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The famed International Tchaikovsky Competition has been expelled from the World Federation of International Music Competitions

April 25, 2022
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By Jacob Stockinger

One of the granddaddies of all international music competitions — probably the best known and most prestigious — has been disowned.

The International Tchaikovsky Competition — the one that catapulted the young American pianist and first winner Van Cliburn (below, during the competition) to worldwide fame during the height of the Cold War, for which he received the only ticker tape parade in New York City ever given to a musician — has been expelled from the World Federation of International Music Competitions, which was founded in 1957 and represents 110 music competitions and programs to help young musicians build a career.

The move comes in response to recent events in Ukraine — including alleged Russian war crimes during its brutal, deadly and unprovoked invasion.

The famed Tchaikovsky Competition — which started in 1958 and is now for pianists, violinists, cellists, vocalists as well as woodwind and brass players — is held in Moscow and St. Petersburg and is financed and organized by the Russian government. It has launched the careers on many great musicians.

It is co-chaired by the discredited Russian conductor Valery Gergiev (below right, in 2014), a close friend and avid supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin (below left) and of the conflict in Ukraine.

The expulsion came about because the Tchaikovsky Competition refused to condemn the Russian invasion, as the federation requested.

Here is a link to the story that was published on the website Classical Music, an online publication of the BBC Music Magazine. It contains background on both the competition and the current state of affairs regarding Russian musicians and the Russian conflict in Ukraine. It has a lot of noteworthy links:

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.classical-music.com%2Fnews%2Finternational-tchaikovsky-competition-expelled-from-world-federation-of-international-music-competitions%2F&data=05%7C01%7C%7C6c24b49a0d734e9d8cba08da23b1b885%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637861543449919994%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=RO2i3yy3HKXFxzEBotr4wTvrEONBM0%2FqUjxqt5CPhQc%3D&reserved=0

And here is the response from the organizers of the Russian competition, which takes place every four years. The 16th competition was held in 2019, and the 17th is still scheduled for 2023. (The announcement of the 2019 piano winners — by the Russian former piano winner Denis Matsuev, who has been boycotted because of Ukraine — is in the YouTube-Medici.TV video at the bottom.)

The response — which accuses the federation of “persecuting” Russian musicians and promises that it will be held as usual and remain open to contestants worldwide — is posted on the competition’s website:

https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/415.htm

It makes one wonder what the effects on the next Tchaikovsky competition will be.

Will potential jurors outside Russia boycott the competition?

Will non-Russian contestants — with the exception perhaps on Chinese and Belarusian performers — avoid participating?

And what will be the effect on the inaugural Rachmaninoff Competition for pianists, composers and conductors that is scheduled to take place this June in Moscow?

What do you think?

Is it the right call by the international federation?

Or the wrong call?

Why do you think so?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Longtime friends organist Greg Zelek and Madison native and award-winning trumpeter Ansel Norris team up for a FREE live-streamed concert this Tuesday night

April 26, 2021
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

Two longtime friends and fellow musicians will team up this Tuesday night, April 27, to close this season’s organ concert series, sponsored in the Overture Center by the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

It will be live-streamed online because of the pandemic restrictions on attendance.

The concert features the critically acclaimed MSO organist Greg Zelek (below left) and Ansel Norris (below right), an award-winning trumpeter who is a native of Madison.

The program includes works by Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn and Samuel Barber among others.

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. CDT. It is FREE but you must register. The concert will be available to registered listeners for unlimited access through May 31.

Here is a link to the MSO website where you can register. It also has more information about the program and biographies of the two performers: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/norris-zelek-2021-streamed/

Here is more background. It appeared in the latest issue of the email newsletter of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO), of which Norris was a member for many years:

Ansel Norris and Greg Zelek first met in 2010 as high school seniors who had both been selected as finalists in the YoungARTS Awards. The YoungARTS Award is a big competition with just a small percentage of students selected for the $10,000 prize from the thousands of high school applicants. In classical music that year, 12 students became finalists and assembled in Miami for a week of master classes with internationally recognized arts leaders.

