The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: This Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, the Oakwood Chamber Players finish their “Vignettes” season with an American audio-visual work and music by French, Italian and British composers
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, the Oakwood Chamber Players — known for highlighting neglected composers and works — perform the last concert of their current season series “Vignettes” with an array of contrasting and generally neglected works from the late 19th to 21st century.
Performances will take place on Saturday night, May 18, at 7 p.m. and on Sunday afternoon, May 19, at 2 p.m. Both concerts will be held at the Oakwood Village Center for Arts and Education, 6209 Mineral Point Road, on Madison’s far west side near West Towne Mall.
Tickets can be purchased with cash or personal checks at the door: $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors and $5 for students.
Members of the Oakwood Chamber Players (below) are: Marilyn Chohaney, flute; Nancy Mackenzie, clarinet; Amanda Szyczs, bassoon; Anne Aley, horn; and Maggie Townsend, cello.
They are joined by guest artists: Valree Casey, oboe; Hillary Hempel, violin; Michael Koszewski, percussion; Jason Kutz, piano; and Carrie Backman, conductor.
American composer Michael Gandolfi (below top) collaborated with MIT computer animator Jonathan Bachrach (below bottom) to create a unique musical and visual partnership for his Abridged History of the World in Seven Acts. Six instrumentalists create overlapping textures and rhythmic interplay in response to mesmerizing images.
Four French composers from the late 19th to mid-20th century are featured: The piano, four-hand “Dolly Suite” by Gabriel Fauré (below top) in an arrangement for woodwind quintet and piano; Petite Pièces (Small Pieces) for violin, horn and piano by his student Charles Koechlin (below middle; the sweetly engaging quartet Sérénade (Serenade) by Reynaldo Hahn (below third); and five Pièces en Trio (Trio Pieces) for oboe, clarinet and bassoon by Jacques Ibert (below bottom).
The Piano Trio in One Movement” by British composer Norman O’Neill (below) is full of verve and heart-felt melodies.
The woodwind quintet Piccolo Offerta Musicale” by noted Italian film composer Nino Rota (below), who wrote the scores for many films by Federico Fellini, is a short homage to Johann Sebastian Bach. (You can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The Oakwood Chamber Players are a group of Madison-area professional musicians who have rehearsed and performed at Oakwood Village for over 30 years. They perform in other groups, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Willy Street Chamber Players.
For more information, go to www.oakwoodchamberplayers.com or call (608) 230-4316.
The Oakwood Chamber Players are a professional music ensemble supported by Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries and the Oakwood Foundation.
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Classical music: Door County’s Midsummer’s Music Festival hosts opening night gala is this Friday night. Performers include the Preucil Family plus David Perry and Sally Chisholm of the Pro Arte Quartet at the UW-Madison.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Our friends in Door County write:
Sister Bay, Wis. – Door County’s Midsummer’s Music Festival kicks off with a gala opening night concert and celebration on this Friday night, June 12, at 7 p.m. in Juniper Hall at the Birch Creek Music Performance Center (below) in Egg Harbor.
For this special 25th anniversary season opener, the festival will welcome to the stage the talented Preucil family (below) whose story is deeply entwined in the history of Midsummer’s Music Festival.
After a special pre-concert performance by the Preucils, the renowned musicians of Midsummer’s Music will perform lovely chamber works — including the Piano Quartet by Robert Schumann that they played on their very first concert in 1991 — to celebrate the opening of this year’s Midsummer’s Music concert season. (You can hear the heartbreaking slow movement of Schumann’s Piano Quartet, played by the Beaux Arts Trio, in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Twenty-five years ago, festival founders Jim and Jean Berkenstock invited a young couple, along with other top-flight musicians from the Midwest, to join them for the first season of the Midsummer’s Music Festival.
Walter Preucil was a cellist with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and his wife Stephanie was an accomplished violinist. Stephanie gave birth to the couple’s first child eight months before the start of the first season. Over the next several years, the couple had two more sons – Anthony and James. And the apple did not fall far from the tree. Each of the Preucil boys shared the family’s musical talent.
Walter and Stephanie have spent every summer in Door County performing with the Midsummer’s Music Festival, and their boys have become favorites of Door County audiences who have essentially watched them grow up.
