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Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) will build a new $25 million home on East Washington Avenue

June 24, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following major announcement to post:

The Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) has announced plans to construct a new $25 million-building in the 1100 block of East Washington Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin.

The new home will occupy three lots and will replace the historic Avenue Bar (below)

The new music center will continue WYSO’s vision to expand instrumental music education and performance opportunities for young people of diverse backgrounds and inspire excellence and a lifelong connection to music.

More than 500 young musicians from communities throughout southern Wisconsin currently participate in WYSO’s programs.

This 500 percent growth in student numbers since the organization’s founding is driving the need for facilities large enough to support both the organization’s programs and its mission of providing transformational musical experiences and opportunities.

For more information about WYSO, go to its home website: https://wysomusic.org

The purchase of the property and the kick-off of WYSO’s capital campaign have been made possible by two lead gifts totaling $18 million from Pleasant Rowland and Jerry Frautschi, who have long been supporters of the organization.

The planned 40,000 sq. ft- building will provide state-of-the-art rehearsal spaces sized for full orchestras; a room designed for percussion including a world-class array of percussion instruments; rehearsal rooms perfect for ensembles and chamber music; a piano laboratory; and small teaching studios for private lessons.

The building will also hold all of WYSO’s current orchestra and Music Makers programs, administrative offices, a music library— and provide opportunity to grow.

But the building will NOT contain public performance spaces. WYSO will continue to rent and use venues that already exist.

Since the fall of 2020, the organization – which used to be located in the UW-Madison School of Music — has been without a home base and has pieced out its program in different facilities throughout the Madison area. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the WYSO Youth Orchestra give a virtual and socially distanced performance last year of the finale of Rossini’s Overture to “William Tell.”)

This new building will allow all of WYSO’s programs to thrive under a single roof and provide the space, location, resources and connections necessary for WYSO to become a key collaborator in a growing youth arts community.

WYSO’s new home will be around the corner from the newly constructed Madison Youth Arts (My Arts), creating a vibrant youth arts synergy on the near east side. (An architect’s renderings of the exterior and interior theater are below.)

Located on a major transit corridor for easy access with adequate parking, the building will be in proximity to area performing arts venues, with space for WYSO’s programs and community events.

Says WYSO’s Executive Director Bridget Fraser: “Thanks to the incredible generosity of Pleasant Rowland and Jerry Frautschi, musicians of all ages will have state-of-the-art rehearsal facilities to call home. It’s a dream come true!”

WYSO has partnered with Urban Assets, city planners with experience in real estate development; Strang, an integrated architecture, engineering, interior design and planning firm with a history of designing for the civic and cultural sectors; Talaske Sound, experts in architectural acoustics; and J.H. Findorff & Son, a local construction firm passionate about youth education and the arts.

Posted in Classical music
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Library of Congress streams UW pianist Christopher Taylor’s online Liszt-Beethoven symphony recital for free this Thursday night

December 16, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

This Thursday night, Dec. 17, from 7 to 9 p.m. CST, University of Wisconsin-Madison virtuoso pianist Christopher Taylor (below) will close the celebration of the Beethoven Year, marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth, at the Library of Congress. After the concert’s premiere, it will stay posted online.

For the past several years, Taylor has been performing the solo piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt of Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies both in Russia and at the UW-Madison.

Here is more from the website of the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music:

“It takes extraordinary skill as an orchestrator to condense an entire symphony by Beethoven (below top) into a version for a solo instrument, but that is just what Franz Liszt (below bottom) accomplished in his piano transcriptions. (You can hear a sample, along with a visual representation, of the Fifth Symphony transcription in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

“Hear virtuoso pianist Christopher Taylor perform three of these transcendent symphony transcriptions, works he describes as a “new perspective on something familiar.” (The Ear, who has heard Taylor’s impressive performances of almost all nine symphonies, finds that comparing the two versions is like looking at the same photograph in color and then black-and-white. Color emphasizes details while black-and-white emphasizes structure. You hear new things by comparing the two.)

The performance was pre-recorded in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall of the Hamel Music Center.