Ansel Norris attended as an outstanding trumpeter from Madison East High School and Greg Zelek attended as an outstanding high school organist from the New World School of the Arts in Coral Gables, Florida.

“We hit it off right away and it came to me later what a great story this was,” Norris (below) mused. “Greg had grown up in south Florida and now was living in Madison, and I had grown up in Madison and was now living in south Florida.

“You know, there really is a synergy with trumpet and organ. The sounds are produced in a similar way and the way the sounds blend together is really special. Even then, I imagined a concert together.”

Ten years later, the two friends were dreaming up this concert when Greg was in Miami in February, 2020. And then the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Norris has distinguished himself as a solo, orchestral and chamber musician.

After graduating from East High School in Madison, he attended Northwestern University, from which he received a Bachelor’s degree in Music in 2016. From there he attended Rice University in 2019. Twice he was the first-prize winner at the National Trumpet Competition and a winner of the New World Symphony’s Concerto Competition. Then, at 26 years old, he became the first-ever American prizewinner in the International Tchaikovsky Competition’s Brass division. (You can hear Norris perform in the competition’s semi-finals in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Playing as soloist with orchestras is a special pleasure for Ansel, and he has enjoyed performances in front of the Mariinsky Orchestra, New World Symphony and his hometown Madison Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Also a chamber musician, Ansel won a Bronze Medal at the Fischoff International Competition with his friends from the Lincoln Chamber Brass.

Ansel Norris currently resides in Naples, Florida, where he enjoys an eclectic musical career with the Naples Philharmonic. In a place without cold weather, the Naples orchestra could potentially play music safely outside all winter. But Ansel shook his head, “For the most part we’ve been indoors. The orchestra gets tested for COVID each week and we play on a stage with musicians spaced 10 feet apart. HEPA filters are positioned everywhere. Playing 10 feet apart is just crazy. You absolutely cannot depend on the musical cues you were trained to depend on.”

Norris remembers growing up in Madison where there was a “fine legacy for trumpet players. It was so great I didn’t want to go away to Interlochen, even with a full scholarship.” He studied privately with John Aley and attended WYSO rehearsals on Saturdays, which he absolutely loved.

And now this Tuesday, this 2009 Bolz Young Artist Competition finalist will be returning to the Overture stage with his good friend Greg Zelek, who are both amazing and accomplished young musicians.

As Greg Zelek (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) writes: “Concerti of Bach and Haydn will bookend this program filled with music that is both written and arranged for this electrifying pairing of instruments. Mr. Norris’ remarkable technique and soaring lyricism will be on full display while our Mighty Klais both supports and shimmers in this exhilarating performance you won’t want to miss!” Register here for Tuesday’s concert!

Posted in Classical music
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Here is a collaborative obituary for music critic, radio host, performer and gay pioneer Jess Anderson, who died in January at 85

March 7, 2021
3 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

In late January of this year, Jess Anderson (below) — a longtime friend, devoted musician and respected music critic – died at 85.

The Ear promised then that when more was known or written, it would be posted on this blog.

That time has come.

Jess was a polymath, a Renaissance Man, as the comments below attest to time and again.

For the past several years, he suffered from advancing dementia and moved from his home of 56 years to an assisted living facility. He had contracted COVID-19, but died from a severe fall from which he never regained consciousness.

Jess did not write his own obituary and he had no family member to do it. So a close friend – Ed Wegert (below) – invited several of the people who knew Jess and worked with him, to co-author a collaborative obituary. We are all grateful to Ed for the effort the obituary took and for his caring for Jess in his final years.

In addition, the obituary has some wonderful, not-to-be-overlooked photos of Jess young and old, at home, with friends, sitting at the piano and at his custom-built harpsichord.

It appears in the March issue of Our Lives, a free statewide LGBTQ magazine that is distributed through grocery stores and other retail outlets as well as free subscriptions. Here is a link to the magazine’s home webpage for details about it: https://ourliveswisconsin.com.

