The Well-Tempered Ear
The Willy Street Chamber Players give a virtual concert in November plus personalized live “micro-concerts” with tickets that go on sale this Wednesday. Plus, the Madison Symphony Orchestra organ concerts start TONIGHT with a FREE online recital by Greg Zelek
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ALERT: Tonight, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. CDT, the Madison Symphony Orchestra will open its concert organ series with a FREE streamed virtual online concert MSO virtual concert live from Overture Hall. The performer is MSO organist Greg Zelek (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) and the program includes music by Debussy, Franck, Durufle and Satie among others. For more information and to register, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/greg-zelek-2020-streamed/
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following note that once again cements the reputation that the Willy Street Chamber Players have for inventive, innovative and ingenious programming, even during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Willy Street Chamber Players (below) have announced a reimagined 2020 season titled 1NTERLUDE. The project includes two unique events designed with safety in mind and aims to provide meaningful artistic experiences during the pandemic.
BEYOND THE SCREEN
BEYOND THE SCREEN is a virtual concert that will air online on Sunday, Nov. 15, at noon CST. The program will explore two colorful works for violin and cello by Kodaly (below top) and Ravel (below bottom) as well as other unique works. (You can hear Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
While viewing, audience members will be encouraged to submit questions and insights via an online form.
After the performance, members of the group will host a virtual “reception” on ZOOM where they’ll answer submitted questions and lead a discussion.
MICRO-CONCERTS
The chamber music group is also announcing an entirely new way to experience live music during coronavirus pandemic: 1-on-1 “micro-concerts”that will start on Saturday, Nov. 2, and occur on a variety of dates this fall.
Tickets go on sale beginning this Wednesday, Oct. 14. Up to two guests from the same household can sign up for a 10-minute slot at the location of their choice to view a “living, breathing musical art exhibit.”
Locations include the new Arts + Literature Laboratory (below top), Garver Feed Mill and A Place To Be (below bottom), all on Madison’s east side.
Ticket prices will operate on a “pay what you can” structure. The group has suggested a $20 donation per concert.
“When you enter the room and sit down, two members of the Willy Street Chamber Players will curate a personalized concert just for you, says Willy Street co-founder and violinist Eleanor Bartsch (below). “The musicians will choose from a wide variety of solo and duo works in the moment. Micro-concerts are solely about the music. You enter the room as you are, in silence and with an open mind.”
Adds violinist Paran Amirinazari (below), who is the artistic director and co-founder of the Willys: “We encourage you to make your concert what you need it to be in this time: 10 minutes of meditation, healing, escape, positivity, relaxation or simply beautiful music.”
For more information, including safety guidelines such as masks and social distancing, go to: www.willystreetchamberplayers.org
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Classical music: The Madison Early Music Festival’s 20th anniversary Grand Tour includes a silent movie and rare books as well as lots of varied music to mark its success after 20 years. Part 2 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
A big anniversary deserves a big celebration – and that is exactly what the organizers of this year’s Madison Early Music Festival, which is marking its 20th year, have come up with.
All concerts include a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m. The concerts begin at 7:30 p.m.
Here’s the link for all the information about MEMF: https://memf.wisc.edu/
Tickets are $90 for an all-event pass. Individual concerts are $22, $12 for students. Tickets are available for purchase online and by phone at 608-265-ARTS (2787) with a $4 service fee; or in person at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office @ Memorial Union.
Co-artistic director Cheryl Bensman-Rowe recently wrote about the festival in a Q&A for this blog. Yesterday she spoke about the overall concept and the first weekend’s concerts. Here is a link to Part 1:
Here is Part 2 of 2:
What events take place next week?
The concert on Tuesday, July 9, is going to be a unique experience for MEMF audiences. HESPERUS creates the soundtrack for the 1923 silent film “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” with music (below) from 14th- and 15th-century France. (The cathedral was started in 1163 and finished in 1345.)
Compositions include French and Burgundian music from 1300 to 1500, featuring Guillaume de Machaut, Jehan l’Escurel, Guillaume Dufay, as well as lesser-known composers such as Vaillant, Morton and Borlet.
On Friday, July 12, the vocal ensemble Calmus (below) performs “Faith and Madness,” a program of a dialogue between sacred music masterpieces followed by madrigals that portray madness, love, war and loneliness.
Composers include Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Heinrich Schütz, Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo, Clement Janequin and others.
All of the singers are graduates of Leipzig’s renowned St. Thomas Church Choir School. Calmus was founded in 1999. This a cappella quintet embodies the rich choral tradition of its hometown, the city associated with Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn.
To hear a preview of their arrangement of Bach’s “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659, visit: https://youtu.be/WNzzUU0GcF4
Can you tell us about the program and performers for the All-Festival concert on Saturday, July 13?