The program is:

BEETHOVEN/LISZT

Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36

Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

You can find more details at: https://loc.gov/concerts/christopher-taylor.html

You can Register on Eventbrite

Hailed by critics as “frighteningly talented” (The New York Times) and “a great pianist” (The Los Angeles Times), Taylor has distinguished himself throughout his career as an innovative musician with a diverse array of talents and interests.

He is known for a passionate advocacy of music written in the past 100 years — Messiaen, Ligeti and Bolcom figure prominently in his performances — but his repertoire spans four centuries and includes the complete Beethoven sonatas, the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and a multitude of other familiar masterworks.

Whatever the genre or era of the composition, Taylor brings to it an active imagination and intellect coupled with heartfelt intensity and grace.

Taylor has concertized around the globe, with international tours taking him to Russia, Western Europe, East Asia and the Caribbean.

At home in the U.S. he has appeared with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, the Madison Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony. As a soloist he has performed in New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, in Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Ravinia and Aspen festivals, and dozens of other venues.

In chamber music settings, he has collaborated with many eminent musicians, including Robert McDuffie and the Borromeo, Shanghai, Pro Arte, and Ying Quartets.

His recordings have featured works by Liszt, Messiaen and present-day Americans William Bolcom and Derek Bermel.

Throughout his career, Taylor has become known for undertaking memorable and unusual projects. Examples include: an upcoming tour in which he will perform, from memory, the complete transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies by Liszt; performances and lectures on the complete etudes of Gyorgy Ligeti; and a series of performances of the Goldberg Variations on the unique double-manual Steinway piano (below) in the collection of the University of Wisconsin.

Numerous awards have confirmed Taylor’s high standing in the musical world. He was named an American Pianists’ Association Fellow for 2000, before which he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1996 and the Bronze Medal in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In 1990 he took first prize in the William Kapell International Piano Competition, and also became one of the first recipients of the Irving Gilmore Young Artists’ Award.

Taylor lives in Middleton, Wis., with his wife and two daughters. He is a Steinway artist.

For more biographical information — including his piano teachers and his education as well as his interest in mathematics and engineering — go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/christopher-taylor-concerts-from-the-library-of-congress/

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Grace Presents HD offers a free virtual online concert by the acclaimed Willy Street Chamber Players this Saturday at noon

August 19, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Cellist and UW-Madison graduate student James Waldo has sent the following announcement about a FREE virtual online concert by Grace Presents, which he coordinates.

The hi-def, one-hour concert by the critically acclaimed and popular Willy Street Chamber Players (below) is at noon (CDT) this Saturday, Aug. 22.

Says Waldo:

“This is a pre-recorded event, and as such, I had the singular pleasure of sitting in the room while these fantastic musicians recorded their program. This event is not to be missed!

“Grace Presents HD brings you free, crystal-clear performances by local Madison musicians in the nave of historical Grace Episcopal Church – located downtown on the Capitol Square — from the comfort and safety of your own home.

“The Willy Street Chamber Players will have a video premiere that will be available on the Grace Presents YouTube channel on this Saturday, Aug. 22 at noon CDT. (This virtual concert is available for a limited time only!)

You can see and hear a preview of the concert in the YouTube video at the bottom.

Artists in the Willy Street Chamber Players are: Paran Amirinazari, artistic director, violin and viola; Eleanor Bartsch, violin and viola; Mark Bridges, cello; and Lindsay Crabb, cello, five-string cello.

You can find more information about the chamber music ensemble, including a link to a post in which The Ear named them as Musicians of the Year for 2016, at: http://willystreetchamberplayers.org

As is typical for The Willys, the program reflects diversity and includes both classical masters and contemporary composers:

Schubert: String trio in B-flat major, D. 47

Tania León (below) – Four Pieces for Solo Cello: II. Prayer

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber – Passacaglia

George Walker (below) – “Bleu”

J.S. Bach – Solo Cello Suite No. 6 in D major: I. Prelude and IV. Sarabande

Kimo Williams (below): “Quiet Shadows”

Beethoven: String Trio in G major, Op. 9, No. 1 / I. Adagio-Allegro

“We will be hosting a Zoom meet-and-greet with our guest artists following the performance. If you’d like to attend this virtual gathering, please RSVP to Grace Presents Program Coordinator James Waldo (gracepresents@gmail.com) for more information.