That Jess was an exceptional and multi-talented person is obvious even from the distinguished names of the accomplished people who contributed to the obituary:

They include:

Chester Biscardi (below), who is an acclaimed prize-winning composer, UW-Madison graduate, composer and teacher of composition at Sarah Lawrence College.

John Harbison (below), the MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who teaches at MIT and co-directs the nearby Token Creek Chamber Music Festival in the summer.

Rose Mary Harbison (below), who attended the UW-Madison with Jess and became a professional performing and teaching violinist who co-directs the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival.

Steve Miller (below), a close friend who became a bookmaker and is now a professor at the University of Alabama.

The Ear, who knew Jess over many decades, was also invited to contribute.

Here is a link to the joint obituary in Our Lives magazine, a free LGBTQ periodical that you can find in local grocery store and other retail outlets: https://ourliveswisconsin.com/article/remembering-jess-anderson/?fbclid=IwAR027dzv2YqRUNlYF1cF6JyXnEcQxAwcprPYbtBQCs3rYt0Nu847W_xbjpk

Feel free to leave your own thoughts about and memories of Jess in the comment section.

It also seems a fitting tribute to play the final chorus from The St. John Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach. You can hear it in the YouTube video below. It is, if memory serves me well, the same piece of sublime music that Jess played when he signed off from hosting his Sunday morning early music show for many years on WORT-FM 89.9.

Posted in Classical music
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This Friday night the Verona Quartet performs an online concert of Brahms and Dvorak for the Wisconsin Union Theater. Plus, longtime music critic Jess Anderson has died

January 27, 2021
2 Comments

ALERT: Jess Anderson (below), a longtime local music critic for Isthmus, an active participant in the local music scene and a veteran radio host of an early music program for WORT-FM 89.9, died this past Sunday. He was 85. When more information is known, The Ear will devote a blog post to Jess, who was also a friend.

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement to post:

The Wisconsin Union Theater’s Concert Series will continue this season with a performance by the Verona Quartet (below) on this Friday, Jan. 29, at 7:30 p.m. CST. It will be preceded by a question-and-answer session with the Quartet at 7 p.m. CST.

The Quartet will perform two complete works: the String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2, by Johannes Brahms; and the famous String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, the “American,” by Antonin Dvorak. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the Verona Quartet perform the familiar last movement of the string quartet by Dvorak.)

The Verona Quartet rose to international fame by sweeping top prizes at competitions, including the Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award in 2020.

Hailing from four different parts of the world, differences unify the Quartet’s members and music. Its music aims to show how diverse experiences can come together in harmony.

“The Verona Quartet brings fresh approaches to classical music masterpieces,” says Wisconsin Union Theater director Elizabeth Snodgrass (below). “The Quartet has risen to become one of the world’s most sought-after string quartets. We are honored to include them in our Concert Series season.”

Ticket purchase information can be found here. Tickets for this virtual online event are $10 for UW-Madison students, $17 for Wisconsin Union members and students who do not attend the UW-Madison, and $20 for all other patrons.

Ticket buyers will receive an email from approximately 2 hours before the event begins that contains the link to view the performance.

Anyone who purchases a ticket within 2 hours of the event’s start time will receive their link in their confirmation email immediately following their purchase. Only 1 ticket per household is needed to view this concert.

The link will remain active until Friday, Feb. 5, at 9:30 p.m. (CST) to view whenever you would like.

This performance will include the Quartet’s regular violinists Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro, and violist Abigail Rojansky.

But due to challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic, Quartet member and cellist Jonathan Dormand will not be part of the event. Instead, cellist Dmitry Kouzov (below top) will perform the string quartet by Brahms and cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins (below bottom, in a photo by C. Tihms Van Velden) will perform the string quartet by Dvorak.

The Verona Quartet’s performance is made possible by the David and Kato Perlman Chamber Music Endowment Fund, with additional support from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

An additional Concert Series performance will take place on Sunday, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m. CDT and features the Meccore Quartet.

For more than 75 years, the Wisconsin Union Theater has served as a cultural center for community members and visitors and provides a variety of performing arts events.