The All-Festival Concert includes all of our workshop participants and faculty. We work together to prepare the concert all week and it is truly a MEMF community project. Grant Herreid (below) has created the All-Festival program this year. Grant is a genius at designing a program that tells a musical story featuring MEMF’s faculty and participants.
“Musical Postcards from The Grand Tour” features a narrator, loosely based on Thomas Coryat (below, at sea and in the Alps), the English 17th-century century travel writer, who, as a young man, travels throughout Europe in search of music. Beginning in London, 1641, the musical itinerary continues to Venice, Rome, Naples, Dresden, Paris, and back to London.
The program features so many wonderful composers, and the large ensemble pieces are: the Gloria from Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituale; the beautiful Miserere of Gregorio Allegri; Nun danket alle Gott by Heinrich Schütz; Domine salvum fac regem setting by Jean-Baptiste Lully; and, as an ending, This point in time ends all your grief from Ye tuneful muses by Henry Purcell.
Are there other sessions — guest lectures, certain performers, particular works — that you especially recommend for the general public?
All the planning that goes into each festival leads me to encourage the general public to attend everything! The concert series, lectures and workshops have so much to offer.
The special moments that I’m looking forward to are singing in the All-Festival concert and performing Allegri’s Miserere,a stunning piece that I have never heard performed in Madison. (You can hear it in there YouTube video at the bottom.)
I also look forward to hearing the fantastic musical soundtrack created by HESPERUS for the silent movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and the Calmus singing connection back to Bach through their musical education in Leipzig, plus experiencing all the different travelogues of the past as they come to life through narrations and music.
Special events include a dance with a live band drawn from the MEMF Faculty with dance instruction by Peggy Murray, Grand Tour Dance Excursions, at the Memorial Union in the Great Hall on Thursday, July 11, at 7:30 pm. https://memf.wisc.edu/event/07-11-2019-2/
The lecture series features some well-known Madisonians like J. Michael Allsen (below top), who writes program notes and lectures for the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Maria Saffiotti Dale (below bottom), curator at the Chazen Museum of Art.
There will be a special exhibit created for MEMF in the lobby of Memorial Library by Jeanette Casey, the head of the Mills Music Library and Lisa Wettleson of Special Collections at Memorial Library. This curated display includes materials about the Grand Tour, including one of the oldest travelogues from 1611 written by Thomas Coryat.
The exhibit will be in the lobby of Memorial Library (below) and open to the public from Saturday, July 6, through Thursday, July 18, with a special talk about the exhibit during the festival on Monday, July 8, at 11:30 a.m.
This partnership allows the library to display rarely seen original and facsimile publications, some dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries within the context of the MEMF theme.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
In 1611 Thomas Coryat, the author of the travelogue Crudities foretold what you will hear at MEMF in 2019:
“…I heard the best musicke that ever I did in all my life…so good that I would willingly goe an hundred miles a foote at any time to heare the like…the Musicke which was both vocall and instrumental, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so superexcellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like”.
Get your tickets for the concert series. Attend the lectures. Take some classes. See a movie. Come and dance with us. Join us to experience the ultimate musical gap year at our 20th anniversary celebration!
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Classical music: The Madison Early Music Festival will present a Grand Tour of musical styles to mark its success after 20 years. The “tour” starts this Saturday, July 6, and runs through Saturday, July 13. Part 1 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
A big anniversary deserves a big celebration – and that is exactly what the organizers of this year’s Madison Early Music Festival (below, the All-Festival Concert in 2018) have come up with.
Co-artistic director Cheryl Bensman-Rowe recently wrote about the festival in a Q&A interview for this blog. Here is Part 1 of 2:
This summer marks the 20th anniversary of the Madison Early Music Festival. Can you briefly summarize the progress of the festival over all those years and how you – through audience size, participants, media coverage – measure the success it has achieved?
How successful is this year’s festival compared to the beginning festival and to others in terms of enrollment, budgets and performers? How does this of MEMF’s reach nationally or even internationally compare to previous years?
What can you say about where the festival will go in the coming years?
As the 20th Madison Early Music Festival approaches, we have looked back at how far we have come from 1999 when we were a little festival of 60 participants and faculty. We have grown to our current size of 140 faculty members and participants — fellow lovers of early music.
Last year, we had the largest group of participants when 120 students enrolled. MEMF now attracts students of all ages, from 18 to 91, amateurs and professionals, from all over North America and Europe.
Our success is due to the help and support of many individuals and outside organizations. We could not manage MEMF without the amazing staff at the Division of the Arts at UW-Madison. They help with everything from printed materials, website design and management, social media, grant writing, fundraising, proofreading and on-site assistance at all of our events and more.
Paul and I (below) work with Sarah Marty, the Program Director of MEMF, who keeps things organized and running smoothly throughout the year.
