The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Today at noon you can hear Japanese marimba music. At the UW-Madison, tonight offers a FREE concert of Eastern European music by the Wingra Wind Quintet. Tomorrow night is a FREE concert of vocal music by UW Chorale
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ALERT: TODAY, Nov. 8, from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at the FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, the veteran international marimbist Rebecca Kite (below) — who teaches and concertizes — will perform a program that features music of Handel, herself and contemporary Japanese composers including Keiko Abe and Minoru Miki. Kite recently moved to Madison.
By Jacob Stockinger
Tonight and tomorrow night feature two noteworthy and FREE concerts of chamber music for winds and choral music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
Here are details:
WINGRA WIND QUINTET
TONIGHT, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m. in the Collins Recital Hall of the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave., the UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quintet performs a FREE concert of music from Eastern Europe.
Works by Bela Bartok, Leos Janacek, Gyorgy Kurtag and Endre Szervanszky will be featured.
The guest artist is clarinetist Brian Gnojek (below).
For more information about the concert, the works on the program and background of the Wingra Wind Quintet (below, in 2018, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) as an acclaimed faculty chamber music ensemble, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/wingra-wind-quintet-2/2019-11-08/
UW CHORALE
This Saturday night, Nov. 9, in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall of the Hamel Music Center, the UW Chorale (below) will perform a FREE concert with an eclectic theme.
The program is called “How to Spice Up Your Life.” Selections include works about music, dance, chat, sports, love, outings and cooking.
The concert includes a performance of PDQ Bach’s The Seasonings, a parody of baroque oratorios, featuring faculty soloists Julia Rottmayer and Paul Rowe with student soloists Angela Peterson and Charles Hancin. (You can hear Part I of “The Seasonings” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For more information, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-chorale-3/
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Classical music: The Festival Choir of Madison will perform Slavic music – including several U.S. and world premieres — under a guest Spanish conductor this Saturday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Festival Choir of Madison (below) will perform the program “The Slavic Soul” this coming Saturday night, May 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive.
The Festival Choir will have guest conductor Nikoleta Popova for the event, who is coming from Spain to conduct a program comprised of songs either by Slavic composers or inspired by Slavic music. More about the conductor is below.
Several U.S. premieres are marked with an asterisk and there is one world premiere.
Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors 65 and over; and $10 for students. For information and tickets, go to: https://festivalchoirmadison.squarespace.com/concerts/2018/5/theslavicsoul
Here is the complete program:
THE SLAVIC SOUL
Bela Bartok (1881-1945) – Four Slovak Folk Songs (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1908-1975) – Two Russian Folk Songs. With Anya Gubenkova, alto
Alexander Davidenko (1899–1934) – “At Ten Versts From the Capital”* with Ted Reinke, piano, and Dan Broner, organ
Vera Nasha (Our Faith)* Serbian Folk Song, arr. Yónatan Sánchez Santianes with James McKenzie, percussion
Szymon Godziemba-Trytek (1988) Agnus Dei (World Premiere) with Ted Reinke, organ
Georgy Sviridov (1915–1998) – “A Wondrous Birth”; “Balalaika”; and “Reveille.” With Anya Gubenkova, alto
Dobri Hristov (1875–1941) – “Rachenitsa”
Todor Popov (1921–2000) – “Stara Sa Maika” (The Old Mother)*
“Kalinka,” a Russian Folk Song arranged by Vadim Prokhorov
The guest conductor is Nikoleta Popova (below) of Bulgaria and Spain. She is a renowned specialist in Eastern European and Bulgarian music and has offered seminars and master classes all over the world.
Currently, Popova is Professor in Conducting at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Canarias in Las Palmas, Spain, where she is also music director of the conservatory orchestra and choirs. She has appeared as guest conductor in Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the U.S., as well as her native Bulgaria.
Born in Dobrich, Bulgaria, Nikoleta Popova received her education as a conductor from the National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria, and from Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz. Among her teachers are Eric Whitacre, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Alex Schillings, Klaas Stok, Marco Antonio Da Silva Ramos, and others.
In 2011 Nikoleta Popova received her Ph.D. from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with a dissertation on the performance of the black spiritual. Since 2012, she has published three books in Spanish with in-depth analysis of the problems that singers and conductors face in the interpretation of African-American spirituals.
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Classical music: The Ear gives a hearty Shout Out! to the All-Festival Concert of early Slavic music by the Madison Early Music Festival.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Last Saturday night, in Mills Hall, The Ear saw and heard the All-Festival Concert by the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF).
Historically, that concert – which brings together students, faculty and guest artists – is the closing wrap-up of the festival, and The Ear has been to quite a few of them over the past years.
But this year’s event proved one of the best ever, right at the top of the list.
The topic this year was “Slavic Discoveries: Early Music from Eastern Europe.”
To be honest, the music itself was not one of my all-time favorites of MEMF, although it had many beautiful moments.
What proved most impressive to my ears and eyes was the incredible variety that the various performers managed to instill into a concert that otherwise could have been pretty monotonous.
But this concert was anything but monotonous. The performances were well-rehearsed and quite polished.
The program presented a wide variety of works by Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Russian composers from the 16th through the 18th centuries.
There was, as usual, a lot of vocal music by some of the biggest orchestral and choral forces I recall seeing.
But there was also some impressive instrumental music that featured some pretty eye-catching instruments, including the oversized lute-like theorbo (below top) and the Celtic harp (below bottom).
And the forces used the entire hall, even putting brass at the top of the back balcony at one point.
Plus, early music expert and retired UW-Madison professor Medieval history John W. Barker served as the narrator in an engaging piece about the slain Polish trumpeter whose battle call is still played today in Krakow in his honor.
The singers sang in large groups and small groups — solo, duets (below) and quartets — and all permutations performed superbly. The voices were strong and clear, and the diction always seemed excellent.
Conducting duties – split between guest main conductor Kristina Boerger (below top) and assistant conductor Jerry Hui (below bottom) – were exemplary.
It can be easy to lose a sense of balance and control with such large forces. But the range of dynamics from soft to loud, from slow to fast, never felt awkward or wrong. Not here. The blending and flow were superb.
So The Ear offers a hearty Thank You! to all the participants of this year’s Madison Early Music Festival who made this final concert so satisfying.
And to listeners, I say: If you can only make one concert during the Madison Early Music Festival each summer, the All-Festival Concert is a good bet — and a great place to start if early music is new to you.
Judging from this latest installment, you won’t be disappointed.
And you just might catch The Bug!
Tags: Arts, Baroque, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, concerto, Early music, Eastern European, Esterhazy, harp, Hungary, Jacob Stockinger, Kraków, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, MEMF, Orchestra, Poland, Russia, Slavic, Ukraine, United States, University of Wisconsin–Madison
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