The Theater’s Concert Series began more than a century ago and is one of the oldest uninterrupted series of its kind in the United States.

The Wisconsin Union Theater team presents the Concert Series in collaboration with the student-led Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) Performing Arts Committee.

The Theater team strives for all of its spaces to be accessible, and those that need accommodations can reach out by email to the Wisconsin Union Theater team at: wisconsinuniontheater@union.wisc.edu

For more information about the Verona Quartet, including how to purchase tickets, visit union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/verona-quartet.

Posted in Classical music
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Salon Piano Series cancels the rest of this season but offers a free monthly video from past concerts

December 13, 2020
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement from the Salon Piano Series that take place at Farley’s House of pianos:

Dear friends,

How we’ve missed seeing you, since last we were able to gather – in February, for pianist Shai Wosner (below, in a photo by Marco Borggreve) and his recital of heart-stopping Schubert, Scarlatti, Rzewski and Beethoven.

Since then, our pianos have sat silent, waiting for the day we can safely reopen and welcome you back.

For now, although it breaks our hearts, we do need to stay dark through the rest of the 2020-21 season, for everyone’s safety. Our highest priority is the well-being of our artists, audience and staff.

But rest assured that we are rescheduling all of our postponed performances:

Drew Petersen (below) (https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4275242) will perform next October.

Jazz great Bill Charlap (below) (https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4275248) will perform in June.

We are working to schedule Sara Daneshpour, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, Niklas Sivelov and John O’Conor over the next two seasons.

In the meantime, while we can’t gather in person, we’re pleased to announce the launch of a monthly video series featuring some of our past and upcoming artists.

December brings us the incomparable Shai Wosner and in January, Adam Neiman (below).

During these uncertain times, we appreciate remembering time spent together enjoying music.

Please take a break from your day to see and hear Shai Wosner (below) performing Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in C Minor, K. 230, and Frederic Rzewski’s Nano Sonata No. 12.

The video was recorded live at Farley’s House of Pianos as part of the Salon Piano Series on Feb. 23, 2020.

Click here or at the bottom for the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MCxr5ioV4o&feature=youtu.be

Last March, Shai Wosner released a 2-CD album (http://www.shaiwosner.com/recordings.html) of Schubert late piano sonatas. The album’s producer is nominated for a Grammy Award for the album.

Over the years, you have supported the intimate Salon Piano Series with your attendance, individual sponsorships and donations (https://salonpianoseries.org/donate).

We look forward to bringing you more world-class musical performances in our unique salon setting again soon.

In the meantime, these performances are a way to recapture the live concert experience, including commentary from artistic director Tim Farley, with videography by Tom Moss.

Those on our e-newsletter list, available at our website at https://salonpianoseries.org/contact.html, will receive a video link each month, and the videos are also available on our social media channels.

Stay safe, stay healthy and keep listening.

Sincerely,

The Salon Piano Series Board of Directors

Posted in Classical music
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The Madison Symphony Orchestra cancels the remaining orchestra and organ concerts of the 2020-21 season and postpones its Beethoven celebration until next season

December 2, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) has canceled the remaining orchestral and organ concerts of the 2020-21 season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A free online performance of “A Virtual Madison Symphony Christmas” will take place on Dec. 16 and stay posted through Dec. 31. For more information about the program and performers, plus a link to register and to hear that performance, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org

Plans for others online events – free or paid – have not been announced, although the MSO seems to be considering such steps. It also suggests that the 2021-22 season will be a postponed version of the same concerts planned this season to celebrate the Beethoven Year.

Here is the email from executive director Richard H. Mackie that the MSO sent out Monday:

Dear Friends of the Madison Symphony Orchestra,

As you know, the continuing COVID-19 crisis has curtailed planned performances of orchestras all over the world.

As more and more orchestras face the almost certain prospect that well-attended, full-orchestra concerts indoors will not be possible for the foreseeable future, at least until a successful vaccination program has brought COVID-19 under control, the remainder of many symphony concert seasons across America are now being cancelled .