Also, we are grateful to our dedicated MEMF Board, donations from many individuals, grants, and the generosity of William Wartmann, who created an endowment for the festival, and after his death left an additional $400,000 for our endowment. It takes a village!
Not only have we become an important part of the summer music scene in Madison, but we have contributed to the national and international early music community. The 2019 concert series will be featuring artists from California to New York, Indiana to Massachusetts, and from Leipzig, Germany.
We hope to have many old and new audience members join us for this exciting celebration of our 20th year. For future seasons our motto is “To infinity and beyond!” as we continue to build on our past successes.
What is new and what is the same in terms of format, students, faculty members and performers?
This year we have a new program, the Advanced Voice Intensive, which provides an opportunity for auditioned advanced singers who are interested in a capella vocal music from the Renaissance – singing sacred polyphony and madrigals to improve their skills as ensemble singers.
Twenty singers from all over the country will be joining the inaugural program to rehearse and perform music from Italy, England and Germany.
At the end of the week they will sing in a masterclass with the vocal ensemble Calmus (below) on Thursday, July 11, at 11:30 a.m. in Morphy Recital Hall. On Saturday, July 13, they will perform in a FREE concert with the popular Advanced Loud Band ensemble in Morphy Recital Hall.
Here’s the link for all the information about MEMF: https://memf.wisc.edu/
All concerts include a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m. and the concerts in Mils Hall begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $90 for an all-event pass; each individual concert is $22, for students $12. Tickets are available for purchase online and by phone at 608-265-ARTS (2787) with a $4 service fee, or in person at the Campus Arts Ticketing Box Office @ Memorial Union.
We also have two Fringe Concerts this year featuring new vocal ensembles from Wisconsin. On Monday, July 8, at 7 p.m. at Pres House, Schola Cantorum of Eau Claire (below), a 12-voice ensemble directed by UW-Madison graduate Jerry Hui, will perform “Mystery and Mirth: A Spanish Christmas.”
And on Wednesday, July 10, at 7 p.m. at Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, the Milwaukee-based Aperi Animam (below) perform “Libera Nos,” a program of sacred vocal music.
The Fringe Concerts are FREE with donations accepted at the door.
Why was the theme of “The Grand Tour” chosen for the festival? What is the origin of the conceit, and what major composers and works will be highlighted?
We decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary by choosing a theme that would be broader than previous years and portray what people might experience when they are 20 years old – traveling abroad on a gap year.
We were also inspired by Englishman Thomas Coryat, aka “The First Tourist.” He published his travelogue Crudities in 1611, an amusing and thorough account of his five months of travel throughout Europe. This tradition of the Grand Tour of Europe continued through the 17th and 18th centuries, especially when wealthy young aristocrats finished their formal schooling.
Several of the concert programs this summer feature quotes from different travelogues, including Coryat’s, as an organizational concept. If you search all over Europe, you find an American at Versailles learning courtly manners, and a fictional Englishman, born in 1620, sending postcards from the Grand Tour.
We will also have a stop at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris with the silent film version of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and a musical tour of sacred vocal music and madrigals. This theme allowed us to include music from many different time periods from all over Europe — a rich Grand Tour of musical offerings!
The opening concert on this Saturday, July 6, features Dark Horse Consort returning to Madison with Wanderlust, their newly created program for MEMF’s Grand Tour theme. The program follows the misadventures of an English gentleman as he embarks on a continental Grand Tour adventure in search of love and fulfillment.
Our hero’s travelogue includes springtime consort songs by Alfonso Ferrabosco and William Byrd; Erasmus Widmann’s beguiling German dances dedicated to women; the wooing songs of the Italian gondolier; and sultry Spanish airs.
On Sunday, July 7, Alchymy Viols (below) performs “American at Versailles,” an original ballet masque of French baroque music, dance and drama written and choreographed by Sarah Edgar, featuring Carrie Henneman Shaw, soprano; Sarah Edgar, director and dancer; and guest soprano Paulina Francisco. The American on the Grand Tour encounters the exotic world of French baroque manners, dress, dance and love.
TOMORROW: Part 2 explores the rest of the festival next week, including a rare book exhibit and the All-Festival finale on Saturday night
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Classical music: Starting Wednesday, the second LunART Festival will again spotlight women in the performing and creative arts. Here is the first of a two-part preview
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received a long and detailed announcement about the upcoming second LunART Festival. Here is Part 1 with background and participants. Tomorrow will be Part 2 with more information about new music and a schedule of events.
The LunART Festival is back for its second season from this Wednesday, June 5, through Sunday, June 9, and will continue its mission of supporting, inspiring, promoting and celebrating women in the arts.
The 2019 season brings 10 events to eight venues in the Madison area, providing accessible, high-quality, engaging concerts and events with diverse programming from various arts fields.