“Here is biographical background: The Willy Street Chamber Players (WSCP) are dedicated to creating community through classical music. Established in 2015, the group has become a fixture of the Willy Street neighborhood’s vibrant cultural scene.

“Recently awarded a gold medal in Madison Magazine’s prestigious “Best of Madison” reader poll, WSCP has received numerous accolades for its accessible and exciting performances, intelligent and fun programming, and community partnerships.

“Today, the group consists of four core members. Led by Artistic Director and violinist Paran Amirinazari, each player brings a fresh, imaginative take to classical music.

WSCP convenes each July – this summer’s concerts were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic — to present their popular summer concert series at Immanuel Lutheran Church (below) on Spaight Street. For these programs, the group has collaborated with many well-known guest artists from Madison and beyond.

“In addition, WSCP presents an array of events throughout the year including the admission-free Community Connect series that aims to bring classical music to inclusive spaces.

“WSCP has also performed at many other popular Madison venues including Marquette Waterfront Fest; Summer Serenades at Memorial Union Terrace; the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin compound in Spring Green; the Madison New Music Festival; and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA).”

OTHER DETAILS

Video recording and editing has been done by: https://www.microtonemedia.com/

Audio engineering has been done by Bruce Kasprzyk.

Grace Presents is supported in part by generous project grants from Dane Arts, the Madison Arts Commission, the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) and the Grace Episcopal Development Fund Trust as well as individual gifts and in-kind support.

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Classical music: Leon Fleisher, the inspirational pianist and teacher who died a week ago, had ties to Madison

August 9, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Famed American pianist and teacher Leon Fleisher (below, in a photo by Chris Hartlove), who also conducted, died of cancer at 92 last Sunday, Aug. 2.

Wisconsin Public Radio, like many other media outlets including National Public Radio (NPR) and most major newspapers and television stations, devoted a lot of time to tributes to and remembrances of Fleisher.

That is as it should be. If any musician deserved it, Fleisher did.

Fleisher (1928-2020) was a titan who became, over many years and despite major personal setbacks — stemming from an almost paralyzed right hand — a lot more than a keyboard virtuoso.

But despite lots of air time, less well covered has been his relationship to Madison audiences, who had the pleasure of seeing and hearing him several times in person.

In 2003 and then again in 2016 (below top) — at age 88 — Fleisher performed with the University of Wisconsin’s Pro Arte String Quartet (below bottom).

Both times he played the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, a masterpiece of chamber music. He and his wife, Katherine Jacobson, also performed a joint recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater in 2009.

Fleisher felt at home in Baroque, Classical, Romantic and even modern music. He was renowned as an interpreter of Brahms. Indeed, his early and widely acclaimed recordings of both Brahms piano concertos as well as of the Waltzes and Handel Variations remain landmarks.

Once he was again playing with both hands, Fleisher also recorded the piano quintet for Deutsche Grammophon with the Emerson String Quartet, another frequent and favorite performer in Madison. (You can hear the finale in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Here is a this blog’s review of his last Madison appearance: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=Leon+Fleisher

Fleisher liked performing with the Pro Arte, and therein lies another historical tale.

His most influential teacher — the famed pianist Artur Schnabel, with whom the San Francisco-born Fleisher went to study in Europe when he was just 9 — also played often with the earlier members of Pro Arte Quartet. Together they recorded Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet by Franz Schubert, and that recording is still in the catalogue and available on Amazon.

Fleisher discusses studying with Schnabel in his entertaining and informative 2010 autobiography “My Nine Lives” (below).

Fleisher was a child prodigy who made his name while still young. Famed French conductor Pierre Monteux – who conducted the world premiere of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” in Paris — called Fleisher the “musical find of the century.” Fleisher made his concerto debut at 16 with the New York Philharmonic under Monteux.

Fleisher was just 36 and preparing for a tour with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell – a perfect pairing and a conductor with whom he recorded all the Beethoven and Brahms concertos among may others – when he found he could not uncurl the last three fingers of his right hand.

Various diagnoses and causes were offered, and many cures were tried. In the end, it seems like that it was a case of focal dystonia that was caused by over-practicing, especially octaves. “I pounded ivory six or seven hours a day,” Fleisher later said.

