The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet resumes its FREE Beethoven cycle virtual and online this Friday night with two other programs this semester
Leave a Comment
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet (below, performing the first all-Beethoven program in Collins Recital Hall) will resume its complete cycle of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets online and virtually this coming Friday night.
This third concert is free, and as you might have read in previous reviews, The Ear found the first two to be outstanding performances that also mixed works from early, middle and late periods.
The cycle is being undertaken to mark the Beethoven Year, which culminates this December with the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer (below).
Cellist Parry Karp (below) – the longest-standing member of the quartet and the person who often speaks for the quartet – sent the following note for posting:
“I thought I should bring the public up to date with the Pro Arte Quartet’s Beethoven cycle. Obviously things have had to change because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Before the pandemic, we were doing three quartets per concert. Since we now need to give the performances virtually and online, we have decided to perform two quartets per concert. Sitting at a computer for two hours at a time seemed a bit too much!
“We will be continuing the Beethoven cycle starting this Friday, Oct. 2, at 7:30 p.m. CDT. The program will consist of the early String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18 No. 5; and the late String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, with the famous “Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving” (heard played by the Alban Berg Quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom).
The link to watch that concert is at: https://youtu.be/Mf-Mpt3EyNk
“Charles Dill (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot), professor of musicology at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, will give a short lecture about each quartet before the Pro Arte Quartet performs.
“Although the concerts will be taking place in the bigger Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall in the new Hamel Music Center, the hall will be closed to the public for reasons of safety and public health.
“We will be playing with masks and with more separation or social distance from each other, which is a challenge and takes some adjusting to. It will also be odd to perform without a live audience.
“Unfortunately, because of copyright questions and royalties from the music editions we are using, the online concerts will not be archived for later viewing
“The other two concerts in the Pro Arte Quartet’s Beethoven cycle this semester will be on Friday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. CDT and Friday, Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m. CST.
“We plan to complete the Beethoven cycle during the spring semester of 2021.
The programs for this semester are listed below.”
SEMESTER I SCHEDULE
Beethoven String Quartet Cycle will be performed by the Pro Arte Quartet with pre-performance lectures of the quartets by Professor Charles Dill
Pro Arte Quartet members (below in photo by Rick Langer) are: violinists David Perry and Suzanne Beia; violist Sally Chisholm; and cellist Parry Karp.
For history and background about the Pro Arte Quartet, which is the oldest active string quartet in the history of music, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/pro-arte-quartet/.
PROGRAM 3
This Friday, Oct. 2, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. CDT in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall.
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18 No. 5 (1798-1800); and String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132 (1825)
PROGRAM 4: Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, at 7:30 p.m. CDT in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 No. 4 (1798-1800); and the String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 127 (1825)
PROGRAM 5: Friday, Nov. 20, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. CST in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 18 No. 3 (1798-1800); String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59 No. 2 (1806)
Tags: #AlbanBerg, #AlbanBergQuartet, #All-Beethoven, #BeethovenYear, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ChamberMusic, #CharlesDill, #CollinsRecitalHall, #CompleteCycle, #CoronavirusPandemic, #COVID-19, #DavidPerry, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FallSemester, #HamelMusicCenter, #JacobStockinger, #LiveAudience, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MeadWitterFoundationConcertHall, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #Musicfaculty, #MusicReview, #OnlineConcert, #ParryKarp, #ProArteQuartet, #PublicHealth, #SacredHymnofThanksgiving, #SallyChisholm, #SocialDistance, #SociallyDistanced, #SpringSemester, #StringQuartet, #SuzanneBeia, #TheEar, #TheUW, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VirtualConcert, #YouTubevideo, adjusting, Alban Berg, Alban Berg Quartet, anniversary, annoucement, archive, archived, Beethoven, Beethoven Year, before, Berg, bigger, biolin, birth, blog, cellist, Cello, challenge, Chamber music, change, Charles Dill, Collins Recital Hall, complete, computer, Concert, copyright, coronavirus, cycle, David Perry, December, Dill, early, edition, excellent, Facebook, fall, famous, forward, free, Friday, Hamel Music Center, hours, hymn, Jacob Stockinger, Karp, late, later, lecture, like, link, live audience, longest, Ludwig van Beethoven, masks, Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, Mead Witter School of Music, member, middle, mix, music faculty, music review, musicology, need, night, note, November, October, odd, online, opus, outstanding, pandemic, Parry Karp, perform, performance, period, plan, post, posting, Pro Arte Quartet, professor, program, public, Public health, Quartet, questions, resume, review, royalties, royalty, sacred, Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving, Sally Chisholm, semester, sfaety, share, short, sitting, social distance, socially distanced, speak, Spring, String quartet, Suzanne Beia, tag, The Eat, things, undertake, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, using, UW, UW-Madison, viewing, Viola, violinist, violist, virutal, watch, Website, YouTube
Classical music: Here is how the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) plan to continue lessons and performances this fall despite the coronavirus pandemic
Leave a Comment
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has just received the following updates from an email newsletter about the upcoming season of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO). Over more than 50 years, WYSO has served tens of thousands of middle school and high school students in southcentral Wisconsin and northern Illinois. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the WYSO Youth Orchestra play a virtual performance from the past season of the famous finale from Rossini’s “William Tell” Overture.)