The festival will showcase over 100 artists this season, including many familiar local artists and performers as well as guest artists hailing from Missouri to Texas, Minnesota to Florida and as far away as Peru.
LunART’s inaugural 2018 season was a success on numerous fronts. From showcasing a wide variety of artists and arts disciplines to building lasting relationships and collaborations, LunART has distinguished itself from other arts events in Madison.
Both artists and audiences have commented that the LunART atmosphere is one of camaraderie, love and acceptance. Festival directors Iva Ugrcic and Laura Medisky (below right and left, respectively) have set this season to come back even stronger, with expanded dates and more diverse programming.
Like last year, the three ticketed evening gala concerts are centered on classical chamber music. Other art forms — including contemporary and aerial dance, poetry, spoken word and visual arts — are interwoven throughout the programs to create a unique atmosphere for performers, artists and audiences.
This year’s Grammy-nominated composer-in-residence is flutist Valerie Coleman (below), a former member of Imani Winds, who was described as one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” by The Washington Post.
Coleman embodies LunART’s vision by challenging norms and being a strong advocate for diversity in the arts. Her rich compositional output infuses elements of jazz and African secular music into the Western classical tradition, creating a soundscape that honors both worlds. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Valerie Coleman playing her own composition “Fanmi Imen” at the 2018 convention of the National Flute Association.)
Coleman’s music will be featured throughout the festival among the works of other remarkable women who shaped music history, from Baroque composer Barbara Strozzi to Romantic composer Clara Schumann to living composer Missy Mazzoli.
Drawing from Madison’s rich arts scene and community, LunART 2019 features local artists including: former Madison poet laureate Andrea Musher (below); actor and theater artist Deborah Hearst; choreographers and dancers Liz Sexe and Kimi Evelyn; and aerial dancer Linda DiRaimondo.
Also featured are musicians from arts organizations such as Madison Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Fresco Opera Theatre, Arbor Ensemble, Madison New Music Ensemble and Sound Out Loud Contemporary Music Collective. Under the direction of Edgewood College professor Kathleen Otterson, Madison’s only women’s choir ARTemis Ensemble returns in greater numbers and will present a work by LunART 2018 “From Page to Stage” alum Meg Huskin among others.
Visual art will have a stronger presence in the 2019 Festival. From May 11-July 7, Overture’s Playhouse Gallery will house “Women Against Hate United by Love,” a collaborative, traveling art exhibition and multi-step “anti-hate” campaign united against bigotry, intolerance and racism, created by J. Leigh Garcia (below), Rachael Griffin and Kelly Parks Snider.
A gallery reception on Wednesday, June 5, serves as LunART’s opening event, in which Snider will give a talk about the exhibit and her use of art to educate communities about targeted issues in the hopes of shaking up the status quo. This engaging and thought-provoking exhibit is meant to provide a meaningful and hopeful community experience for all who attend.
In collaboration with Studio 84 and ArtWorking, two nonprofit art studios specializing in the creative development of people with disabilities, the final Gala concert at First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, on Saturday, June 8, will showcase 40 artworks. This exhibit will feature 20 women artists whose works will be displayed, flanking the Atrium Auditorium stage as well as in the lobby.
Tomorrow: New music to be premiered, comedy and the full schedule of events
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Classical music: The 16th annual all-day Wisconsin Flute Festival will be held this Saturday and will present a FREE public concert on Saturday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
The 16th annual Wisconsin Flute Festival will be held on this coming Saturday, April 6, at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Wisconsin Flute Festival brings together flutists and music lovers of all ages from Wisconsin, the greater Midwest, and across the country, for an engaging and educational day celebrating everything flute.
The festival includes: workshops; lectures; performances; junior, youth, and collegiate artist competitions; master classes and an extensive exhibit hall.
This year’s festival will feature guest artist Bonita Boyd (below in a photo by Kate Lemmon), an internationally renowned performer and Professor of Flute at the Eastman School of Music. (You can hear a sample of her teaching in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The festival will begin at 8 a.m. at the Pyle Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and will culminate in a FREE 90-minute public concert beginning at 5:30 p.m. in Music Hall, at the bottom of Bascom Hill and a short walk from the Pyle Center.
The free evening concert will be performed by featured guest artist Bonita Boyd with Madison guitarist Christopher Allen (below).
Workshop topics will include yoga for flutists, orchestral audition preparation, recording techniques, a repair clinic, piccolo techniques, and more.
Participants will also have the opportunity to participate in an interactive session with low flutes including; alto flutes, bass flutes, and a contrabass flute, and take part in two flute choir reading sessions.
Performances during the day will feature an eclectic mix of music performed by professional and student flutists.
Festival attendees will hear music by composers from around the globe and from a variety of periods. Compositions by living composers will feature prominently in many of the recitals at the festival. Solo flute, flute and piano, flute quartet, and flute with mixed ensemble can be heard.
