The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Madison New Music Ensemble makes its debut this Friday night. A FREE harpsichord recital is Friday at noon
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ALERT: This Friday’s FREE Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features harpsichordist Faythe Vollrath (below). She has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal for her “subtly varied tempo and rhythm that sounds like breathing.” Her programs do not focus solely on early music, but also incorporate new music written for historic instruments. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear and see her playing the 1993 “Toccata” by Emma Lou Diemer.)
By Jacob Stockinger
On this coming Friday night, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, the Madison New Music Ensemble will give its debut concert.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors. Only cash and personal checks will be accepted at the door.
The program features music by the group’s artistic director and Madison-based composer Joseph Koykkar — the director of music in the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — Robert Muczynski, Ed Martin, Lennon/McCartney and others.
Special guests are The Vine Street Trio, a faculty trio from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, playing works by contemporary composers and saxophonist Peterson Ross.
Members of the Madison New Music Ensemble (below, from left) are: Danielle Breisach; Joseph Koykkar; Monica Jiang; Joseph Ross; Amy Harr; Elena Ross; and Bethany Schultz
For more information about the performers and the group, go to the Madison New Music Ensemble page on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/madisonnewmusicensemble/
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Classical music: As the semester ends, choral music concerts -– most of them FREE -– stack up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here is a summary for this week and next.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The end of the semester is approaching, and the situation is once again typical.
The choral concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music are starting to stack up the same way that singers walk on stage and start filling up risers.
Every semester, it seems, the choral music performances get backed up and squeezed into the last few weekends of the semester.
To help you fill in your calendars and datebooks, here is a summary of the major groups and concerts.
THIS FRIDAY
The UW Madrigal Singers and Chorale will both give FREE concerts at 7:30 p.m. in Luther Memorial Church (below), 1021 University Ave.
Bruce Gladstone (below) will conduct the groups.
Here are some notes from the UW-Madison School of Music website and calendar:
“With a Merry Noise” features sacred music from 20th-century England.”
Here are the programs:
Chorale
“Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem” (1910) by Charles Villiers Stanford (below top, 1852-1924)
“O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem” (1941) by Herbert Howells (below bottom, 1892-1983)
Madrigal Singers
“The Twelve” (1965) by William Walton (below, 1902-1983)
INTERMISSION
Combined Ensemble
“Pilgrim’s Journey” (1962) by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) (A cantata adapted from Vaughan Williams’ opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (1951) based on the allegory by John Bunyan.]
With UW-Madison faculty members John Chappell Stowe, organ; Bruce Gladstone, conductor.
Soloists for Pilgrim’s Journey are: Sara Guttenberg, soprano; Josh Sanders, tenor; and Paul Rowe, baritone.
NOTES FROM THE UW SCHOOL OF MUSIC
England experienced an oft-called musical renaissance in the last half of the 19th century. Composers like Hubert Parry (below), Charles Stanford and others at the Royal College of Music sought to raise the standard of composition and find a true “English voice.”
The works on this concert, though stylistically varied, display a characteristic “Englishness,” and offer a look at four very important composers who not only helped change the face of music in Great Britain, but who also wrote sublime and glorious works.
The three shorter works were all written as church anthems. Vaughan Williams’ “Pilgrim’s Journey” started life as an opera and was adapted into its present cantata format for performance as a non-staged work.
THIS SUNDAY
On Sunday night, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Concert Choir (below bottom) will present a FREE concert, under director Beverly Taylor (below top), called the “Style Show.”
It features works of different periods from the Renaissance to the present and showing where they overlap and imitate each other.
The composers include Orlando Gibbons, Robert Pearsall, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gyorgy Orban and John Harbison (represented by his jazz arrangements). Featured are serious and happy motets, several extended works, folk songs and close harmony.
NEXT WEEK
On Friday, Nov. 21, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall the University Chorus and the UW Women’s Chorus will give a FREE concert.
Anna Volodarskaya and Sarah Guttenberg will conduct.
