The Well-Tempered Ear

Madison’s Sonata à Quattro performs TONIGHT online for the prestigious Boston Early Music Festival

June 17, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following note from the local early music group, Sonata à Quattro (SAQ):

We have a very exciting announcement to share.

Tonight we will be one of the featured ensembles at the 2021 Boston Early Music Festival Fringe Concerts!

The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is recognized as a national and international leader in the field of early music, and SAQ is thrilled to make its first appearance at this event. 

Concert presented during the Boston Early Music Festival’s 2021 Fringe Concerts.  Learn more at https://bemf.org/2021-festival/fringe-concerts/

The online premiere of the SAQ concert video will be TONIGHT — Thursday, June 17 — at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT, and the musicians will be available to chat during and after the recorded performance.

Please join us at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSfzu6Q6DcU

The 50-minute concert, titled “Musical Meditation and Merriment,” features (below, from left) violinists Christine Hauptly Annin and Leanne League; cellist Charlie Rasmussen; and violist Marika Fischer Hoyt.

This period-instrument quartet will perform the following program: Quartet in G Major, TWV 43:G5 by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767); Duo II in D Minor, Op. 19, No. 2, for Violin and Viola by Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754-1812); Duetto III in G Major, Op. 1, No. 3, for Violin and Cello by Giovanni Battista Cirri (1724-1808, below); and Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. “The Lark” by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).

The concert was live-streamed and recorded at the United Methodist Church in Whitefish Bay, Wis., on April 13, 2021.

From the austere fugal opening of the Telemann to the jaunty Finale of Haydn’s “Lark” Quartet — heard played by the Jerusalem Quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom — this program offers a reflection on the unimaginable year we’ve just experienced, as well as the stirrings of hope, as we awake to a spring and summer of new beginnings.

The slow movements, with their gorgeous string sonorities, range from still, inner contemplation to poignant pleas, while the fast movements outdo one another in wit, verve and sheer joie de vivre.


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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! 


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A busy weekend of online concerts features the UW Symphony, Edgewood College, Madison Opera, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Bach Around the Clock and more

March 25, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

With only a little over a month left before the academic year ends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it’s not surprising that the last weekend in March is very busy with noteworthy – and competing – online concerts.

Each morning at 8 through Friday, Bach Around the Clock will release the last concerts of its 10-day online festival. You can find the programs – including the finale Friday night at 7 with Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 — and link for streaming here: https://bachclock.com/concert-schedule

The weekend starts tonight with one of The Ear’s favorite groups during the Pandemic Year: the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra

Here is a day-by-day lineup. All times are Central Daylight Time:

TONIGHT, MARCH 25

The UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra (below) performs a FREE virtual online concert TONIGHT starting at 7:30 p.m.

The concert will be preceded by a 7 p.m. talk about Igor Stravinsky with modern musicologist and Penn State Professor Maureen Carr as well as conductor Oriol Sans and Susan Cook, UW musicologist and director of the Mead Witter School of Music.

The program is: Suite from the opera “Dido and Aeneas” by Henry Purcell, with student conductor Alison Norris; Duet for Two Violins and String Orchestra by the contemporary American composer Steve Reich; and  the Neo-Classical “Apollon musagète” (Apollo, Leader of the Muses) by Stravinsky. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear an excerpt of the Stravinsky played by the Berlin Philharmonic with Simon Rattle conducting.)

Here is the link to the talk and concert. Click on more and you can also see the members of the orchestra and the two violin soloists: https://youtu.be/2rgHQ4lWTV8

For more information about the program, including notes, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-madison-symphony-orchestra/

FRIDAY, MARCH 26

At 7:30 p.m. the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will post for three days the third of its four online chamber music concerts (below). There will be excerpts of music by Beethoven and Brahms as well as complete works by Jessie Montgomery and Alyssa Morris.

Tickets to the online on-demand event are $30, with some discounts available, and are good through Monday evening.