For flutists shopping for an instrument, music or accessories, companies from across the U.S. will be on-site in the Festival’s exhibit hall. Technicians will be also available to evaluate instruments and conduct minor repairs. Confirmed exhibitors include Burkart Flutes and Piccolos, Flute Specialists, Inc., Flute World, the Geoghegan Company, Heid Music and Verne Q. Powell Flutes.
Tickets range from $30 to $40 for festival participants. Tickets for non-flutist family members of participants (parents, siblings, etc.) are available for at a special rate of $7. Registration is now open and information is available online at https://wisconsinflutefestival.org. Tickets can also be purchased at the festival.
The evening concert, beginning at 5:30 p.m., will be held in Music Hall at the UW-Madison and is FREE and open to the public.
The program will include Mountain Songs by Robert Beaser, Histoire du Tango by Astor Piazzolla, Canyon Echoes by Katherine Hoover, Entr’acte by Jacques Ibert and Pièce en form de Habenera by Maurice Ravel.
The 2019 Flute Festival – which is a program of the Madison Flute Club — is sponsored by Heid Music. Major funding is provided by Verne Q. Powell Flutes, American Printing, Eric and Tobi Breisach, Distillery Marketing and Design, and Karl Sandelin – in memory of Joyce Sandelin.
Additional funding is provided by Audio for the Arts, Breisach Cordell PLLC, Dr. Danielle and Jeffrey Breisach, Madison Classical Guitar Society, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, and Jessica and Jim Yehle.
ABOUT THE MADISON FLUTE CLUB
The Madison Flute Club was founded in 2002 and currently presents over 20 concerts each year to an audience of more than 1,500 community members. The club involves, on average, 35 active adult members and over 30 youth from the surrounding area.
To advance and achieve its mission, the Madison Flute Club has undertaken several large projects and partnered with numerous organizations and events in Dane County. These projects include the commissioning and world premiere of a work for flute choir for Design MMoCA, successfully fundraising for a contrabass flute — the first such instrument in Wisconsin — and performing at the National Flute Association Convention.
Madison Flute Club ensembles and members have been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio’s The Midday with Norman Gilliland, on WORT 89.9 FM in Madison and in the publication The Flutist Quarterly.
For more information about the Madison Flute Club, go to: http://www.madisonfluteclub.org
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Classical music: How did a reformation in religion and a revolution in printing change music? The 19th annual Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) offers answers and samples this week. Part 2 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
Starting this Saturday and running through the following Saturday, the 19th annual Madison Early Music Festival will explore the profound effects that the Lutheran Reformation and the invention of printing had on Renaissance and Baroque music of the time.
The festival is called “A Cabinet of Curiosities: A Journey to Lübeck.” For a complete listing of programs, lectures, concerts and workshops, with information about tickets, go to: https://memf.wisc.edu
Soprano Cheryl Bensman Rowe — who directs the festival with UW Arts Institute’s Sarah Marty and her husband and UW-Madison baritone Paul Rowe — recently agreed to do a Q&A with The Ear about the upcoming festival. Here is Part 2 of 2. And, if you missed the beginning, here is a link to Part 1:
How does early north German music differ from its counterparts in, say, Italy, France, Germany and England. What is the historical origin and aesthetic importance of the music from that era in that part of the world?
One of the biggest changes during the Reformation in Germany began with sacred music and the far-reaching changes in the way it served the church. The music of mass, motet, psalm and hymn heard in the great urban cathedrals, cloistered chapels and royal palace churches of Catholicism represented the “otherness” of the divine, a God unreachable by the untutored masses.
Written in an intellectual language which required years of rigorous training to learn and understand, it was only the disciplined, practiced choir boys and men who could perform this sacred polyphony in all its wonder and glory.
Luther sought to traverse this divide. Though he held the existing music of sacred polyphony in high esteem, he felt that music could be used to even greater effect in furthering the education and religious commitment of the people.
Luther (below) chose the hymn form as the principle means to his musical aims. A prolific hymnodist himself, he authored hymns such as the famous “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God“) several settings of which begin the All-Festival concert, attempted to connect existing high art with folk music in a style that would appeal to all classes, clergy and laity, men, women and children. His texts were in the German vernacular in order to convey messages that would be understood by all in a way that the Latin of preexisting hymns were not.
The culmination of those first 100 years of reformed musical development and the composers whose works will be performed throughout the week at MEMF, launched the reformed hymnody of Luther (below) and his followers into the stratosphere of such giants as Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach (all the Bachs for that matter) and on, a trail that continues to the present day.
What music and composers of that era have been most neglected and least neglected by historians and performers? Does rediscovery of works and composers play a special role this year?