Now Zachary is an accomplished cellist at age 24 and is on the cello faculty of the renowned Music Institute of Chicago. He holds a degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and recently graduated with a masters degree from the Eastman School of Music.
Eighteen-year-old Anthony has been concertmaster for the Schaumburg Youth Symphony Orchestra as well as the District 211 Honors Orchestra. Anthony was also Principal Viola for Illinois All-State Honors Orchestra. He will be attending Pennsylvania State University in the fall where he will pursue a double degree in meteorology and violin performance.
And 13-year-old James is a skilled violinist who also is the youngest member to have been accepted into the Schaumburg Youth Symphony Orchestra.
To showcase the story of a very important part of the Midsummer’s Music family, all five Preucils will take the stage and captivate the audience with a performance of the slow “Andante con moto” movement from the String Quintet in E-flat Major by Max Bruch (below).
After the special performance by the Preucils, the prestigious ensemble known as Midsummer’s Music will take the stage to present works in a program entitled “Romantic Legacy.”
The group will perform the Piano Trio by Nino Rota, famous for his film scores for Italian director Federico Fellini, with Jean Berkenstock, flute; UW-Madison professor and Pro Arte Quartet member David Perry, violin; and William Koehler, piano.
Next will be the Quintet in C Minor, Op. 54, by Robert Kahn with Elizandro Garcia-Montoya, clarinet; John Fairfield, horn, David Perry, violin; Walter Preucil, cello; and William Koehler, piano.
Closing out the program will be the Piano Quartet in E-flat, Opus 47, by Robert Schumann with William Koehler, piano; David Perry, violin (below top); UW-professor and Pro Arte Quartet member Sally Chisholm, viola (below bottom); and Walter Preucil, cello.
Pro Arte Quartet Rehearsal with composer Benoit Mernier
Following the concert, guests will have the opportunity to mingle with the Preucils, the Berkenstocks and all of the Midsummer’s Music performers at a special reception of wine and hors d’oeurves.
A selection of large photos showcasing the Midsummer’s Music Festival’s family over the 25 years will be on display.
During the reception portion of the evening, Midsummer’s Music will unveil a brand new artwork designed by Door County artist Charles “Chick” Peterson to celebrate the festival’s 25th anniversary season. Peterson is best known for his watercolor paintings and has established a world-class reputation for his maritime works. Many of his pieces depict fond memories of everyday life.
The painting will capture the collegial spirit of the Midsummer’s Music ensemble. Patrons can purchase matted copies of the limited edition print beginning June 12 and continuing through the Big Top Door County event on July 12. Proceeds will support the Midsummer’s Music mission of bringing exceptional classical music to Door County audiences at affordable prices.
Midsummer’s Music Festival features world-class musicians from organizations such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), Aspen Music Festival, the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra and artist faculty from major universities.
The festival presents a series of more than 30 classical music concerts in a host of unique venues ranging from a 120-year old bay side warehouse, to a quaint community church from the 1850s, to luxury homes of private residents. Each venue exudes character and offers a distinct musical experience for the listener.
This year’s festival runs June 12 through July 14, with an additional concert series of 10 performances during the week and a half leading up to Labor Day.
Tickets for the opening night gala are $60.
For more information on the opening night gala or any of the Midsummer’s Music concerts, visit www.midsummersmusic.com or call 920-854-7088.
The Birch Creek Performance Center is located at 3821 County Road E, Egg Harbor, WI 54209.
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Classical music: The Ear travels to many places and hears much exciting music, thanks to the closing chamber music concerts by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. Now he can’t wait to find out about next season and then the 25th anniversary season the following summer.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It has been a good summer for the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
Make that a GREAT summer.
It was all to mark its 23rd annual season, and mark it they did, in high style.
Thanks to BDDS, I wandered far and wide without ever leaving my seat. Here is what I did last Friday and Saturday:
I went to the movies.
And I found out that after almost a century, silent movies still work their magic. In the 1916 film “The Count” actor-director Charlie Chaplin is still brilliantly funny, and provokes loud laughs and astonished admiration for his physical pratfalls, his absurd no-win situations, his precise direction, his perfect timing, his stunts and his facial expressions.