Here is the program:
Three Madrigals Emma Lou Diemer (below)
Praise His Holy Name Keith Hampton
Ruhetal Felix Mendelssohn
Exsultate justi in Domino Ludovico da Daviana
UW CHORAL UNION AND UW SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
On Saturday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall and Sunday, Nov. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Choral Union (made up of campus and community singers) and the UW Symphony will perform under the baton of Beverly Taylor (all seen below).
Tickets are $15 for the public; $8 for seniors and students.
Program:
Antonin Dvorak Te Deum
Ralph Vaughan Williams Flos Campi
Featuring Professor and Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm
Giuseppe Verdi Te Deum
“Presented will be the buoyant, robust and beautiful Te Deum by Antonin Dvorak (performed for the first time by Choral Union); the languorously beautiful Flos Campi by Ralph Vaughan Williams for wordless chorus and solo viola, and the dramatic Te Deum by Giuseppe Verdi set for very large orchestra.
The two Te Deums are very different settings of an ancient liturgical song of praise.
The Flos Campi (below in a YouTube video) features violist Sally Chisholm (below), a member of the Pro Arte String Quartet and Professor of Music at UW-Madison.
Tags: Arts, baritone, choral music, Classical music, Dvorak, Emma Lou Diemer, Felix Mendelssohn, Flos campi, Herbert Howells, Jacob Stockinger, John Bunyan, John Harbison, Keith Hampton, Madison, madrigal, Mozart, Music, Orchestra, organ, Orlando Gibbons, Pro Arte Quartet, Ralph Vaughan Williams, soprano, Te Deum, tenor, The Pilgrim's Progress, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Choral Union, UW Symphony Orchestra, vaughan williams, Verdi, William Walton, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, women's chorus, YouTube
Classical music education: The Madison Youth Choirs perform the 11th Annual Spring Concert Series this Sunday afternoon and night. They will premiere a new work about Shakespeare’s “Macbeth by UW-Madison alumnus Scott Gendel.
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By Jacob Stockinger
On this Sunday afternoon and evening, May 18, 2014, the Madison Youth Choirs (MYC, below) will ends the celebration of their 10th anniversary and celebrate the return of spring with a lively concert series featuring several groups whose membership total over 300 talented young singers.
All concerts will take place in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center for the Arts in downtown Madison.
Tickets are $10-$20, and can be purchased in three ways:
1. online at www.overturecenter.com
2. By phone at (608) 258-4141
3. In person at the Overture Center box office, 201 State St., Madison, Wisconsin.
Throughout this season, focused on the theme “Arts & Minds,” MYC’s singers have discovered connections between visual and vocal expressions of human creativity, using both mediums as a lens to explore the world.
Concert selections will include works from a wide variety of musical eras and cultures, including classical pieces by Bach and Vivaldi, traditional folk songs in Hebrew and Japanese, and contemporary pieces by Cindy Lauper and Eric Whitacre (below), creator of the “Virtual Choir,” which has become a global phenomenon on YouTube.
MYC’s boychoirs will make history with the world premiere of University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music alumnus Scott Gendel’s “Sound and Fury,” featuring text from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
This ambitious new work by Gendel will be a fitting prelude to the boychoirs’ upcoming summer tour to Scotland, where they will perform in the invitation-only Aberdeen International Youth Festival (below).
For more information about Scott Gendel, visit:
Continuing its commitment to celebrating the work of outstanding local music teachers, MYC will also present the Music Educator of the Year Award to Jan Vidruk. Ms. Vidruk (below center ) is a nationally recognized leader in early childhood education who has inspired young people in music and movement classes for over 40 years.