After many weeks of planning, and in consultation with Public Health Madison and Dane County (PHMDC) and the McFarland School District, WYSO is excited to announce a fall semester plan that will mark a safe return to in-person music-making—and our first season at the McFarland Performing Arts Center (below) https://www.wysomusic.org/the-wyso-weekly-tune-up-april-17-2020-wysos-new-home/
We had a brief delay last Friday when PHMDC released Emergency Statement #9 delaying in-person start dates for all schools in Dane County. We checked in with the Public Health agency and they re-affirmed that WYSO is not a school —and the 15 students maximum-sized groups outlined in this plan are absolutely perfect. It is time to set up the tents!
The WYSO season will begin on the weekend of Sept. 5, when the winds and brass students from all three full orchestras (Youth, Philharmonia and Concert) will begin their fall rehearsals outside under two enormous tents in the McFarland High School parking lot (below). The 60 winds and brass students will be divided into approximately nine or 10 cohorts, who will meet in two-hour blocks on Saturdays and Sundays.
With a single cohort of masked and socially distanced students spread out within the 40′ x 60′ tent, with “bell covers and bags” for their instruments, the season will not look like any previous WYSO Fall.
If you’ve not been involved in the new science of aerosol transmission, this whole scenario might seem very curious. The reasoning is simple: The winds and brass instruments have been singled out as more problematic since you have to blow into them to make music. The blowing releases more “aerosols,” the tiny droplets that can transmit the coronavirus.
However, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have recently released the first results from a five-month study and have found that the following actions bring down the transmission risk considerably:
- Social distancing 9 to 15 feet apart.
- Adding bell covers and bags (below) for the instruments (essentially the instruments have to wear masks as well as the students).
- Playing outside, which reduces risks due to the increased air circulation.
Because we are in Wisconsin, the “outdoor” location shortens the season for the winds and brass players so by beginning the season on Sept. 5 and ending on the weekend of Oct. 24, they can just squeeze in an 8-week cycle.
Meanwhile, the WYSO string and percussion players, approximately 300 in number and representing all five orchestras, will begin their fall season indoors on Oct. 17, after McFarland moves to a hybrid model for the school year.
The string players will be divided into 15-student cohorts by orchestra, with a wonderful mix of violins, violas, cellos and basses in each group, and with the groups spread throughout one wing of the high school in large music rooms and atriums.
The percussionists have been scheduled into the new Black Box Theater and they are excited to begin playing on the brand new marimbas and timpani so recently acquired by WYSO through a gift from an incredibly generous anonymous donor.
Everything has been carefully scheduled so that at any given time there will not be more than 125 students, conductors and staff in the building.
Start and end times have been staggered. The large beautiful spaces at McFarland will easily hold the socially distanced and mask-wearing players. And the orchestras will again be scheduled into Saturday and Sunday mornings and afternoons. Even the WYSO Chamber Music Program (below) has been scheduled into the intricate puzzle.
The rest of this exciting fall story has to do with adding incredibly talented professional musicians to lead some of the cohorts and the amazing repertoire available for groups of 15 musicians, whether they play winds, brass, strings or percussion.
From Mozart’s “Gran Partita” to Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 2 and 6; from Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella Suite” to Bartok’s Divertimento, and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings — there is almost an “embarrassment of riches” of exciting, seldom-played repertoire, to quote WYSO Music Director Kyle Knox (below). And this fall, that repertoire will be right in WYSO’s wheelhouse.
WYSO will video-capture this year’s Fall Concerts of students playing in the beautiful McFarland Performing Arts Center to 800 empty seats and let you know the exact Fall Concert dates as we get closer. Click here for additional information.