Here is a link to more about this concert, including program notes by conductor and music director Andrew Sewell, and how to purchase tickets: https://wcoconcerts.org/events/winter-chamber-series-no-iii

At 8 p.m., the music department at Edgewood College will give a FREE online Spring Celebration concert. It will be livestreamed via music.edgewood.edu

The performers include: the Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Sergei Pavlov (below); the Guitar Ensemble, under the direction of Nathan Wysock; and the Chamber Winds, directed by Carrie Backman.

Highlights include the Guitar Ensemble’s performance of Wish You Were Here, by David Gilmour and Rogers Waters, and the Chamber Winds epic Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Chamber Orchestra, which will perform live, will feature Musical moment No. 3, by Franz Schubert and Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27

At noon, in Grace Episcopal Church on the Capitol Square downtown, there will be a FREE online concert. Grace Presents: “A Patient Enduring”: This early music program of medieval conductus (a musical setting of metrical Latin texts) and ballade, English lute song, and duets from the early Italian Baroque features two sopranos, Grammy-winnner Sarah Brailey (below) and Kristina Boerger, with Brandon Acker on lute and theorbo.

Here is a link: YouTube.com/GracePresentsConcerts

You can also go to this webpage for a link: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/grace-presents-a-patient-enduring/

At 3 p.m. the Perlman Trio, a piano trio that is made up of UW-Madison graduate students, will give a FREE online concert. The program includes piano trios by Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. 

Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/EAjK0DfWB3A

Here is a link to the complete program plus background, names and photos of the performers as well as to the performance: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/perlman-piano-trio/

At 7 p.m. the UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quntet (below) will perform a FREE pre-recorded online concert. Here is a link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7eobSnfr8

And here is a link to the page with more background information about the faculty members – including bassoonist Marc Vallon (below top) and flutist Conor Nelson (below bottom) – and to the complete program: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/wingra-wind-quintet/

SUNDAY, MARCH 28

From 4 to 5:30 p.m., guest mezzo-soprano Julia Ubank (below) will give a free online recital with pianist Thomas Kasdorf.

The program features songs by Mahler, Debussy, deFalla, Jake Heggie and Ellen Cogen.

Here is the complete program plus a link to the recital: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/julia-urbank-voice-recital/

From 4 to 5:30 p.m. the Madison Opera will host a Opera Up Close cocktail hour discussion with four general directors of opera companies. Here is the website’s description:

“Four opera general directors walk into a chat room…. Stepping outside the Madison Opera family, Kathryn Smith (below, in a photo by James Gill) is joined by three colleagues: Michael Egel of Des Moines Metro Opera, Ashley Magnus of Chicago Opera Theater, and Lee Anne Myslewski of Wolf Trap Opera.

“From how they got into opera, to the ups and downs of running an opera company, their favorite productions, funniest moments, and more, it will be a unique and entertaining afternoon.

Here is a link with more information including the cost of a subscription: https://www.madisonopera.org/class/general-directors/?wcs_timestamp=1616947200

At 6 p.m., Rachel Reese, a UW-Madison doctoral student in violin, will give a lecture-concert about the Violin Concerto No. 2 by the rediscovered African-American composer Florence Price (below). She will be accompanied by pianist Aubrie Jacobson.

Here is a link to the concert plus background about Rachel Reese: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/rachel-reese-lecture-recital/


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Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble performs a FREE live-streamed concert this Sunday afternoon

February 19, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

After a year of canceled events, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) will perform a live-streamed concert this Sunday afternoon, Feb. 21, at 3 p.m. CST.

The concert will take place at the First Congregational Church in Beloit as part of the Musica Maxima concert series.

(A concert scheduled for this Saturday night, Feb. 21, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Madison has been CANCELED.)

On the program are: six duos for two cellos, Op. 18, by Tommaso Giordani (below top), played by Charlie Rasmussen and Anton TenWolde (you can hear the same performers play the second of the six duos in the Centaur recording featured in the YouTube video at the bottom);  and the sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord obbligato (WQ 88) by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (below bottom) performed by Eric Miller and Max Yount, respectively.

