The Well-Tempered Ear
Due to popular demand, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) opens its FREE virtual master classes to the public. Today features the violin and Monday features the bass
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) welcomes back two distinguished and successful alumni this weekend to teach the fifth and sixth master classes in an ongoing series that has already wowed observers. (WYSO alumni are noted below with an asterisk.)
Each virtual event is free and open to the general public with registration required in advance.
“The series has been so fabulous that, due to popular demand, we’ve opened up the events to anyone who wants to attend,” says Susan Gardels, marketing and communications director for WYSO.
TODAY – Sunday, Jan. 10 — from 5:30-7:30 p.m. CST Derek Powell, a violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., will coach four WYSO violin members in a two-hour master class.
This will be followed the next evening with a master class coached by Scott Pingel, Principal Bass with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (Monday, Jan. 11, 6:30-8:30 p.m. CST).
A master class presents a one-on-one opportunity for a student musician to learn from a guest artist with an audience invited to observe the process.
In previous master classes in this series, the audience has learned instrument performance techniques and musical interpretation tips from a wide variety of guest artists who professionally play music around the world.
With the master classes presented in an intimate Zoom setting, the audience learns along with the student— and it is amazing to see the sudden growth in a student’s musical prowess as a master class proceeds.
Derek Powell’s bio includes his experience with the New World Symphony where Powell (below) performed as concertmaster with famed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and as a violinist with the Army Strings, as well as his current experience with the National Symphony Orchestra.
Scott Pingel (below) was a trumpet player in his WYSO days with a side love for electric bass. Pingel switched to concert bass as an undergraduate at UW-Eau Claire, continued studies at the Manhattan School of Music, and played with the New World Symphony and the Charleston Symphony before joining the San Francisco Symphony as Principal Bass in 2004. He recently created buzz by playing with Metallica in a packed house with the San Francisco Orchestra.
For more information, go to: WYSO Amazing Masterclass Series:
Here are details and links to register:
*Derek Powell, Violin Master Class
TODAY, Sunday, Jan. 10, 5:30-7:30 p.m. CST
Free and open to the public
Click here to register in advance
_______________________________
*Scott Pingel, Bass Master Class
Monday, Jan. 11, 6:30-8:30 p.m. CST
Free and open to the public
Click here to register in advance
Here are is a schedule of future WYSO alumni master classes:
Katherine Steele (below), oboe
Sunday, Jan. 17, 6-8 p.m. CST
(Principal Oboe, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra) https://wysomusic.org/katherine-steel-masterclass/
James Shields (below), clarinet
Sunday, Jan. 24, 7-9 p.m. CST
(Principal Clarinet, Oregon Symphony Orchestra)
Read more about James Shields
*Nancy Goeres (below), bassoon
Sunday, Feb. 7, 6-8 p.m. CST
(Principal Bassoon, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)
Danbi Um (below), violin
Sunday, Feb. 21, Time TBD
(Soloist, member Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center)
Megumi Kanda (below), trombone
Sunday, Feb. 28, 5:30-7:30 p.m. CST (Principal Trombone, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra)
David Perry (below), violin
Sunday, March 7, 6-8 p.m. CST
(First Violin, UW-Madison Pro Arte Quartet and UW-Madison Music Professor)
Naha Greenholtz (below), violin
Sunday, March 28, 6-8 p.m. CST
(Concertmaster, Madison Symphony Orchestra and Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra)
*Sharan Leventhal (below), violin
Sunday, April 11, 6-8 p.m. CST
(Boston Conservatory)
For more information, go to https://wysomusic.org or call (608) 733-6283.
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Will the public pay for online virtual concerts? Will you? Consider the fate of newspapers
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By Jacob Stockinger
More and more local classical musicians and music presenters are moving concerts and music-making to virtual online events, at least for the fall and early winter – and quite possibly for the rest of the season. (Below is Shannon Hall in the Wisconsin Union Theater.)
And although we are still waiting for details, it seems all but certain that many of them will be pay-per-view and require tickets.
True, the move from free streaming to pay-for-view might be very useful in helping performers earn a much-needed living.
But it could also be disastrous – or at least extremely disruptive and disappointing.
Anthony Tommasini (below), the senior music critic for The New York Times, recently wrote a long story defending the move from being free to becoming paid for both livestreams and pre-recorded music concerts.
Tommasini — whose profession demands that he follow wherever the music goes — thinks it will, or should, work.
Here is a link to his story that includes concerts at The Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere with international stars such as soprano Renée Fleming (beow top) and pianist Daniil Trifonov (below bottom).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/arts/music/classical-music-livestream.html
But The Ear isn’t so sure.
For one thing, many listeners might find alternatives. They might like watching outstanding performances of the same works by great and even historical performers on YouTube for free.
They might like exploring their own collections of recordings, or listening to the radio and watching TV, or even making more music as amateurs.
The Ear also suspects that now that the habit of going to live concerts has been interrupted, many people will simply find that they miss going to live performances much less than they thought they would – or than various arts groups hoped they would. (Below is the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in a photo by Mike Gorski.)
In addition, even since the coronavirus pandemic lockdown last March, listeners have become used to the free events that many organizations offered if only to keep a presence in the public’s mind.
The strategy was understandable and made sense at the time.
But The Ear thinks of what happened with newspapers.
In the early days of the internet, newspapers offered online stories for free, as a kind of extra attraction or added benefit to secure subscribers.
But as the newspapers lost both advertisers and subscribers and tried to “monetize” their online editions, they found that the horse was already out of the barn.
Many viewers did indeed subscribe to digital editions, but many others abandoned newspapers and instead turned to free online media for their news.
So what will happen in cases less prestigious than what Tommasini describes?
What do you think?
Will local pay-per-view concerts, perhaps with bigger volume if lower individual ticket prices, be successful?
Will you pay to “attend” such virtual online events?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The UW-Madison School of Music seeks volunteers to help “tune” two new concert halls all-day this Thursday and Friday in the soon-to-open Hamel Music Center
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a chance for music lovers to combine civic duty with private pleasure.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music is looking for volunteers of any kind to help “tune” the two new concert halls in the soon-to-open Hamel Music Center (below), located at 740 University Avenue next to the Chazen Museum of Art’s newer wing. The official opening celebrations for the $56-million building are Oct. 25-27.
“Tuning” the hall is the term that acousticians apply to the process of adjusting the hall to how it will sound when audiences are in attendance. Halls sound very different from when they are empty to when they are occupied.
The School of Music team is looking for volunteers to help tune the larger concert hall on Thursday, Sept. 19, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and the smaller recital hall on Friday, Sept. 20, from 9:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Volunteers can be from the university of from the general public. Two halls are involved: the larger Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, which can seat up to 662; and the smaller Collins Recital Hall (below, in an architect’s rendering), which can seat up to 299.
Volunteers can study, work quietly on computers, check out the new facility, use the time as quiet time or sample for free some of the UW’s performers. Individuals and groups will be performing during the adjustments being made by the sound engineers.
Visitors will be asked to remain silently in their seats while the “commissioning” for a particular setting is in process. Breaks are scheduled for people to come and go. Start and stop times are approximate.
The musicians and kinds of music include: a symphony orchestra; a choir; brass, wind, percussion and string ensembles, including a string quartet; solo piano; and jazz.
Volunteers can attend as many sessions as they want, but they are asked to arrive 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time they wish to attend and sign up for.
For more information, including schedules and details about the kind of music to be performed and how to behave, here is a link to a story and schedules: https://www.music.wisc.edu/tuning/
If you go, use this blog’s Comment section to let The Ear know what the experience was like – even though he may also see you there.
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