After a period of depression and soul-searching, Fleisher then focused on performing music for the left hand; on conducting; and especially on teaching for more than 60 years at the Peabody Institute, located in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University.

There he helped shaped the career of many other famous pianists, including André Watts, Yefim Bronfman and Jonathan Biss (below, in a photo by Julian Edelstein), who played when Fleisher received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007. (All three have performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.)

Here is an inspiring overview of Fleisher’s life and career from the Peabody Institute: https://peabody.jhu.edu/faculty/leon-fleisher/

And here is another short biography from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Fleisher

Here are three especially noteworthy obituaries:

NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2020/08/02/702978476/leon-fleisher-the-pianist-who-reinvented-himself-dies-at-92

The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/arts/music/leon-fleisher-dead.html

The Washington Post, written by critic Anne Midgette who worked with Fleisher on his memoir: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/leon-fleisher-sublime-pianist-with-one-hand-or-two-dies-at-92/2020/08/02/c7c98f90-527d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html

The Ear has always found Fleisher’s playing remarkable for its technical fluency combined with the utmost clarity and exacting but flexible sense of rhythm. He always managed to make a piece of music sound just right, as it was intended to sound. His musicality always seemed innate and perfectly natural.

Sample it for yourself. The Ear thinks the performance of all five Beethoven concertos with George Szell still sets a high standard with its exciting, upbeat tempi, its exemplary balance between piano and orchestra, and its exceptional engineering.

The affable Fleisher will long remain an inspiration not only for his playing and teaching, but also for his determination to overcome personal obstacles and go on to serve music — not just the piano.

Did you ever hear Leon Fleisher play live or in recordings? What did you think?

Do you have a comment to leave about the legacy of Fleisher?

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The future of Western classical music is in Asia – specifically China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Why is that?

May 25, 2019
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By Jacob Stockinger

It’s not just about Lang Lang.

The signs are everywhere.

They were present at a recent piano recital by elementary school, middle school and high school students that The Ear attended.

You see it at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and at top music schools, including the Curtis Institute of Music, across the U.S. and Western Europe. And you see it in youth groups such as the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (below).

Western classical music recording labels, such as Deutsche Grammophon and Sony Classical, are looking to develop new markets and so are signing more Asian musicians, such as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai String Quartet, and releasing more Asian performances. (Below is the Taiwanese-Australian, prize-winning violinist Ray Chen, who is also a master at using social media to build his meteoric career.)

All these items point to the same conclusion: The future of Western classical music looks more and more likely to be found in Asian culture and in Asia – specifically in China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. (Next season, prize-winning South Korean pianist Joyce Yang (below) returns to Madison, where she first gave a recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater, to solo with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.)

Consider some of the following:

There are, The Ear read somewhere, now more piano students in China than in all of Europe, North America and South America combined. And he is reading about more and more concert tours of China and other Asian countries by Western performers — even while in the U.S. the number of pianos in homes are on the decline.

Increasingly the winners of major international competitions — such as the Chopin competition, the Van Cliburn competition, the Tchaikovsky competition, the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium competition and the Leeds competition – come from Asia or are Asian. (Below, in a photo by Simon Fowler, is American pianist George Li, who immigrated from China as a child and attended Harvard and the New England Conservatory before winning a silver medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition. His concert career is now blossoming fast.)

In recent years, China has been building a lot of first-rate concert halls, opera houses and music schools. And the famed Juilliard School in New York City will open its second campus this fall in Tianjin, near Beijing.

China has certainly come a long way from the days of the Cultural Revolution when people could be imprisoned for listening to Beethoven, who is now a cultural icon in China — as you can hear at the bottom in the YouTube video of Li Jing Zhan conducting the orchestra at the Chinese National Opera in Beethoven’s No. 7. (Below is the striking new National Center for the Performing Arts in China.)

https://www.interlude.hk/front/culture-construction-chinas-new-concert-halls/

Nineteen of the 24 final competitors, ages 13-17, in the second Van Cliburn Junior Competition – which starts in Dallas, Texas, on May 31 and ends on June 8 – are Asian, Asian-American and Asian-Canadian, all with astonishingly impressive credentials and experience. It will be streamed live and free. Take a look and listen:

https://www.cliburn.org/2019-cliburn-junior-competitors/

Why this Asian shift is happening remains somewhat of a mystery to The Ear, although he had been thinking about for a long time.