While WYSO is incredibly excited about our in-person plan for rehearsals and playing music together, we have also drawn up two alternate plans, and know that not everyone will be able to participate in-person.
WYSO Registration is underway, and we are asking those who cannot participate in the McFarland experience to let us know their needs through the registration process, so that we can create the best virtual experience possible for those involved. Tuition payment is not due at registration.
To register, go to: https://www.wysomusic.org/members/wyso-registration-form/
Tags: #AirCirculation, #BelaBartok, #BellLaboratories, #BlackBoxTheater, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BrassMusic, #BrassSection, #ChamberMusic, #CheckIn, #CityofMadison, #ConcertSeason, #CoronavirusPandemic, #COVID-19, #DaneCounty, #DoubleBassist, #EmptySeats, #EndTime, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FallSemester, #GioachinoRossini, #GranPartita, #HighSchool, #IgorStravinsky, #JacobStockinger, #KyleKnox, #LaborDay, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #McFarlandHighSchool, #McFarlandPerformingArtsCenter, #MiddleSchool, #Music-Making, #MusicDirector, #MusicEducation, #MusicRoom, #OnlineConcert, #OrchestralMusic, #ParkingLot, #PercussionSection, #PeterIlyichTchaikovsky, #PhilharmoniaOrchestra, #PublicHealth, #PulcinellaSuite, #RegistrationForm, #SchoolDistrict, #SchoolYear, #SerenadeforStrings, #SetUp, #SocialDistance, #SocialDistancing, #StartTime, #StringMusic, #StringPlayers, #StringSection, #TheEar, #UniversityofColorado-Boulder, #WilliamTell, #WilliamTellOverture, #WindMusic, #WindSection, #WisconsinYouthSymphonyOrchestras, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #WYSOChamberMusicProgram, #WYSOconcerts, #YouthOrchestra, #YouTubevideo, action, actions, additional, aerosol, afternoon, agency, air, air circulation, alternate, amazing, anonymous, approximately, Arts, ATRIUM, audience, bags, Bartok, bass, basses, bassist, Béla Bartók, Beethoven, beginning, Bell, black, Black Box Theater, blocks, blog, blow, blowing, Boulder, Box, brass, brass music, brass section, brief, capture, cellist, Cello, central, Chamber music, check, check in, circulation, Classical music, cohorts, Colorado, composer, Concert, Concert Orchestra, conductor, consultation, coronavirus, covers, curious, cycle, Dane County, dates, delay, divertimento, divide, divided, donor, double bass, droplet, due, email, embarrassment, emergency, empty, empty seats, end, end time, ending, enormous, everyone, excited, experience, Facebook, fall, famous, finale, first, Friday, generous, gift, Gioacchino Rossini, Gran Partita, group, groups, high school, hour, hybrid, Igor Stravinsky, ILLINOIS, in person, increase, increased, incredible, information, instrument, intricate, Jacob Stockinger, Knox, Kyle Knox, Labor Day, large, like, link, location, look, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, make, marimba, mask, masked, masks, maximum, McFarland, McFarland High School, McFarland Performing Arts Center, meet, Middle school, mix, model, morning, Mozart, Music, Music director, Music education, music room, needs, newsletter, north, Northern, October, online, Orchestra, orchestral music, outside, Overture, pandemic, parking, parking lot, participant, participate, partita, payment, percussion, percussionist, perfect, perform, performer, person, Peter Tchaikovsky, Philharmonia Orchestra, plan, planning, play, players, playing, post, posting, problematic, process, program, Public health, Pulcinella Suite, puzzle, quite, quote, re-affirm, reasoning, registration, rehearsal, release, repertoire, repertory, research, researchers, return, riches, risk, room, Rossini, safe, safety, Saturday, scenario, schedule, school, school district, school year, science, Season, seats, seldom-played, semester, September, Serenade, Serenade for Strings, set up, share, simple, size, social distance, social distancing, south, Southern, spread, squeeze, staggered, start, start time, statement, Stravinsky, string, string music, string players, string section, Student, study, Suite, Sunday, symphony, tag, Tchaikovsky, tens, tent, tents, The Ear, theater, theatre, thousands, time, tiny, together, transmission, transmit, tuition, tympani, United States, university, University of Colorado-Boulder, upcoming, video, video-capture, Viola, Violin, violinist, violist, virtual, week, weekend, whole, William Tell, William Tell Overture, wind music, winds, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, wonderful, WYSO, WYSO Chamber Music Program, WYSO concerts, year, years, young people, Youth, Youth Orchestra, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 