Plus, it all happened during the duo-piano score of “Le boeuf sur le toit” (The Ox on the Roof) by Darius Milhaud and played with perfect timing and image-synching by Randall Hodgkinson and Jeffrey Sykes, who played complete with popcorn and a soda.
The Ear says “Do It Again” next summer and in the future. The mixed media event was terrific and informative entertainment.
What movies I didn’t see, I heard.
Take American composer William Hirtz’s Variations for Piano-Four Hands on Themes from “The Wizard of Oz.” From the title, it sounds goofy and too pop-like. It even seems a reach to call it classical music. But it proved an undeniably and impressively virtuosic piece for the duo-pianists Randall Hodgkinson and Jeffrey Sykes.
Fun was added by the appearance of Dorothy (BDDS executive director Samantha Crownover, below top) in her ruby slippers and one of the guards of the Wicked Witch of the West. How BDDS!
I went once again to South America, the geographical center of this BDDS season.
What took me there was the music, this time the Poem for Flute and Piano by an Argentinian named Angel Lasala (below). Never heard of him. Too bad for me. But NOW I have and am glad.
I also went there specifically through the flute, which, along with the guitar, seems the instrument of choice for the southern continent. (Remember the haunting use of the flute in “El Condor Pasa” – which would have made a great solo flute encore — and other Andean folk songs.) And it was played with such complete mastery by BDDS co-founder and co-artistic director flutist Stephanie Jutt (below) that she made a wind instrument sound percussive as well as lyrical.
I went to The Land Where Unknown Music Goes.
That is how I heard a great but neglected Trio for flute, violin and piano by Italian composer Nino Rota, more famous for his scores for movies by Federico Fellini than for his own chamber music, which is quite good. (Hollywood movie scores are getting more and more validity in the concert hall. Next season the Madison Symphony Orchestra will do a program with a lot of them written by exiles from Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.)
It is also how I heard neglected French composer Philippe Gaubert (below) through his rarely performed “Three Watercolors” for flute, cello and piano in which Jutt’s flute tone perfectly matched the idea of watercolor transparency and watercolor sensuality.
Even such a mainstream and popular composer as Maurice Ravel became more exotic, exciting and engaging with his Sonata for Cello and Violin with violinist Axel Strauss and cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau (both below) of the San Francisco Trio. It is fiercely difficult and thorny to play. Ravel worked on it for two years. The Ear thinks it is Ravel’s most modern and serious work, his most unusual sounding composition. So I have to listen to it again. It’s good to rediscover something old in a new way.
But I also went to the Land of Great and Unforgettable Music.
It also always good to hear familiar music and genuine masterpieces played superbly. And that is exactly what I heard in Anton Dvorak’s Piano Trio in F Minor, Op. 65, which too often takes a back seat to the more famous “Dumky” Trio.
And I don’t think I will ever hear a better performance — despite a snapped cello string that had to be replaced mid-performance — of Dmitri Shostakovich’s dark Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. It was forceful, whether biting or elegiac, and so impressed the animated audience that it — and not the more timid Gaubert — should have been the concluding work on the “Cut and Run” program. (You can hear the captivating Finale in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
We are one lucky city to hear the San Francisco Trio (below) in these works. The Ear, for one, can’t get enough of the threesome.
I don’t know what else to say except that even with the main concert season over, The Ear doesn’t think he will be making a lot of vacation plans in the future if they overlap with performances by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
And he suggests that you do the same.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Antonín Dvořák, Arts, Axel Strauss, Bach Dancing, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, BDD, BDDS, Cello, Chamber music, Charlie Chaplin, Classical music, Darius Milhaud, Dmitri Shostakovich, duo-piano, Dvorak, Dynamite Society, Federico Fellini, film, flute, Germany, Hollywood, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Maurice Ravel, movie, Nazi, Nazi Germany, Nino Rota, Philippe Gaubert, Piano, Piano Trio, Randall Hodgkinson, Ravel, Shostakovich, silent film, silent movies, Sonata, The Wizard of Oz, Violin, watercolor, William Hirtz
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