Then he came across a op-ed column confirming the prevalence of Asian classical musicians. It was written by the American concert pianist and teacher Inna Faliks (below), who teaches at UCLA and who wrote convincingly about her recent concert experiences in China in The Washington Post.

Read it and see what you think, and tell us whether you agree:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-future-of-classical-music-is-chinese/2019/03/22/2649e9dc-4cb5-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html?utm_term=.7f149e0f8eb9

Why are Asians so interested in Western classical music and music education? And why do they respect it or even revere it so much?

Does it have to do with the “tiger mom” phenomenon of strong parental pressure to succeed and achieve?

Is it largely a function of population?

Is it because of the collective teamwork required to make a lot of chamber music and orchestral music, or with the intense and instructive teacher-student relationship?

Is it because the cultural depth and seriousness in Western music education – ing contrast to the increasingly pop culture of the West – that prepares students well for the training and intellectual discipline required in other educational fields and careers, including the STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)?

Is Asia simply fascinated by Western culture the same way that Western culture was fascinated by the exotic Asian cultures – especially in China and Japan — during the 19th century and earlier? Or is the West increasingly ignoring its own culture. (The Ear can’t recall any classical musicians performing at President Donald Trump’s White House. Can you?)

How do you see the situation and react to it? And what do you think about the causes and effects?

Please leave your reactions and thoughts in the COMMENT section.

The Ear wants to hear.

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Classical music education: Here are 10 reasons why students should be allowed to major in music

August 29, 2017
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By Jacob Stockinger

Many, maybe most, of the college and university students are back by now.

And a week from tomorrow, classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will begin.

K-12 classes in public schools and private schools will also start, if they haven’t already, as will another year of music lessons.

And so will the new concert season.

Coincidentally, The Ear came across a post from Forbes magazine that deals with whether students should be allowed to major in music (below, in a photo by Shutterstock).

Many parents, and many politicians too, feel that more practical, higher paying fields are better investments of energy, time and especially money.

The same logic applies these days to the arts and humanities versus the so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Anyway, the advice columnist Liz Ryan answered the question with 10 reasons why it is a good idea to let a student major in music.

The Ear –- who is an avid defender of the liberal arts and of college years not as a trade school but as a chance to explore and experiment — thought that whether you are a student, parent or teacher, you might be interested in reading the reasons why a music major makes sense.

Here is a link:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2017/06/04/ten-reasons-to-let-your-kid-major-in-music/

Classical music: The Ear offers a big shout-out and good luck to three girl choirs in the Madison Youth Choirs. They are headed this week to a major world youth festival in Aberdeen, Scotland and give a FREE send-off concert this Tuesday night

July 25, 2016
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By Jacob Stockinger

Two years ago, it was the boy choirs of the Madison Youth Choirs that were invited to sing at the prestigious international festival in Aberdeen, Scotland.

It is, after all, the oldest youth arts festival in the world, about 40 years old and features performers form around the world.

This week, on Thursday, 68 members of three girl choirs in the Madison Youth Choirs – the Capriccio (below top, in a photo by MYC director Michael Ross), Cantilena and Cantabile (below bottom) choirs — along with three conductors, are headed to the same festival.

NOTE: You can hear a FREE send-off sampler concert on this Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at the Covenant Presbyterian Church, 326 South Segoe Road.

It is a BIG DEAL.

The repertoire the girls will sing covers classical music (Franz Schubert); folk music from Canada, Serbia, Bulgaria and Peru; and more popular music. Plus, they will sing in several languages. They will also sing a song composed in the Terezin concentration camp, or death camp, in Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II.

They will also give the world premiere of a piece – based on two Scottish melodies including a traditional walking song and the beautiful “The Water Is Wide” — that they commissioned from composer Scott Gendel, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. (You can hear James Taylor sing a heart-breaking version of “The Water Is Wide” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

The Ear heard the girls sing live last week on the Midday program with Norman Gilliland on Wisconsin Public Radio. And they sounded great.

What an honor, especially in the wake of the concert tour to Italy two weeks ago by the Youth Orchestra of the Wisconsin Youth Chamber Orchestras.