There will be no live audience.

The link to the free concert as well as a full program can be found at our home webpage: http://www.wisconsinbaroque.org

There is no charge, but please consider making a donation to the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble to help defray our expenses. Go to: http://www.wisconsinbaroque.org/donate.html

In case you are unable to watch the live broadcast, the concert will remain posted for viewing for several weeks.

 


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The eighth annual UW Schubertiade is this Sunday afternoon. It features a FREE online retrospective of the past seven years plus a new four-hand piano performance

January 29, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The University of Wisconsin has posted the following announcement:

For the eighth consecutive year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music will present its annual Schubertiade — a special concert celebrating the music of Franz Schubert (below).

Traditionally these concerts have been held around the composer’s birthday. This year’s concert will in fact occur on his birthday — this Sunday, Jan. 31, at 3-4:30 p.m. CST. The pre-recorded premiere is at: https://youtu.be/7sshhKiFPAg

You can also use the link to prepare for the concert before or during the concert. You will find the program with song titles, the original German texts and English translation, and biographies of the performers by simply clicking on “SHOW MORE” on the YouTube website and follow the links to PDFs.

BECAUSE THERE ARE NO COPYRIGHT ISSUES, ACCORDING TO UW OFFICIALS, THE POST SHOULD BE UP AND AVAILABLE INDEFINITELY AFTER ITS PREMIERE.

As in past years, founders and performers Martha Fischer (below left), professor of piano and head of the collaborative piano program at UW-Madison, and her husband Bill Lutes (below right), an independent piano teacher, and UW emeritus artist-in-residence, will host the program.

These concerts have been presented in the sprit of the first Schubertiades (below, in a painting by Julius Schmid) that took place during the composer’s lifetime (1797-1828) in the homes of his friends and fellow artists, poets and fans.

These were social as well as musical occasions with Schubert himself presiding at the piano, giving his audience a chance to hear his latest songs, piano duets and chamber music, as well as pieces that had already become favorites.

This year’s Schubertiade will be different in response to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It will be an online look back — or Rückblick — at past concerts, with songs chosen from performances that have been preserved in the audio and video archive.

The featured performers will include faculty members, students and alumni from the Mead Witter School of Music, along with special guests.

In addition, pianists Fischer and Lutes will give a “new” performance recorded for this occasion of the great Fantasie in F minor for piano duet. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear that work, performed by Dutch brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen and recorded live in Seoul, South Korea.)

The songs have been chosen to reflect themes that were not only relevant to Schubert and his circle, but also to all of us in the midst of this challenging time: hope for a brighter future; the need for connection with others; remembrance of happier times; and the consolation to be found in nature.

Schubert left a vast and precious legacy of beauty — an enormous output of music that he composed in his short lifetime.

In a sense, each time his music is performed and heard, it is a journey from the past to our own time, the sounds speaking to us today as vividly and consolingly as they did when they were created 200 years ago.

Performers

Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes, pianists

Alumni:

Jamie-Rose Guarrine, soprano (below, in a photo by Peter Konerko)
Emily Birsan, soprano
Michael Roemer, baritone
Jennifer D’Agostino, soprano
Daniel O’Dea, tenor
Wesley Dunnagan, tenor
Sarah Brailey (alumna and current DMA student)
Sara Guttenberg

Guests:

Marie McManama, soprano
Cheryl Bensman-Rowe, mezzo-soprano

Faculty:

Mimmi Fulmer, soprano
Paul Rowe, baritone (below)
Julia Rottmayer, soprano

Staff

David Alcorn, videographer, editor, etc.
Katrin Talbot, images for audio only tracks

 


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The New York Times music critics suggest 10 must-hear online classical concerts during December

November 30, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Tomorrow is Dec. 1, 2020.

Lately, at the end of every month the music critics for The New York Times publish a list of 10 virtual and online classical concerts for the following month that they think deserve special attention.