We have previously cancelled our live, main stage concerts and education performances through January 2021 due to public health restrictions and the closure of Overture Hall.

Public Health Madison and Dane County restrictions continue to prohibit publicly attended indoor concerts. As a consequence, we have faced a painful decision in recent months regarding the fate of the rest of our 2020–2021 season.

I am grieved to announce that, under the present conditions — which offer no reasonable prospect of abatement until the summer, at least — we deem it an unfortunate necessity to cancel all previously scheduled Madison Symphony Orchestra concerts, Education and Community Engagement Programs, and Overture Concert Organ performances through May 2021.

Our June 2021 Concert on the Green remains on our schedule at this time.

We are prepared to issue refunds to our subscribers as we did in the fall. We will be communicating directly with our subscribers to provide options, including the option to donate the value of their tickets.

As we consider alternative programming opportunities for the spring, we will continue to welcome donations to our Musicians’ Relief Fund.

When we planned a joyous celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday, we could scarcely have imagined the devastation of the coronavirus in almost every aspect of our lives. But we are finding solace in successfully rescheduling this epic season just one year hence.

The emerging promise of vaccine development has rekindled our enthusiasm for making great music on a grand scale for our community with our Beethoven celebration. We all look forward to a new beginning with John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) and the orchestra in September 2021. (You can hear the original promotional preview in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Please stay tuned for some exciting news about next season. In the meantime, should there be a breakthrough opportunity to restore any of the cancelled orchestra or organ concerts, or educational and community services to the schedule, we will be prepared to do so.

We are committed to helping our orchestra and keeping great music alive in Madison. Thank you for your interest and continuing support.

Sincerely,

Richard H. Mackie, Executive Director

Posted in Classical music
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University Opera’s original online video project celebrates the life and music of American composer Marc Blitzstein. It will be posted for FREE on YouTube this Friday night, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m.

October 21, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

This fall, University Opera presents its first project of 2020-21 in video format as it turns to the music of the American composer Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964).

“I Wish It So: Marc Blitzstein – the Man in His Music” will be released free of charge on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music’s YouTube channel this Friday night, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m. CDT at the general site www.youtube.com/meadwitterschoolofmusic or the official specific link: https://youtu.be/77FXFZucrWc.

Director of University Opera David Ronis (below top) is the director of the original production and will give introductory remarks. UW-Madison graduate Thomas Kasdorf (below bottom) is the musical director. The production lasts 1 hour and 40 minutes, and features four singer-actors, a narrator and a piano.

Marc Blitzstein’s life story parallels some of the most important cultural currents in American history of the mid-20th-century.

Known for his musicals — most notably The Cradle Will Rock in 1937 (you can hear Dawn Upshaw sing the lovely song “I Wish It So” from “Juno” in the YouTube video at the bottom) — his opera Regina and his translation of Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, Blitzstein was an outspoken proponent of socially engaged art. Like many artists of his time, he joined the American Communist Party. But he also enthusiastically served in the U.S. Army during World War II (below, in 1943).

Nevertheless, in 1958, long after he had given up his Communist Party membership, Blitzstein (below) was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) where he “named no names.”

An extremely gifted yet underappreciated composer, he was a close friend of and mentor to Leonard Bernstein (below right, with Blitzstein on the left) and traveled in a close circle of American composers including David Diamond and Aaron Copland.

Although openly gay, he married Eva Goldbeck in 1933. Sadly, she died three years later from complications due to anorexia.

Blitzstein’s own death was likewise tragic. In 1964, while in Martinique working on an opera about the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, he was robbed and badly beaten by three Portuguese sailors whom he had picked up at a bar. He died the next day of internal injuries.

Although throughout his life and afterwards, Blitzstein’s work was championed by Bernstein and others, many claim that neither the composer nor his stunning music and beautiful lyrics ever received the attention they deserved. So University Opera is proud to present this show celebrating his life and his works.

“I Wish It So: Marc Blitzstein – the Man in His Music” is a unique production put together by David Ronis. A biographical pastiche, it tells the story of Blitzstein’s life by recontextualizing 23 songs and ensembles from his shows, juxtaposing them with spoken excerpts from his working notes and letters, and tying it all together with a narration.