Madison sure seems to be doing a fine job providing music education to its young people while many other areas of the state and country are cutting back on arts education and where many politicians and businesspeople are mistakenly trying to turn public support to the so-called STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and math — at the expense of the arts. But the arts and the sciences really feed each other, and success in one field often helps to assure success in the other.

Here is a link so you can learn more about the tour and how to support or join the Madison Youth Choirs, which serves young people in grades 5-12:

http://www.madisonyouthchoirs.org

http://www.madisonyouthchoirs.org/aberdeen

And here is a link to the festival itself:

http://www.aiyf.org

And finally here is a link to the Facebook page for the Madison Youth Choirs, with face photos of participants:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/448022498728594/

Classical music education: Let us now praise K-12 music teachers as an elementary music teacher in Whitewater wins an award for Excellence in Music Education

May 31, 2016
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Memorial Day holiday is over and now we start winding down the academic year in public and private K-12 schools.

That makes it a great time to catch up with news that reminds us how important music education and education in the arts, humanities and liberal arts, can be to the development of the whole child or young person and to lifelong learning.

It helps us to realize that, despite what many legislators say, education should never be a trade school that provides vocational education or career preparation, and that education is not always all about the so-called STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – deemed so useful to business, industry and individual wealth accumulation. (You can hear educator Richard Gill give a popular TED Talk about the value of music education in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

So here is open important reminder via a press release:

The Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and Ward-Brodt Music have awarded their 2016 Award for Excellence in Music Education to Whitewater music teacher Christine Hayes of Lincoln/LINCS Elementary School at a choir concert for grades 2-5.

The presentation was held on Tuesday, May 17, in the Whitewater High School Auditorium.

This annual award celebrates an educator who displays leadership, passion, dedication, and innovation within the music classroom, positively affecting the lives of his or her students and the community at large, and is designated for one outstanding music educator in southern Wisconsin.

The MSO and Ward-Brodt developed the award to recognize that cultivating the artistic growth of young students is one of the unique and challenging jobs for teachers in Wisconsin.

Christine Hayes (below) has dedicated her life to enriching young people and the communities around her through music education. In her 29 years of working in the Whitewater Unified School District and by contributing to music in her community in a variety of ways, she’s changed the lives of many students and her colleagues. She believes that “inspiring and challenging children today will lead to their embracing music for their lifetime.”

In the nominations by parents, teaching colleagues, church members, and school administrators, Hayes was described as “a power house of creative energy” who “encourages children to express their feelings through music.”

Her students at Lincoln/LINCS Elementary School, where she has spent the last 19 years, can take part in diverse musical experiences including world drumming, playing guitar and recorder, composing music, and singing in many languages. All of these experiences for children make her classroom “an exciting, musical adventure.”

She has also taught elementary and middle school band, middle school guitar, keyboards and general music.

A former colleague who nominated her wrote, “Mrs. Hayes leads by example by continuing to find ways to improve as an educator by constantly pursuing her own education. She recently completed a trip to Ghana in order to learn about their musical culture.”

In her own words, Hayes said, “My goal is for each student to imagine themselves in musical experiences, provide them authentic learning situations where they create, respond, perform and connect, then collaborate with those students to apply their knowledge and skills to discover their personal musical path.”

Outside the classroom, she founded an after-school orchestra where she volunteers her time as coordinator allowing children to enrich their music education. Currently in its eighth year, the Whitewater Unified School District Strings Program has touched the lives of many school children, with 72 students participating this past year, ranging from fourth grade to high school.

She is also a music leader in her community. Hayes has been serving as the Choir Director for the First United Methodist Church in Whitewater for the past 20 years and served on the board of directors of the Whitewater Arts Alliance for five years.

In her free time she plays clarinet with the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Community Band.

Hayes has also been deeply involved with developing Wisconsin state standards for music education by serving on the writing committee for the National Common Core Music Standards from 2012 to 2014.

In 2015, she was asked to join the Steering Committee for the Wisconsin Music Educators Association (WMEA), continuing her work to improve music education in Wisconsin. Hayes has served as the Chair of the NAfME National Council for General Music Education and as a President of the WMEA.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in music education from Central Michigan University and a master’s degree in music from Northwestern University. She currently resides in Whitewater, Wisconsin.

