The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Madison Choral Project performs “Finding Our Path” this Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Plus, the Madison New Music Ensemble performs a FREE concert this Friday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, the critically acclaimed Madison Choral Project (below) will give two performances – in two different venues this year — of its seventh annual holiday program.
The MCP was founded and is directed and conducted by Albert Pinsonneault (below), who taught at Edgewood College and now works at Northwestern University. The group’s stated goal is to inspire, enhance and improve life through music. (You can hear them singing the Octet from Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In keeping with a format that you often find in places of worship — think Scripture and hymns — the MCP once again uses a holiday formula that remains popular and works very effectively by combining the spoken word with choral music.
This year’s theme is “Finding Our Path” and features music and texts on the theme of feeling adrift, seeking guidance and finding our path.
Performances are on this Friday night, Dec. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive; and this Saturday afternoon, Dec. 14, at 3 p.m. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Avenue, near Camp Randall Stadium.
Noah Ovshinsky (below), the news editor at Wisconsin Public Radio, will once again serve as the narrator.
Unfortunately, The Ear has seen no word about the works or composers in the musical part of the program, except that two commissions, including a world premiere by MCP composer-in-residence Justin Merritt, will be performed.
PREFERRED SEATING has a limit of 20 per concert. A reserved seat is in an acoustically “prime” spot in the house (center, about a third of the way back from the stage) and costs $40.
GENERAL ADMISSION is $28 purchased in advance and online or $32 at the door.
STUDENT TICKETS are $10 and can be purchased in advance or at the door. Please show valid student ID at will-call to redeem the ticket.
To purchase tickets online, go to: http://themcp.org/tickets
For more information, including a list of other concerts this season as well as recordings and videos, go to: http://themcp.org/concerts-2
MADISON NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE
This Friday night, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m. the Madison New Music Ensemble (below) will perform a FREE concert at the Capitol Lakes Auditorium, 333 W. Main St., in downtown Madison, two blocks off the Capitol Square.
Parking is available in the ramp across from Capitol Lakes.
The concert features music by Joseph Koykkar (below), a Madison-based composer who teaches at the UW-Madison; Gabriela Lena Frank; Gareth Farr; Astor Piazzolla; and Paul Harvey.
Performers in the Madison New Music Ensemble are: Danielle Breisach, Amy Harr, Xinyi Jiang, Elena Ross, Joseph Ross and Bethany Schultz.
For more information, go to the Madison New Music Ensemble on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madisonnewmusicensemble/
Or go to the YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oehEnNWbA0Q
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Classical music: The fourth annual Madison New Music Festival takes place this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It features Wisconsin composers and several world premieres
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By Jacob Stockinger
The fourth season of the Madison New Music Festival (below, in a photo from 2017 by Max Schmidt) will take place this coming Friday, Aug. 9, through Sunday, Aug. 11.
The Madison New Music Festival is an annual, weekend-long celebration for the Madison community of classical works written by contemporary composers.
In four concerts – three with admission and one free — the festival will showcase Wisconsin-based composers and performers of new music, as well as world premiere performances by guest artists.
Tickets for each concert are $15 for adults and $5 for students. Subscriptions to all three concerts are available for $35. For more information, go to http://madisonnewmusic.org or to Facebook (@Madison New Music Festival) or Instagram (@madisonnewmusic).
Here is the line-up:
Concert 1: Music from Wisconsin – Friday, Aug. 9, at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (227 State St.)
What: In anticipation of this fall’s Wisconsin Triennial and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, this concert spotlights all Wisconsin-born, -based, or -educated composers, curated by pianist Robert Fleitz (below, with a toy piano he often performs on), whom The New York Times called “mesmerizing.” Joined by young local musicians, Fleitz explores music created right here in their own backyard.
Concert 2: World Premieres – Saturday, Aug. 10, at 7:30 p.m.
Where: First Unitarian Society of Madison’s Atrium Auditorium (900 University Bay Drive)
What: Internationally acclaimed violist Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti and Wisconsin-born pianist Karl Larson (below top) will give the world premieres of new viola sonatas from three of the world’s leading composers: Andrew Norman, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Scott Wollschleger. In addition, local cellist James Waldo will kick off the evening with a premiere of a work for solo cello by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Les Thimmig (below bottom).
Concert 3: SistaStrings – Sunday, Aug. 11, at 2:30 p.m.
Where: Robinia Courtyard (829 East Washington Avenue)
What: The concert features the Milwaukee-based sister duo SistaStrings (below, in a photo by Adam Ryan Morris). Violinist Chauntee Ross and cellist Monique LaDora Ross blend their training as accomplished classical instrumentalists with “R&B and a touch of gospel influence that culminates in a vibey, lush sound.” The sisters will play tracks from their new and acclaimed Extended Play recording in the cozy courtyard. (You can hear them in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Partner concert: Madison New Music Ensemble (FREE concert) – Sunday, Aug. 11, at 5 p.m.
Where: Memorial Union Terrace (800 Langdon Street, below)
What: Join the newly formed Madison New Music Ensemble (below top), led by UW-Madison composer Joseph Koykkar (below bottom), at the Memorial Union Terrace as part of their Summer Serenade series. The group will perform works by Koykkar, Ian Clarke, Gabriela Lena Frank, Gareth Farr and Kirsten Volness.
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Classical music: On Veterans Day, what is the best music to honor fallen soldiers? The Ear chooses Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin.” Plus, a FREE concert of music for flute and percussion will be held on Friday at noon
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale, held from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features flutist Ivano Ugrcic and percussionist David Alcorn in music by Gareth Farr, Marius Constant, Christos Hatzis and Nebojsa Macura.
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Veterans Day.
It has become a day to honor all members, living and dead, of the U.S. armed forces and their service.
That’s just fine with The Ear.
But the holiday started as Armistice Day to honor the end of World War I, which occurred at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.
And since the modern world we know is in large effect the result of the outcomes of World War I, The Ear likes going back to the origins.
If you accept that premise -– and of course you don’t have to — it allows us to listen to what is probably the best piece of classical music ever written to honor fallen soldiers. That piece is Maurice Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin.”
The title refers to the formal structures that harken back to the underperformed and under-appreciated French Baroque composer Francois Couperin.
Each of the six movements takes a special form and each one is dedicated to a friend of Ravel who was killed in World War I. (Ravel, below, tried to enlist to fight, but was too old.)
Funny, the more I listen, the more the two 20th-century composers who matter most to me are not Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, but Maurice Ravel and Bela Bartok.
But elaborating on why is another topic for another post.
Anyway, Ravel, who was one of the greatest orchestrators of all time, orchestrated “Le Tombeau de Couperin” (literally, the tomb of Couperin – “le tombeau” being the word used for an homage to honor the dead that was also used by the French poets to honor other writers or members of the royal family, including Francois Villon, Joachim du Bellay, Pierre de Ronsard Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé.)
But The Ear prefers the original piano version, which is very difficult to play. It has color but also a certain clarity and austerity that fit the purpose of the music. He thinks you hear the distinctive dance rhythms better and more sharply, and the sections with tolling bells sounds much more, well, bell-like.
Here, dedicated to all veterans but especially to World War I and what that history-changing meat-grinder of a conflict brought us, is a YouTube video of Canadian pianist Louis Lortie playing Maurice Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin”:
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