Often – but not always — their choices feature the unusual: new music and world premieres; neglected repertoire; and lesser-known performers that most of us are not likely to hear locally.

The December choices, for example, include an oratorio “Perle Noire” (Black Pearl), by composer Tyshawn Sorey, about the famous African-American, Paris-based expat dancer Josephine Baker – she of the banana skirt (below). But she was more than just  a risqué dancer and entertainer. She fought in the French Resistance movement against the Nazis and was a civil rights champion.

But this list also includes seasonal fare such the holiday tradition by which the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs in one night all six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach (you can hear an excerpt in the YouTube video at the bottom); and other holiday celebrations such as a concert by the early music vocal group Tenet (below, in a photo by Nan Melville.)

But those suggestions do not take away from more local efforts and performances. 

The Ear is certain that those same critics would approve of supporting local musicians and music groups during the coronavirus pandemic. 

And there are many local offerings. The Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, the Madison Bach Musicians and Just Bach all have virtual online concerts scheduled for December.

You can check out their offerings at their websites and here on this blog as the month unfolds.

But if the Times’ choices interest you – and they should — here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/arts/music/classical-music-stream-december.html

Note that the blurbs show Eastern Time but also include how long the performances are posted for and links to the organizations presenting the concerts. 

Happy listening!

And Happy Holidays!

Do you have other online performances – local, regional, national or international — to suggest?

Please leave the necessary information in the Comment section.

The Ear wants to hear.

 


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Classical music: Here is the complete concert program for the Madison Opera’s Digital Opera in the Park. It premieres online TONIGHT at 8 and stays up until Aug. 25

July 25, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The 2020 edition of the Madison Opera’s annual summer event Opera in the Park (below, a photo from the past) will be virtual and online due the coronavirus pandemic and the COVID-19 public health crisis.

The concert – which can be viewed indoors or outdoors, anywhere in the country or the world — begins at 8 p.m. CDT TONIGHT, Saturday, July 25. It will remain available online until Aug. 25.

Here are links to the portals where you can watch and listen to the opera program and also join the post-concert Q&A with performers: https://www.madisonopera.org and https://vimeo.com/437164679

For more information about the 90-minute concert, and related events, as well as the performers and the donors, go to: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/07/23/classical-music-madison-operas-virtual-opera-in-the-park-goes-online-for-free-this-saturday-night-and-stay-up-until-aug-25-listen-to-it-indoors-or-outdoors-to-enhance-the-experience/

HERE IS THE COMPLETE PROGRAM FOR THE EVENING

Overture | The Marriage of Figaro (W.A. Mozart; 1786)

Suzanne Beia, violin; John DeMain (below) and Scott Gendel, piano

“Quel guardo, il cavaliere” | Don Pasquale (Gaetano Donizetti; 1843)

Jasmine Habersham, soprano (below); Rolando Salazar, piano

“Un’aura amorosa” | Così fan tutte (W.A. Mozart; 1789)

Andres Acosta, tenor (below); Marika Yasuda, piano

“Ernani, involami” | Ernani (Giuseppe Verdi; 1844)

Karen Slack, soprano (below); Laura Ward, piano

“Vision fugitive” | Hérodiade (Jules Massenet; 1881)

Weston Hurt, baritone (below); Bethany Self, piano

“Aber der Richtige” | Arabella (Richard Strauss; 1933)

Jasmine Habersham, soprano; Karen Slack, soprano; Scott Gendel, piano (below)

“Au fond du temple saint” | The Pearl Fishers (Georges Bizet; 1863)

Andres Acosta, tenor; Weston Hurt, baritone; Scott Gendel, piano

“Deh vieni, non tardar” | The Marriage of Figaro (W.A. Mozart; 1786)

Jasmine Habersham, soprano; Rolando Salazar, piano

“Il balen del suo sorriso” | Il Trovatore  (Giuseppe Verdi; 1853)