In 2007 she won the Wal-Mart Wisconsin Teacher of the Year award and in 2008 the Herb Kohl Fellowship Award.

Hayes will be awarded a commemorative plaque and a $500 prize. These prizes have been made possible through the generosity of Ward-Brodt Music of Madison, Wisconsin. To be qualified for the award, a nominee must have taught within a 75-mile radius of Madison in a public or private K-12 school and instructed a band, orchestra, choir or general music course.

Colleagues, current or former students, parents of students, or friends were eligible to nominate a music educator for the award.

The review panel consisted of representatives from public and private school administration, veteran teachers, university staff and knowledgeable community members. (For the sake of full disclosure, The Ear sat on the committee that reviewed the many impressive nominations and decided the winner of the award.)

For more information regarding the Award for Excellence in Music Education, visit http://madisonsymphony.org/award.

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Classical music: On Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., SoundWaves moves to Mills Hall to present a FREE and PUBLIC discussion and performance of inventions and music from the 1920s.

October 20, 2015
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By Jacob Stockinger

Daniel Grabois (below, in a photo by James Gill), a professor of horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and a friend of The Ear, writes:

I’m not sure if you know about my FREE and PUBLIC series SoundWaves. But I’d like to tell you about it because we have our first-ever presentation in the UW-Madison School of Music next week. It is part of the statewide Wisconsin Science Festival.

The basic idea is this: I choose a theme and get four scientists from different disciplines (or sometimes academics from the humanities) to explore the theme — for the layman — in short 15-minute talks.

I then give a short talk about the theme as it relates to music.

Then, there’s a related music performance.

To make this concrete for you, our program coming up is about The Roaring ’20s.

Now in its fourth year, the SoundWaves series is underwritten by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF, below with founder Prof. Harry Steenbock), which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. So it seemed fitting to explore the decade of its creation for our first event of the year.

Accordingly, we will have a historian of science speaking about Vitamin D, which was discovered and synthesized by Steenbock, explaining things like “What the hell IS a vitamin, anyway?”

Then, a dermatologist will talk about bandaids (invented in 1920). Kids love them, but do they work? How? Why does someone invent a bandaid?

Next, a law professor will discuss the lie detector, also invented in 1920. We see them on cop shows, but do they work? Is their evidence admissible in court? How do they work?

Then, an industrial engineer will speak about automotive breakthroughs from the 1920s that have shaped our driving experience. Power steering, the traffic light, the car radio (invented by Motorola, hence the “motor” in the company name) — all were invented in the 1920s and all have had a broad impact on cars and driving today.

Then I’ll be talking about music of the 1920s. I’m particularly interested in what was then the recent invention of the 12-tone system by Arnold Schoenberg (below). If you are a composer, how on earth do you respond to that? Do you reject it, and if so, what do you do instead? How is the musical aesthetic reshaped by such a radical (and difficult to listen to) idea?

At the end, there will be a performance of the String Quartet No. 1 (subtitled “Kreutzer Sonata,” based on the short story by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy) by Czech composer Leos Janacek (below top), written in 1923, played by the Rhapsodie String Quartet (below bottom, in a photo by Greg Anderson), made of Madison Symphony Orchestra players including Suzanne Beia, our own second violinist of the Pro Arte Quartet. (You can hear it in a YouTube video at the bottom.)

We’ve been getting around 175 people for our programs at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, including lots of people who come back over and over.

For me, doing this series is hugely stimulating — being able to collaborate across traditionally rigid academic boundaries is one of the reasons I was excited to come to Madison.

Here are the specifics:

Date: This Saturday, Oct. 24, at 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Speakers and performers:

Kevin Walters, WARF historian-in-residence

Klint Peebles, Department of Dermatology

Keith Findley, UW Law School

John Lee, Department of Industrial Engineering

Daniel Grabois, School of Music and SoundWaves curator

Rhapsodie String Quartet

For more information, visit:

http://discovery.wisc.edu/home/town-center/programs–events/soundwaves/soundwaves.cmsx

Sales pitch over!

Hope to see you there.