The result is a dramatic, evocative and enjoyable portrait of Blitzstein’s life and his art, according to Ronis.

“We’ve discovered a lot of “silver linings” while working on this production,” says Ronis. “We were disappointed at not being able to do a normal staged show. But working with video has had tremendous artistic and educational value.

“Our students are learning on-camera technique, not to mention how to work with a green screen (below, with soprano Sarah Brailey), which allows for post-production editing and digital manipulation of backgrounds. They’re also working with spoken text as well as sung pieces. Mostly, we’re just very grateful to have a creative project to sink our teeth into during the pandemic.

“And the music of Blitzstein is so fantastic, we’re very happy to be able to share it with our audience. This project is like none other I’ve ever done and we’re thinking that it’s going to be pretty cool.”

Research on the project was completed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, where Blitzstein’s archives are housed. University Opera gratefully acknowledges the help of both Mary Huelsbeck of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research, and the Kurt Weill Foundation for their assistance with this project.

The cast features five UW-Madison graduate students: Sarah Brailey, Kenneth Hoversten, Justin Kroll, Lindsey Meekhof (below) and Steffen Silvis.

The video design was done by Dave Alcorn with costumes by Hyewon Park.

Others on the production staff include Will Preston, rehearsal pianist; Elisheva Pront, research assistant and assistant director; Dylan Thoren, production stage manager; Alec Hansen, assistant stage manager; Teresa Sarkela, storyboard creator; and Greg Silver, technical director.

The video will be accessible for 23 hours starting at 8 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 23. Although there will be no admission price for access, donations will be gratefully accepted. A link for donations will be posted with the video.

University Opera, a cultural service of the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides comprehensive operatic training and performance opportunities for students and operatic programming to the community. For more information, email opera@music.wisc.edu or visit music.wisc.edu.

Posted in Classical music
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The third LunART Festival celebrates Black women in the arts with FREE streaming concerts and events this Saturday night, Oct. 10, and next Saturday night, Oct. 17

October 9, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement to post:

The LunART Festival is back for its third season, continuing its mission to support, inspire, promote and celebrate women in the arts, with a special presentation, “Human Family,” available via two FREE video livestreams on LunART’s website and Facebook page on Saturday, Oct. 10, and Saturday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. CDT.

The events will be co-hosted by LunART founder and flutist Iva Ugrcic (below top), and by vocalist and art administrator Deja Mason (below bottom).

In response to the most recent and ongoing racial inequality and in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, LunART will present the “Human Family” virtual festival featuring art created by Black women.

These FREE streamed events will feature a palette of emerging and established artists drawn from Madison’s rich arts scene, while also celebrating those who have paved the way for generations to come.

Radical inclusivity has been part of LunART’s mission from its conception. While women have historically been underrepresented in the arts, we cannot deny that there are segments of women that have been doubly marginalized, including women of color, women in the LGBTQIA+ community, older women and women with disabilities.

Part of creating a more just, inclusive world means recognizing that even within the space of underrepresentation, there remain disparities.

Works from the past include Florence Price’s “Five Folksongs of Counterpoint” for string quartet (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom), which is deeply rooted in the African-American spiritual tradition; Margaret Bonds’ Spiritual Suite for solo piano, written in a neo-Romantic classical style infused by jazz harmonies and rhythms; Afro-American Suite for flute, cello and piano by Undine Smith Moore, based on authentic spiritual songs used to express and record everyday life of slaves in America.

Florence Price (below), Margaret Bonds and Undine Smith Moore all fought against both racial and gender discrimination throughout their lives. To be a woman composing classical music in the mid-20th century was unusual; to be a Black woman composer was even more so. And yet, these women forged ahead, making history and paving the way for the women who would follow them.

Along with these pioneers of the past, LunART will also celebrate contemporary Black women who are making a big impact in the world of arts, culture, advocacy and activism, following the footsteps of their predecessors.