Throughout the week we will be featuring compositions from the Choir Library from the Marienkirche in Lübeck (below) is a collection of music that Lübeck scholar and Buxtehude biographer Kerala Snyder catalogued and reconstructed.
The collection ended up in Vienna in the 19th century, and is a comprehensive data base that includes compositions by German and Italian composers, including Heinrich Schütz, Hermann Schein, Palestrina – the list starts with Agazzari and ends with Zucchini.
Besides the Choir Library compositions, audiences will have an opportunity to hear works of Buxtehude that have never been performed in Madison.
Can you tell us about the program and performers for the All-Festival concert on Saturday, July 14?
The All-Festival Concert (below) includes all of our workshop participants and faculty. We work together to prepare the concert all week and it is truly a MEMF community project. The music will be drawn from settings and compositions based on Lutheran chorales such as Ein Feste Burg and from the Choir Library of the Marienkirche.
The concert concludes with Buxtehude’s Missa Brevis and concludes with his grand motet, Benedicam Dominum in omne tempore, written for six contrasting choirs, which Buxtehude surely composed to match the structural design of the Marienkirche. (You can hear the Kyrie from Buxtehude’s “Missa Brevis” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Are there other sessions — guest lectures, certain performers, particular works — that you especially recommend for the general public?
All the planning that goes into each festival leads me to encourage the general public to attend everything. The concert series, lectures and workshop have so much to offer.
Special events include a dance with a live band drawn from the MEMF Faculty with dance instruction by Peggy Murray, Tanzen und Springen,at Memorial Union in the Grand Hall on Thursday night.
The lecture series features some well-known Madison scholars — John W. Barker and J. Michael Allsen, plus Michael Alan Anderson (below top), director of Schola Antiqua and professor of musicology, and Jost Hermand (below bottom), Professor Emeritus at the UW-Madison.
There will be a special exhibit created for MEMF in the lobby of Memorial Library by Jeanette Casey, the Head of the Mills Music Library and Lisa Wettleson of Special Collections at Memorial Library.
This curated display reflects the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The exhibit will be in the lobby of Memorial Library and open to the public through Thursday, July 19, 2018, with a special talk about the exhibit during the festival on Monday, July 9, at 11:30 a.m. This wonderful partnership allows the library to display rarely seen original and facsimile publications, some dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries within the context of the MEMF theme.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Martin Luther, who was a great lover of music, said: “The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them…. In summa, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits…”
Join us to hear what Luther was talking about! Get your tickets for the concert series! Attend the lectures! Take some classes! You’ll find a link for all the information about MEMF at www.madisonearlymusic.org
Tags: #AMightyFortressIsOurGod, #ArtsInstitute, #BaroqueMusic, #BritishMusic, #CabinetofCuriosities, #CatholicReligion, #ChoirBoy, #ChristianChurch, #ChristianMusic, #ChristianReligion, #DataBase, #DietrichBuxtehude, #EinFesteBurg, #EmeritusProfessor, #FrenchMusic, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GeorgPhilippTelemann, #GermanComposers, #GermanMusic, #GiovannidePalestrina, #GrandHall, #HeinrichSchütz, #HermannSchein, #ItalianComposers, #ItalianMusic, #J.MIchaelAllsen, #JesusChrist, #JohannSebastianBach, #JohnW.Barker, #JostHermand, #KeralaSnyder, #LatinLanguage, #LübeckGermany, #LutheranReformation, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MadisonWisconsin, #MartinLuther, #MemorialLibrary, #MichaelAlanAnderson, #MillsMusicLibrary, #MissaBrevis, #MusicFestival, #PeggyMurray, #ProtestantReformation, #ProtestantReligion, #RareBooks, #RenaissanceMusic, #RomanCatholic, #RomanCatholicism, #RomanCatholicReligion, #SacredMusic, #ScholaAntiqua, #SecularMusic, #SpecialCollection, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #ViennaAustria, #WesternCulture, #WesternMusic, #WesternReligion, #WordofGod, #YouTubevideo, aesthetic, Agazzari, anniversary, Arts, Bach, baritone, Baroque, base, beginning, biographer, biography, Book, books, cabinet, cathedral, Cello, Chamber music, chapel, children, Choir, choral music, church, class, classes, Classical music, composer, Composition, Concert, dance, data, data base, divien, Early music, earlymusic, Education, emeritus, England, era, esthetic, exhibit, festival, France, George Frideric Handel, German, Germany, God, Heinrich Schütz, historian, historical, History, hymn, invention, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, John W. Barker, Jost Hermand, journey, Kerala Snyder, Kyrie, laity, Latin, lecture, library, lover, Lubeck, Madison, Marienkirche, mass, masses, Memorial Library, men, Mills Music Library, motet, Music, musicology, palace, Palestrina, part, Peggy Murray, People, performer, polyphony, premiere, printing, professor, program, psalm, Religion, royal, Schien, Schola Antiqua, scholar, Sonata, soprano, St. Mary, time, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, urban, vernacular, video, Vienna, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, women, word, work, works, workshop, YouTube, Zucchini
Classical music: Starting this Friday, the Madison Early Music Festival will devote a week to exploring familiar and unfamiliar Iberian music during the age of Cervantes. Part 1 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday, when the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) starts its week-long exploration of Iberian music during the Renaissance Age of novelist Miguel de Cervantes (below) and his pioneering novel “Don Quixote,” much will be familiar but much will also be new.