Weston Hurt, baritone; Bethany Self, piano

“Anvil Chorus” | Il Trovatore (Giuseppe Verdi; 1853)

Madison Opera Chorus via Zoom (below); Anthony Cao, conductor and piano

“Vissi d’arte” | Tosca (Giacomo Puccini; 1900)

Karen Slack, soprano; Laura Ward, piano

“Asile héréditaire” | William Tell (Gioachino Rossini; 1829)

Andres Acosta, tenor; Marika Yasuda, piano

“Meditation” | Thaïs (Jules Massenet; 1894)

Suzanne Beia, violin (below); John DeMain, piano

Spiritual “Scandalize My Name” | arranged by Johnnie Dean

Jasmine Habersham, soprano; Karen Slack, soprano; Scott Gendel, piano

“No puede ser” | La Tabernera del Puerto (Pablo Sorozabal; 1936)

Andres Acosta, tenor; Marika Yasuda, piano

“Vanilla Ice Cream” | She Loves Me (Jerry Bock; 1963)

Jasmine Habersham, soprano; Rolando Salazar, piano

“Some Enchanted Evening” | South Pacific (Richard Rodgers; 1949)

Weston Hurt, baritone; Bethany Self, piano

“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” | arranged by Margaret Bonds

Karen Slack, soprano; Laura Ward, piano

SING-ALONG FINALE: It’s a Grand Night for Singing | State Fair (Richard Rodgers; 1945)

 


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Classical music: Madison Opera’s virtual Opera in the Park goes online for FREE this Saturday night and stays up until Aug. 25. Listen to it indoors or outdoors

July 23, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Madison Opera’s Opera in the Park isn’t in a park this year — as it has been in past years (below) — but it will be available for people to enjoy for free in their backyards, in their living rooms or anywhere else with an internet connection.

The digital concert will be released on this Saturday, July 25, at 8 p.m. CDT, and can be watched on Madison Opera’s website, www.madisonopera.org/digital, where you can find complete information and, soon, a complete program to download.

The annual free concert has moved online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a newly created program of opera arias and more.

Digital Opera in the Park features: soprano Jasmine Habersham; soprano Karen Slack; tenor Andres Acosta; and baritone Weston Hurt. (The last two will sing the justly famous baritone-tenor duet “Au fond du temple saint” from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers,” which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Habersham (below) makes her Madison Opera debut with this unique performance, and will sing Susanna in the company’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro next April.

Slack (below) debuted with the company in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, and will be part of the company’s digital fall season.

Acosta (below) sang Timothy Laughlin in Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers with Madison Opera this past February.

Hurt (below) debuted as Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata last season and is part of the company’s digital fall season.

The four singers will be joined by several important local artists. They include violinist Suzanne Beia, the assistant concertmaster of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the concertmaster of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the second violin of the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet.

There will also be a fleet of eight pianists. They include MSO music director and Madison Opera’s artist director John DeMain (below top, in a photo by Prasad) and the UW-Madison graduate and composer Scott Gendel (below bottom). The two will play multiple numbers, including DeMain accompanying Beia on the beautiful “Meditation” from Thaïs.

Each singer recorded their arias with an accompanist in their home cities, and chorusmaster Anthony Cao (below top) both accompanies and conducts the Madison Opera Chorus (below bottom) in a virtual “Anvil Chorus” from Il Trovatore.

The evening will be hosted by Madison Opera’s General Director Kathryn Smith and by WKOW TV’s Channel 27 News co-anchor George Smith.

“Reimagining Opera in the Park in the pandemic era has been a challenge, but one we have happily embraced,” says Smith (below in a photo by James Gill). “Our wonderful artists were game to record themselves in their home towns, to sing duets with each other through headphones, and to share their artistry with our community in a new way. Over 40 choristers joined a Zoom call to get instructions, and then they recorded their parts of the ‘Anvil Chorus.’”

“While in some ways this concert has required more work than our live Opera in the Park in Garner Park, it is always a pleasure to present beautiful music for everyone to enjoy.”