Here is the Concert Information, Schedules and Programs for Sunday, May 18, 2014
1 p.m. – Choraliers (below in a photo by Cynthia McEahern
Hashivenu…Traditional Hebrew
Bee! I’m Expecting You… Emma Lou Diemer
Ae Fond Kiss… Traditional Scottish, arr. Kesselman
The Duel… Paul Bouman
Kojo no Tsuki… Traditional Japanese, arr. Snyder
Con Gioia (below in a photo by Karen Holland)
For the Beauty of the Earth… John Rutter
The Jabberwocky… Jennings
Tres Cantos Nativos dos Indios Krao… Leite
Annie Laurie… arr. Rentz
Capriccio (below in a photo by Mike Ross)
Hark! The Echoing Air… Henry Purcell
Hotaru Koi… Ro Ogura
The Seal Lullaby… Eric Whitacre
Niska Banja… Traditional Serbian, arr. Nick Page
4 p.m.: Purcell
Gloria Tibi (from Mass)… Leonard Bernstein
Simple Gifts… Traditional
Orpheus with his Lute… Ralph Vaughan Williams
Laudamus Te (from Gloria in D Major)… Antonio Vivaldi
Britten
The Lord Bless You and Keep You … John Rutter
Er Kennt die rechten Freudenstuden … Johann Sebastian Bach
Holst
The Bird…William Billings
The Cowboy Medley…arr. R. Swiggum
Anthem (from Chess)…Anderson/Ulveas, arr. R. Swiggum
Ragazzi (below in a photo by Dan Sinclair)
dominic has a doll… Vincent Persichetti
Si, Tra i Ceppi… George Frideric Handel
Fair Phyllis… John Farmer
Madison Boychoir (Purcell, Britten, Holst — below in a photo by Karen Holland — and Ragazzi combined)
Sound and Fury (world premiere)… Scott Gendel, text from Macbeth
Will the Circle Be Unbroken?… Traditional, arr. R. Swiggum
7:30 p.m. High School Ensembles
Cantilena
How Merrily We Live… Michael Este
Salut Printemps… Claude Debussy
Hope… Andrew Lippa
Hope is the Thing… Emma Lou Diemer
Ragazzi
dominic has a doll… Vincent Persichetti
Si Tra i Ceppi… George Frideric Handel
Fair Phyllis I Saw Sitting…John Farmer
Cantabile
Cruel, You Pull Away Too Soon… Thomas Morley
Chiome d’Oro… Claudio Monteverdi
Mountain Nights… Zoltan Kodaly
Las Amarillas…Stephen Hatfield
Time After Time… Cyndi Lauper, arr. Michael Ross
Cantabile and Ragazzi
Come Thou Fount of Ever Blessing…arr. Mack Wilberg
A Hymn for St. Cecilia…Herbert Howells (heard at bottom in a YouTube video)
This project is supported by American Girl’s Fund for Children, the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, the Kenneth A. Lattman Foundation, American Family Insurance, Dane Arts with additional funds from the Evjue Foundation, charitable arm of The Capital Times, and BMO Harris Bank. This project is also supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the state of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
ABOUT THE MADISON YOUTH CHOIRS (MYC)
Recognized as an innovator in youth choral education, MYC inspires enjoyment, learning, and social development through the study and performance of high-quality and diverse choral literature. The oldest youth choir organization in Wisconsin, MYC welcomes singers of all ability levels, challenging them to learn more than just notes and rhythms. Singers explore the history, context, and heart of the music, becoming “expert noticers,” using music as a lens to discover the world. MYC serves more than 500 young people, ages 7-18, in 11 single-gender choirs.
In addition to a public concert series, MYC conducts an annual spring tour of schools and retirement centers, performing for more than 7,000 students and senior citizens annually. MYC also collaborates with professional arts organizations including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Ballet, and Madison Opera, while continually supporting and recognizing the work of public schools and music educators throughout the area.
In summer 2014, MYC boychoirs will travel to Scotland for their first appearance at the invitation-only Aberdeen International Youth Festival.
For further information about attending or joining, visit http://www.madisonyouthchoirs.org contact the Madison Youth Choirs at info@madisonyouthchoirs.org, or call (608) 238-7464
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