To provide a look at what to expect, the longtime co-artistic directors of the festival – wife-and-husband singers soprano Cheryl Bensman Rowe and baritone Paul Rowe (below) – provided the following overview through an email Q&A with The Ear.
All-festival passes are $90 and tickets to individual concerts cost $20, $10 for students.
Click here to buy online, call 608-265-ARTS (2787), or visit the Campus Arts Ticket Box Offices in Memorial Union or Vilas Hall (click here for hours).
(Note: All MEMF Concert Series concerts and lectures are free for participants in the MEMF Workshop. There is a $4 transaction fee per ticket when purchasing online or by phone.)
How successful is this year’s festival compared to others in terms of enrollment, budgets, performers, etc.? How does this program of MEMF’s reach nationally or even internationally compare to previous years?
We will have about 100 students at our workshop this summer, which has been a steady number for the past five years. Our budget increased to cover the big Don Quixote project by Piffaro, which you can read about below.
We continue to attract workshop participants and performers from all over the United States and Canada, and this year our concert series will present Xavier Diaz-Latorre from Spain. For more information, go to: www.xavierdiazlatorre.com
What is new and what is the same in terms of format, students, faculty members and performers?
The following events are new to MEMF this summer:
The Historical Harp Society will be giving a conference before MEMF begins, from Thursday, July 6 through Saturday, July 8, with classes and lectures that will culminate in a concert of Harp Music from the Spanish Golden Age on Friday, July 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, which is FREE and open to the public. Go to www.historicalharpsociety.org
Master teacher and performer Xavier Diaz-Latorre will be giving a master class in Morphy Recital Hall on Saturday, July 8, from 10 a.m. to noon. It is free and open to the public.
We have a new partnership with the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies (LACIS) Program at UW-Madison. LACIS has helped us translate materials and supported MEMF with two grants. www.lacis.wisc.edu
A new display in the Memorial Library foyer will celebrate the 2017 Madison Early Music Festival with a special exhibit of Don Quixote Through the Ages, featuring a selection of books, musical scores, and other materials from the UW-Madison Libraries. While viewing the exhibition, patrons can scan a QR code and listen to a Spotify playlist featuring music that will be heard at the MEMF 2017 Concert Series! This is a MEMF first, created by co-artistic director Paul Rowe.
We worked with several librarians to select the materials: Paloma Celis-Carbajal, Ibero-American Studies and Romance Languages Librarian; Jeanette Casey, head of Mills Music Library; and Lisa Wettleson from Special Collections at Memorial Library (below, in a photo by Brent Nicastro).
Dates: June 26 – August 10, 2017
Location: Memorial Library foyer | 728 State Street | Madison
Library Hours: 8 a.m.-9:45 p.m.
We have several new performers this year.
Xavier Diaz-Latorre, a vihuela player from Spain, and the ensemble Sonnambula from New York. Xavier is a world-renowned musician, and plays the vihuela, a Spanish Renaissance type of guitar, and the lute.
Xavier will perform a solo recital featuring music of the vihuela by composers Luis Narváez, Alonso Mudarra, Gaspar Sanz and Santiago de Murcia. The link below will give you more information about the predecessors to the guitar:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/aboutLute/Vihuela.html
Daphna Mor and Kane Mathis will present a program featuring music from the geographic regions of Andalusia, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the Sephardic Diaspora. Based on the monophonic music of modes referred to as the Makam, the audience will be drawn to distinct beauty and great similarities of music from the courts, liturgical forms, dance airs and folk music.
Daphna Mor (below top) sings and plays several historical wind instruments, and Kane Mathis (below bottom) plays the oud, a lute type of stringed instrument with 11 or 13 strings grouped in 5 or 6 courses, commonly used in Middle Eastern music.
Percussionist Shane Shanahan (below) will join them. Shane is an original member of the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and a Grammy award winner. https://www.stepsnyc.com/faculty/bio/Shane-Shanahan/
And watch Shane play frame drum in the Cave Temples of Dunhuang at the Getty Museum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjC3y6CXQ8
Hear and read about Daphna Mor: http://www.daphnamor.com/
You can watch Kane Mathis play the oud at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tHrxEohai8
Sonnambula (below), an ensemble of violins and viol da gambas, has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and have a regular series at the Hispanic Society of America in New York. It played a sold-out program of Spanish Golden Age works drawn from the over 450 pieces in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, a manuscript at the Royal Palace of Madrid. This same program will be presented at MEMF on Friday, July 14. (You can hear them perform Spanish music in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Why was the theme of the Spain’s Golden Age and The Age of Cervantes and Don Quixote chosen for the festival? What composers and works will be highlighted?