Digital Opera in the Park features music from Verdi’s Il Trovatore, now canceled in live performance but originally slated to open Madison Opera’s 2020-21 season; Jerry Bock’s She Loves Me, which the company performs in January; and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, which will be performed in April.

The program also includes selections from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, Richard Strauss’ Arabella, Verdi’s Don Pasquale, Puccini’s Tosca, Massenet’s Hérodiade and Thaïs, Rossini’s William Tell, Pablo Sarozabal’s zarzuela La Tabernera del Puerto, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, and more.

The concert will be available beginning at 8 p.m. CDT on this Saturday night, July 25, and will remain online until Aug. 25, allowing for both repeated viewing and flexibility for people who are unable to watch on the first night.

While Digital Opera in the Park will be free to watch, it would not be possible without the generous support of many foundations, corporations and individuals who believe in the importance of music. Madison Opera is grateful to the sponsors of Opera in the Park 2020:

  • Presenting Sponsor: the Berbeewalsh Foundation
  • Sponsors: the John and Carolyn Peterson Charitable Foundation, Full Compass Systems, the Raymond B. Preston Family Foundation, University Research Park, Colony Brands, Johnson Financial Group, MGE Foundation, National Guardian Life, Wisconsin Arts Board, Dane Arts and the Madison Arts Commission.
  • Media Sponsors: WKOW, Madison Magazine, Wisconsin Public Radio, Magic 98, and La Movida.

RELATED EVENTS include:

OPERA ON THE WALL | JULY 25, 2020 | ONLINE

Madison artists Liubov Swazko (known as Triangulador) and Mike Lroy have created artwork around our community, including beautiful murals on State Street storefronts.

In an act of artistic cross-pollination, they will create an artwork that comes from their personal response to Digital Opera in the Park, offering a rare glimpse of visual artists responding to musical artists. Their creative process will be filmed in the Madison Opera Center, and shared online starting on July 25.

The finished artwork will be displayed in the Madison Opera Center. Go to Swazko’s website at triangulador.com (one work is below) and Lroy’s website at mikelroy.com to see their past work.

POST-SHOW Q&A | JULY 25, 2020, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE INITIAL STREAM

Join Kathryn Smith and the Digital Opera in the Park artists for a post-concert discussion, including an opportunity to ask questions. Details on format and platform will be available closer to the date.

 


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Classical music: This Saturday at noon Grace Presents offers a virtual HD concert of organ and violin music

July 21, 2020
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement from Grace Presents to post:

Grace Presents’ HD Virtual Concert Series continues with its new series, with its next installment premiering here on YouTube this Saturday, July 25, at noon CDT.

The free and public one-hour program will feature organist-composer Mark Brampton Smith (below top) and violinist Carol Carlson (below middle), both veterans of the Grace Presents series and the Madison music scene. A virtual meet-and-greet will follow the concert.

(The Willy Street Chamber Players will be featured in a virtual concert premiering on Saturday, Aug. 22, at noon CDT. More details on this concert are forthcoming soon.)

Here is the program for this Saturday’s organ and violin concert, which you can sample in the YouTube video at the bottom:

Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962): “Praeludium and Allegro (In the Style of Pugnani)”

Gaetano Pugnani (1731-1798): Violin Sonata in A Major, Op. 7 No. 2. 1. Andantino

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757): Sonata in D Major, K. 288; Sonata in G Major, K. 328

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 III. Andante

Johann Sebastian Bach: “Little” Fugue in G minor, BWV 578

Jules Massenet (1842-1912): Meditation from the opera “Thaïs”

Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960): “Bandanna Sketches,” Op. 12. 1. Chant (“Nobody knows de trouble I’ve seen”)

Felix Borowski (1872-1956): “Adoration”

Mark Brampton Smith (b. 1954): “It Is Well With My Soul” (Philip P. Bliss)

Vittorio Monti (1868-1922) Csardas

 


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