“Voodoo Dolls” for string quartet by Jessie Montgomery (below in a photo by Jiyang Chen) is influenced by West African drumming patterns that are interwoven with lyrical motifs in the improvisatory style.

“Fanmi Imen,” a work for flute and piano by Valerie Coleman (below) — LunART’s 2019 Composer-in-Residence) — is based on a powerful poem by Maya Angelou, “Human Family.” Angelou calls for peace and unity, while acknowledging differences due to ethnic and cultural background in her famous refrain: “we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”

The chamber music will be performed by Madison’s finest musicians: Isabella Lippi, Karl Lavine, Peter Miliczky, Magdalena Sas, Marie Pauls, Satoko Hayami, Yana Avedyan and Iva Ugrcic.

Celebrating women’s creativity across many art forms has been a core component of LunART’s artistic mission from its inception, and this year is no exception. While music will create a sound painting, “Human Family” will also feature women who use words and movement to tell their story.

Enter a world of phenomenal talent with emerging singer-songwriters Danielle Crim and Akornefa Akyea performing their most recent original songs; magically moving poems and spoken-word pieces by Jamie Dawson and Shasparay Lighteard; and join dancer and choreographer Kimi Evelyn in self-exploration of what happens when the body and the soul are left in complete solitude through her powerful piece “Body, Sweet Home.”

To commemorate the Festival events, LunART has commissioned digital artwork (below) by local artist and activist Amira Caire, which is inspired by the “Human Family” concept. This stunning piece of art will be available for purchase in printed form on LunART’s website.

We are calling our community to eat local, drink local and support local. By supporting LunART, you are also supporting local nonprofits and small businesses.

This project would not be possible without the generosity of Madison’s creative media agency Microtone Media, The Piano Gal Shop from Sun Prairie, Dane Arts and a grant from the Madison Arts Commission at https://www.cityofmadison.com/dpced/planning/madison-arts-commission/1580/, with the additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Events are free and available for anyone to watch online, and donations are welcomed. For more details about the artists, events, programs and links, and donation methods, please visit https://www.lunartfestival.org

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: What composer or piece of music would you like to hear once the coronavirus is contained and concert halls open again?

August 15, 2020
3 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

The news can be confusing and even contradictory about some specifics, but the general direction of reports and statistics about the coronavirus pandemic and deaths from COVID-19 is clear.

It is going to be a long haul until we safely get to go hear live music in large crowds again, just as The Ear talked about earlier this week. (Below is a photo of conductor John DeMain and the Madison Symphony Orchestra in Overture Hall.)

Here is a link to that post: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/classical-music-its-clear-to-the-ear-it-will-be-at-least-another-full-year-before-music-lovers-in-the-u-s-can-safely-attend-live-concerts-what-do-you-think/

When performers finally get to play, and the concert halls finally get to open, and audiences finally get to listen in person, here is what The Ear wants to know:

What composer would you like hear?

Maybe Beethoven (below) because so much of the Beethoven Year – marking the composer’s 250th birthday this coming December – has been canceled or postponed?

Maybe Johann Sebastian Bach (below) because he just seems so basic, varied and universal?

And what specific piece of music would you like to hear?

Perhaps Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony “Choral” with its “Ode to Joy”? Or maybe the “Eroica” Symphony? Or one of the string quartets?

Perhaps the “St. Mathew Passion” or the Mass in B Minor? Maybe one or more of the cantatas?

Should the music pay homage to the suffering, loss and death – perhaps with Mozart’s “Requiem”? Or Brahms’ “A German Requiem”? Or Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony?

Or should the music be upbeat and joyous, like Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture” (below in the YouTube video)? Or some glittering and whirling waltzes by the Strauss family?

Is there an opera that seems especially relevant?

Would you prefer instrumental, choral or vocal music?

And what period, era or style would you prefer?

It will be great to be reacquainted with old and familiar friends. But it would also seem an ideal time to commission and perform new music.

Leave your suggestions in the Comment section with, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance to help us decide.