We liked the connection with last year’s theme, Shakespeare 400, because, although they never knew one another, Cervantes and Shakespeare (below) were contemporaries and share a “deathaversary,” as they both died on April 23, 1616. They led quite different lives, as Shakespeare was very successful throughout his lifetime and Cervantes wasn’t well known until the end of his life, when Don Quixote was published in 1605.
http://www.dw.com/en/shakespeare-and-cervantes-two-geniuses-and-one-death-date/a-19203237
Also, the Renaissance band Piffaro (below, in a photo by Church Street Studios) — an ensemble from Philadelphia that is well loved by MEMF audiences — suggested we explore this connection to Don Quixote and present their program The Musical World of Don Quixote, a huge project that they have been researching for several years.
They created a musical soundtrack to the novel in chronological order, and their program will open our 2017 concert series. This link from the Early Music America article “Piffaro Tilts At Musical Windmills” will tell you about their project in depth:
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/emag-piffaro-tilts-at-musical-windmills/
The other concerts in the series draw from the music that is mentioned in Don Quixote and from the Spanish Renaissance, known as Siglo de Oro, or the Century of Gold. Many composers from this time period will be represented: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, Luis de Milán and Alonso Lobo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/concerts.htm
Check out our website for the most up-to-date information and how to get tickets:
Tomorrow: What makes Renaissance music in Spain different? What composers and music will be featured in concerts?
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Classical music: The gala opening this weekend of the UW-Madison’s new Hamel Music Center is SOLD OUT. What do you think of the building, the music and the event? Plus, veteran music critic John W. Barker has died
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE 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.
ALERT: Word arrived late last night that the respected longtime music critic John W. Barker, a retired UW-Madison professor of medieval history, died Thursday morning. He wrote locally for Isthmus, The Capital Times and this blog. Details will be shared when they are known.
By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, Oct. 25-27, marks the official gala opening of the new Hamel Music Center (below, in a photo by Bryce Richter for University Communications) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. It is located at 740 University Ave., next to the new wing of the Chazen Museum of Art, which has a special exhibit relating to the new music center.
The impressive $58-million structure, which has taken many years to fund (completely privately) and then to build, will celebrate its opening tonight, Saturday night (while the 14th annual Halloween FreakFest on State Street is happening) and Sunday afternoon.
The performers will include distinguished alumni, faculty members and students.
Here is a link to an overall schedule as published on the School of Music’s home website: https://www.music.wisc.edu/hamel-music-center-opening-schedule/
Thanks to an astute reader who found what The Ear couldn’t find, here is a complete schedule — long, varied and impressive — of works and performers: https://www.music.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20191025-Hamel-Music-Center-Opening-Weekend.pdf
And here is a link to the official UW-Madison press release with more background and details about the building: https://news.wisc.edu/mead-witter-school-of-musics-hamel-music-center-opening-this-fall/
UW-Madison composer Laura Schwendinger (below) has been commissioned to write a Fanfare that will receive its world premiere tonight.
The opening promises to be a success, complete with receptions at the end of each performance.
In fact, the public has signed on enough that the FREE tickets to all events are SOLD OUT, according to the School of Music’s home website.
Taste is personal and varies, and The Ear has heard mixed reviews of the new building. (For the special occasion, you can hear “The Consecration of the House” Overture by Beethoven, performed by the La Scala opera house orchestra in Milan under Riccardo Muti, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Basically, people seem to agree that the acoustics are much improved over Mills Hall and Morphy Recital Hall in the old Humanities Building.
But public opinion seems more divided over other aspects, from the overall external architecture and interior design to the smaller size of the big hall, the seats and seating layout, and the restrooms.
So if you go – or have already gone – let the rest of us know what you think about those various aspects of the new building and about the various performers and programs.
As a warm-up preview, here are photos of the main halls or spaces, all taken by Bryce Richter for University Communications:
Here is the 660-seat Mead Witter Concert Hall:
Here is the 300-seat Collins Recital Hall:
And here is the Lee/Kaufman Rehearsal Hall:
But what do you say? You be the critic.
The Ear and others hope to see COMMENTS from listeners and especially performers. What is it like to perform there? Or to sit and listen?
What does the public think of the new building and concert halls? Are you satisfied? What do you like and what don’t you like?
Should some things have been done – or not done – in your opinion?
Does the building and do the concert halls live up to the expectations and hype?
The Ear wants to hear.
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