, Sebastian Currier, The New York Times, University of California, University of California-Berkeley, University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, voice, voices, whale, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: The great British conductor Sir Colin Davis is dead at 85. Here is a round-up of stories and remembrances, appreciations and obituaries.
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By Jacob Stockinger
In case you haven’t already heard, the great British conductor and longtime music director of the London Symphony Orchestra Sir Colin Davis (below) died last Sunday at 85 after a brief illness.
The news came unexpected to The Ear as Davis seemed actively involved in conducting almost up to the end. He seemed to have the stamina that would take him well into his 90s – especially since the aerobic act of conducting seems conducive to conductors have long careers and lives.
But then again, the obituaries make it clear that he suffered deeply from the death of his wife.
I never heard him live. But I loved his recorded performances –- and he recorded prolifically with some 250 albums to his credit. In the works of Sibelius and Berlioz he was a stalwart champion and acclaimed master. He also championed British composers such as Edward Elgar, William Walton and Benjamin Britten.
But I also liked his complete command of the Classical era-style in Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven – symphonies, concertos, operas, oratories and other choral works. (Below is the cover of his recording on the London Symphony Orchestra‘s own in-house label LSO Live of the Berlioz Requiem.)
Sir Colin earned fame and a fine living early on (below) in the 1950s and 1960s. But I especially liked that his career seemed to peak late in his life –- a good riposte to the cultural tendency today to worship prodigies and young achievers. He was never better than when his hair turned white.
There is also something endearing and Britty eccentric about Davis who liked to sit in a chair and think about musical interpretations while he was puffing on his pipe and knitting.
Yes, knitting.
And in his stage performances and touring, and it sounds to The Ear as if Sir Colin led a very good and very full life. Which may help explain why Sir Colin’s music-making sounded so healthy and robust and natural rather than neurotic or forced. (Below is a photo of Sir Colin at his home.)
Anyway, here are links to some of the best stories, remembrances and obituaries I found along with a fitting YouTube video of Sir Colin conducting Mozart’s Requiem at the bottom):
Here is a comprehensive and compassionate overview of Sir Colin’s life and career from NPR’s always outstanding blog “Delayed Cadence”:
And here is a story from Sir Colin’s native UK:
Here is a column, with some details of Sir Colin’s personal life and turmoil, by Anne Midgette of The Washington Post:
Here is a link to BBC report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22148334
Here is a link to report from The New York Times:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/sir-colin-davis-british-conductor-dies-at-85/
And here is a story from another UK source, The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/apr/14/sir-colin-davis-obituary
Here is a report from the UK wire service Reuters:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/uk-davis-idUKBRE93E0BJ20130415
And here are two more from the Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post:
Did you hear Sir Colin live? What did you think?
Do you have a favorite recording?
A word of tribute about Sir Colin to leave in the COMMENTS section?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Anne Midgette, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Berlioz, Classical, Colin, Colin Davis, Davis, Edward Elgar, Franz Josef Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, London, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Times, Mozart, New York Times, NPR, Requiem, Royal Opera House, Sibelius, Washington Post, William Walton, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Critics for The New York Times name their Top 10 online classical concerts for May
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By Jacob Stockinger
Even as we wait to see whether concerts in the next season will be mostly streamed or live, the critics for The New York Times have named their Top 10 classical concerts to stream and hear online in May.
The Times critics have been doing this during the pandemic year. So perhaps if and when they stop, it will be a sign of returning to concert life before the pandemic.
Then again, maybe not, since The Ear suspects that many listeners have liked the online format, at least for some of the times and for certain events. So maybe there will be a hybrid format with both live and online attendance.
As the same critics have done before, they mix an attention to contemporary composers, world premieres and up-and-coming performers, including the Finnish conductor Susanna Maliki (below top) in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times).
In a welcome development, the recommendations for this month also seem to mention more Black composers, performers and pieces than usual, including the rising star bass-baritone Davon Tines (below, in a photo by Vincent Tullo for The New York Times).
But you will also find many of the “usual suspects,” including Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Bartok, Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen and Shostakovich. (On the play list is Schubert’s last song, “The Shepherd on the Rock,” which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
You will also find dates and times (all are Eastern), links to the event and some short commentaries about what makes the concerts, programs and the performers noteworthy.
Here is a link to the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/arts/music/classical-music-streaming.html
Do you know of local, regional, national or international online concerts that you recommend? Leave word with relevant information in the Comment section.
Happy Listening!
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