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
Tags: #AGermanRequiem, #AntoninDvorak, #BaroqueMusic, #BeethovenYear, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CarnivalOverture, #ChamberMusic, #ChoralMusic, #ChoralSymphony, #Classicalera, #CommissionedMusic, #ConcertHall, #ContemporaryMusic, #CoronavirusPandemic, #COVID-19, #EroicaSymphony, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #GustavMahler, #InPerson, #InstrumentalMusic, #JacobStockinger, #JohannesBrahms, #JohannSebastianBach, #JohannStrauss, #LiveMusic, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MassinBMinor, #ModernMusic, #NewMusic, #NewsReports, #NinthSymphony, #OdetoJoy, #OperaMusic, #OvertureCenter, #OvertureHall, #PublicHealth, #ResurrectionSymphony, #RomanticMusic, #St.MatthewPassion, #StringQuartet, #TheEar, #VocalMusic, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YouTubevideo, A German Requiem, A German Requiem (Brahms), anniversary, Antonín Dvořák, audience, Bach, Baroque, basic, Beethoven, Beethoven Year, birthday, blog, Brahms, cancel, canceled, Carnival Overture, Chamber music, choral, choral music, cinfusing, Classical era, clear, comment, commission, commissioned music, composer, concert hall, conductor, contain, contained, contemporary, contradictory, coronavirus, covid, crowd, death, December, direction, Dvorak, Early music, era, Eroica Symphony, Facebook, familiar, forward, friend, fundamental, gliterring, Gustav Mahler, hear, ideal, in person, instrumental music, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Strauss, Johannes Brahms, joyous, like, link, listen, live music, long haul, loss, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mahler, Mass in B Minor, modern, Mozart, new, New Music, Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy, old, open, opera, Orchestra, Overture, Overture Center, Overture Center for the Arts, Overture Hall, pandemic, performers, period, piece, post, posting, postpone, postponed, prefer, Public health, reacquainted, relevant, reports, Requiem, Resurrection, Resurrection Symphony, Romantic, safely, safety, section, share, specific, specifics, St Matthew Passion, statistics, Strauss, String quartet, style, suggestion, syffering, symphony, tag, The Ear, time, universal, upbeat, varied, vocal, vocal music, week, whirling, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube

Classical music: UW-Madison piano virtuoso Christopher Taylor performs a free virtual recital of impromptus by Schubert and Scriabin this Wednesday afternoon

August 4, 2020
5 Comments

A note from The Ear: Thank you to the many blog followers who left a message of encouragement when I had computer troubles last week. The problem seems to be solved, at least temporarily. And I am healthy, despite the fears that some of you expressed that I was covering for coming down with the coronavirus virus or Covid-19.

By Jacob Stockinger

A friend has passed along the following note from Christopher Taylor, the piano virtuoso who won a bronze medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and who has been teaching for many years at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.

Taylor (below) writes:

“Despite having my performance schedule ravaged, like everyone else, I do actually have one positive morsel of news to relay regarding a “recital” coming up in the near future, which I wanted to you know about.

“It is being hosted by the Chautauqua Institution, where I’ve performed a few times in the past. Unsurprisingly, they’ve had to switch to an online format this summer.

“Just last week I made the actual recording, playing four impromptus by Scriabin, and Four Impromptus, Op. 142, by Schubert in the Mead-Witter Foundation Concert Hall (below, with the UW Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra), which seemed like a propitious setting. (Editor’s note: In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the third impromptu in the set by Schubert performed by Vladimir Horowitz during his historic 1986 recital in Moscow.)

“Under the circumstances I think the video turned out pretty well. The actual streaming, which will include the 45 minutes of music plus a little live interview before and afterwards, takes place this Wednesday – Aug. 5 – at 3 p.m. CDT.

You can get there by way of the following link: https://porch.chq.org/ue/event/6518/

“Apparently there is a brief registration form one has to fill out prior to viewing the show, but basically getting in should be a free and painless process for all and sundry.

“Hope you get a chance to join in, and that you enjoy it!”

Posted in Classical music
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