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
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.
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.
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.
This Wednesday, Just Bach again shares the timeless beauty of the music by Johann Sebastian Bach (below) from their home in the nave of Luther Memorial Church (LCM), 1021 University Avenue.
The group participates in LMC’s weekly ‘Music at Midday’ concert series at https://www.luthermem.org/music-at-midday. (Please note: Now that the concerts are online instead of in person, the videos will be posted early Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m., instead of at noon. They will remain online indefinitely so viewers can see them at their convenience.).
As part of this series, Just Bach concerts take place on the third Wednesday of each month. Remaining concerts are: Nov. 18, Dec. 16, Jan. 20, Feb. 17, March 17, April 21 and May 19. The programs last approximately 30 minutes.
It is still too risky to have in-person audiences. So in addition to the Luther Memorial website, they will be posted on:
The November concert opens with Just Bach co-founder, UW graduate student and nationally concertizing soprano Sarah Brailey (below), who will provide welcoming remarks and an overview of the program.
Our guest artists this month (below, in a photo by Barry Lewis) are a quartet of string players from the Madison Symphony Orchestra: violinists Leanne League and Xavier Pleindoux; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Lindsey Crabb. Also performing is harpsichordist John Chappell Stowe, a professor in the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. Dave Parminter is the videographer.
League and Pleindoux (below, in a photo by Barry Lewis) will play the solo parts in the familiar and beautiful Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins (the ‘Bach Double’), BWV 1043.
Madison Symphony Orchestra audiences will remember their gorgeous performance of this piece at a Christmas Spectacular concert a couple of years back. (You can hear the beautiful and poignant slow movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The ensemble will continue with a movement from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068, the serenely transcendent “Air on a G String.”
Sarah Brailey returns to lead the final chorale from Cantata 139, composed for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity, which happens to be this coming Sunday. The stirring title, Dahero Trotz der Höllen Heer! translates as “Therefore Defiance to the Host of Hell.”
We encourage viewers to sing along by following the chorale sheet music, which will be displayed on the screen, as Stowe accompanies on the organ.
The Well-Tempered Ear 
Here is a collaborative obituary for music critic, radio host, performer and gay pioneer Jess Anderson, who died in January at 85
3 Comments
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
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.
Share this:
Like this:
Tags: #AssistedLiving, #BachDancingandDynamiteSociety, #BaroqueMusic, #BaroqueRecorder, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ChamberMusic, #ChoralMusic, #CoronavirusPandemic, #COVID-19, #CriticallyAcclaimed, #EarlyMusicMovement, #EdWegert, #ElliottCarter, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #Farley'sHouseofPianos, #FerruccioBusoni, #FrancoisCouperin, #FranzLiszt, #FranzSchubert, #FredericChopin, #GayLiberationFront, #GeniusGrant, #GroceryStore, #GunnarJohansen, #Hard Work, #HardWork, #HomeWebpage, #HornSection, #IgorKipnis, #IgorStravinsky, #IsthmusNewspaper, #JacobStockinger, #JessAnderson, #JohannesBrahms, #JohannSebastianBach, #LGBTQrights, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MacArthurFellow, #MacArthurFoundation, #MadisonOpera, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology, #MetropolitanOpera, #MusicCritic, #MusicCriticism, #MusicEducation, #NewYorkCity, #OrchestralMusic, #OurLives, #PerformingArts, #PianoSonata, #Prize-Winning, #ProArteQuartet, #PulitzerPrize, #RadioHost, #RenaissanceMan, #RetailStore, #RonMcCrea, #RoseMaryHarbison, #RudolfKolisch, #SalonPIanoSeries, #SarahLawrenceCollege, #SignOff, #St.JohnPassion, #SteinwayPiano, #SteveMiller, #SundayMorning, #TheEar, #TheGreatGatsby, #TheMet, #TheUW, #TokenCreekChamberMusicFestival, #UniversityofAlabama, #UniversityofIllinois-Champaign-Urbana, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VocalMusic, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #WorldPremiere, #WORT-FM89.9, #YouTubevideo, acclaimed, advance, aesthete, Africa, African, airplanes, Arts, assisted living, attend, audience, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Baroque, beauty, Beethoven, birthday, blog, Book, bookmaker, Brahms, Broadcast, Buscardi, Busoni, camping, Carter, CDs, Chamber music, Chinatown, Chopin, choral music, citizen, Classical music, co-direct, co-director, collaborate, collaborative, comment, Compact Disc, composer, Composition, computer, Concert, conductor, contract, contractor, contribute, coronavirus, coronavirus pandemic, counterpoint, Couperin, criticism, death, decade, dementia, details, devoted, died, Early music, earlymusic, Ed Wegert, effort, Elliott Carter, exceptional, exuberance, Facebook, Facebook post, Facebook posting, facility, fall, Family, Farley's House of Pianos, Ferruccio Busoni, final, fitting, forward, François Couperin, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, free, French, friend, gay, Gay Liberation Front, generosity, genius grant, grateful, graudate, graudate student, grocery store, Gunnar Johansen, Harbison, harpsichord, History, hobby, Home, home webpage, host, Igor Kipnis, Igor Stravinsky, ILLINOIS, imitate, inspiration, invite, Isthmus, it, Jacob Stockinger, January, Jess Anderson, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John Harbison, joint, Kipnis, knew, know, knowledge, language, late, LGBT, LGBTQ, lifeblood, like, link, Liszt, literature, Love, Ludwig van Beethoven, MacArthur Fellow, MacArthur Foundation, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, magazine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McCrea, memories, memory, men, mentor, Met, Metropolitan Opera, Midwest, miller, MIT, model, morning, Music, music critic, Music education, Musician, nearby, New York City, obituary, opera, opinionated, Orchestra, orchestral music, Our LIves, outlet, outspoken, overlooked, pandemic, Passion, perform, Performing arts, periodical, photography, photos, Pianist, Piano, Piano sonata, piece, pioneer, play, poet, Poetry, polymath, post, posting, Pro Arte Quartet, professional, professor, programmer, Pulitzer Prize, rdio, recital, recorder, Renaissance, Renaissance man, repertoire, repertory, Retail, Ron McCrea, Rose Mary Harbison, Rudolf Kolisch, Russian, Salon Piano Series, Sarah Lawrence College, school, Schubert, Seattle, section, sign-off, Slavic, Sonata, Soulima Stravinsky, spirit, St. John Passion, statewide, Steinway, Steve Miller, store, Stravinsky, Student, sublime, submarine, subscription, success, suffer, suffering, summer, Sunday, tag, talent, talented, taste, Teacher, technology, The Ear, The Great Gatsby, thought, time, Token Creek, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, train, tribute, United States, universal, University of Alabama, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW, UW-Madison, Violin, violinist, virtuoso, vocal music, Wegert, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Theater, wonderful, world premiere, World War II, WORT-FM 89.9, WWII, year, young, YouTube