Classical music education: How do you capture sound in pictures? Photographer Michael R. Anderson talks about his images of musicians at the UW-Madison School of Music. His photos are on show at the Lowell Center through April 30. A public reception is this Sunday afternoon 1-3.

March 6, 2015
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By Jacob Stockinger

If you go to the official website (http://www.music.wisc.edu) and the A Tempo blog (https://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music — and you really should do so regularly if you are a classical music fan in the Madison area — you are likely to see a lot of photographs taken by Michael R. Anderson.

So who is he?

And what does he say about his photographs, which feature striking compositions and a fine sense of animation?

You can judge for yourself from the new exhibition of his images at the Lowell Center, 610 Langdon Street, phone (608) 256-2621. It went up last Sunday, but has its official opening and reception this Sunday afternoon — with refreshments and with the photographer present — from 1 to 3 p.m.

The free exhibit runs through April 30 at the UW-Extension Building At some future time, according to UW School of Music officials, some of Anderson’s images will be put on display outside Mills Hall and Morphy Hall.

For more information, visit:

http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/photo-exhibit-mike-anderson/

Michael R. Anderson (below) kindly spoke to The Ear about his photo show:

Can you briefly introduce yourself to readers and tell them about your personal and professional interests?

I was born and raised in Wisconsin and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970 with a degree in Chemistry. After teaching for nine years, I returned to school, earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering and subsequently worked for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. When we retired, my wife and I returned to Wisconsin.

How and when did your interest in photography start and what drew you to music as a subject matter?

In 1966 I went to summer school in Germany. An aunt lent me her Kodak Instamatic to take with me. I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed trying to capture that summer in pictures. I’ve enjoyed photography as a hobby ever since. Since my wife and I like to camp and hike, landscape and nature photography is a favorite subject.

Our older son, Eric, is a UW-Madison School of Music graduate. He’s now the band director at Verona Area High School and he also conducts the Verona Area Concert Band. My first real attempt to photograph musicians was when he asked me to take pictures of the Concert Band for their website. That turned out to be more fun than I had anticipated, and I’ve photographed them several times over the past few years.

How did you get started taking pictures for the UW-Madison School of Music?

Kathy Esposito, who manages Public Relations for the School of Music, placed an ad in a local photography newsletter seeking a volunteer to take pictures that she could use to update the school’s website. One of the joys of retirement is having time to volunteer for jobs like this, so I contacted her.

Do you have favorite areas of interest or subject matter —portraits, action shots, rehearsals or performances, individuals or groups?

Candid shots of the musicians rehearsing or performing are my favorite, especially those of individuals or small groups. Trying to capture their energy, emotion and concentration as they play is an interesting challenge.

Do you see any parallels between photography and music?

They’re both food for the right side of the brain. Life would be rather boring without the arts to inspire us.

Do you care to share any technical information (camera, lenses, flash, processing software, printer, paper) for those who are interested?

Photographers like to say that the equipment is not important. Nevertheless, many people, even other photographers, are interested. All but one of the photos in this exhibit were taken on a Canon 7D with a Canon 70-200 f/4L or a Canon EF-S 17-85 f/4-5.6 lens. Lightroom and Photoshop were used to process the RAW files and the pictures were printed on Red River Polar Matte paper with an Epson Stylus Photo R2000 printer.

What do you most enjoy about making photos of music? What aspect do you least enjoy or find most challenging?

Photography gives me a chance to describe an aural experience with a visual language. That’s an interesting task. The difficult part is that classrooms are not photo studios with plenty of bright lights. I often have to use slower shutter speeds and higher ISOs (film speeds) than I would like.

How many images to you generally shoot during a typical concert to arrive at a “keeper” shot?

This can vary quite a bit, depending on the type of scene I’m trying to capture as well as the lighting and other factors. But it’s not unusual to take 10-20 photos to get one I like. One is never enough, of course, so it’s easy to take several hundred during a concert to get a selection of final images that cover various phases of the performance.

What else would you like to say?

These photos capture just a few moments in time but the music lives on through the excellent programs and performances at the UW-Madison School of Music.

If your readers have additional questions, there will be an open house for this exhibit at the Lowell Center (below), 610 Langdon St., on this coming Sunday, March 8, from 1 to 3 p.m. At 2 p.m. I will make a few comments about the exhibit and answer questions.

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