The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: The LunART Festival of women musicians will perform chamber music by all-female composers this Saturday night

February 22, 2019
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By Jacob Stockinger

The LunART Festival will be part of the Arts @ First Series when it performs “A Wintry Mix Chamber Music Collective” on this Saturday night, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 203 Wisconsin Avenue.

The concert will features the Arbor Ensemble (below) and Black Marigold.

Admission is $15 for adults, $5 for students and free for children under 12. Advance tickets are $12 at: lunartwintrymix.brownpapertickets.com

The LunART Festival is dedicated to promoting and celebrating women in the arts through public performances, exhibitions, workshops and interdisciplinary collaboration. After a very successful inaugural season, the second LunART festival will take place in Madison, from June 6 through June 9.

While the main focus of LunART is a summer festival, LunART also presents events throughout the year, such as this midwinter collaborative concert.

The Madison-based ensembles Arbor Ensemble and Black Marigold (below, in a photo by Vincent Fuh) will perform an array of works for strings, winds and piano from the past 100 years, showcasing both historically notable women composers and introducing less familiar female pioneers of today.

The Arbor Ensemble will premiere their newly commissioned “Trio Cerulean” by Cherise Leiter (below top), in addition to their arrangement of the Piano Trio for flute, viola and piano by Germaine Tailleferre (below bottom).

Arbor members Berlinda Lopez (flute), Marie Pauls (viola) and Stacy Fehr-Regehr (piano) seek to connect with audiences through their personal sound and colorful instrumentation. Their innovative programming highlights lesser known chamber works, and the group has developed a niche promoting music of women composers.

The highly regarded, award-winning Quintet for Wind Instruments of Grazyna Bacewicz (below top) will be performed by Black Marigold (below bottom), a dynamic wind quintet known for their captivating and energetic performances. Members are Iva Ugrcic (flute), Laura Medisky (oboe), Bethany Schultz (clarinet), Juliana Mesa (bassoon) and Kia Karlen (horn).

Advocates of new music and living composers, Black Marigold fosters fresh perceptions of new music by programming pieces that are equally enjoyable for performers and audiences.

The ensembles will collaborate by mixing members and instrumentation, rounding out the program with Duo for Oboe and Viola by Hilary Tann (below top); “Doppler Effect” for flute, clarinet and piano by Adrienne Albert; “D’un Matin de Printemps” (From A Morning in Spring) by Lili Boulanger; and the Quartet for Strings, Op. 89, by Amy Beach (below bottom). You can hear the piece by Lili Boulanger in the YouTube video at the bottom.

Guest artists Laura Mericle (violin), Shannon Farley (violin) and Samantha Sinai (cello) will join Arbor violist Marie Pauls for the performance of the Beach. The quartet was a featured ensemble at the inaugural season of the LunART Festival this past summer.

For more information, go to:

lunartfestival.org

arborensemble.com

blackmarigold.com

firstunitedmethodistmadison.org/artsatfirst


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Classical music: This week at the UW-Madison highlights choral music

November 7, 2018
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, featurestwo local musicians: oboist Laura Medisky and pianist Vincent Fuh.

The program features solo works for oboe, oboe d’amore and piano by Johann Sebastian Bach, Grażyna Bacewicz, and Camille Saint-Saens. Food and drink are allowed. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m. Due to construction, Friday Musicale concerts are being held in the Atrium auditorium through December.

By Jacob Stockinger

Two choral concerts are the big events this week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.

Here are the details:

FRIDAY

On this Friday night, Nov. 9, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Chorale, under director and conductor of Bruce Gladstone (below in a photo by Katrin Talbot), will present a FREE concert.

The program features “Lament of Gilboa” by Arthur Honegger (below top) and “Into the Silent Darkness” by Elizabeth Alexander (below bottom).

According to the School of Music’s website: “This concert explores opposites in a variety of ways (cold/hot, slow/fast, laughing/crying, life/death), inviting the listener to think about the gray areas in between.”

SUNDAY

On this Sunday afternoon, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m. in Mills Hall, there will be a FREE concert of combined choirs. Participating groups are Masters Singers, University Chorus and Women’s Chorus (below).

The program, to be performed under graduate student conductors Michael Johnson and Andrew Voth, features traditional folk music as well as works by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johannes Brahms (see the YouTube video at the bottom), Ralph Vaughan Williams and Aaron Copland.

For a long listing of specific works to be sung, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/combined-choirs-concert-masters-singers-university-chorus-and-womens-chorus/


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Classical music: A FREE concert of Polish piano music is on this Sunday afternoon at the UW-Madison

October 20, 2018
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement to post:

On this Sunday afternoon, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m., University of Oklahoma Professor Igor Lipinski (below) will perform a solo piano recital with commentary at Mills Concert Hall of UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. Mills Hall is located at 455 North Park Street in the George Mosse Humanities Building.

At this FREE CONCERT, Lipinski will perform music by 19th through 21st century Polish composers: Fryderyk (Frederic) Chopin, Karol Szymanowski, Ignaz Jan Paderewski, Grazyna Bacewicz and Pawel Mykietyn. (Editor’s note: Sorry, no titles of specific works are listed.)

Since classical music from Poland has been rarely performed in concert halls in Madison, this recital will be a unique occasion to experience Poland’s musical heritage and diversity.

This concert also commemorates the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining independence at the conclusion of World War I, after 123 years of its partition and disappearance from the map of Europe.

Please join our local Polish community in celebrating this joyous occasion through appreciation of beautiful and captivating music from some of the Poland’s most important composers.

This event is organized by the Polish Student Association of UW-Madison and Mad-Polka Productions, with cooperation and financial support provided by Lapinski Fund (UW-Madison German, Nordic and Slavic Departments) and the Polish Heritage Club of Madison as well as the Sounds & Notes Foundation from Chicago.

ABOUT THE PERFORMER:

Prof. Igor Lipinski is native to Poland and currently teaching at the University of Oklahoma. At the age of 12, he won a Grand Prize at the Paderewski Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Poland.

He is a musician, piano teacher, performer and also a magician, sometimes surprisingly combining all of his interests during his performances.

He received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from Northwestern University and since then performed over 100 concerts, both solo and with orchestras, all over the U.S.

This will be his debut in Madison.

For more information, go to: www.igorlipinski.com

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS:

Fryderyk (Frederic) Chopin (1810-1849, below): He was born in Poland, but also composed and performed in Germany, Vienna and France. Probably the most prominent Polish composer as well as pianist and performer. Much of Chopin’s inspiration came from Polish village music from the Mazovia region. Chopin composed 57 mazurkas – the mazurka being one of his most beloved type of compositions. He also composed numerous polonaises, concertos, nocturnes and sonatas. (You can hear famous Polish pianist Arthur Rubinstein perform Chopin’s famously nationalistic “Heroic” Polonaise in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937, below): Part of “Young Poland” group of composers at the beginning of 20th century, Szymanowski composed operas, ballets, sonatas, concertos, cycle of songs, string quartets. Many of his compositions were also inspired by Polish folk music, including the famous ballet “Harnasie” based on the culture of Polish highlanders which he experienced while living in Zakopane.

Ignaz Jan Paderewski (1860-1941, below) was a remarkable figure in Poland’s turn-of-the-century history. He was a pianist, composer, statesman, politician, philanthropist, actor, businessman, patron of the arts and architecture, wine grower and humanitarian. As a pianist, he was praised for his interpretations of music of Chopin, Liszt, Bach and Beethoven. He successfully toured western Europe before eventually setting off for the USA. Starting with his first 1891 tour he crossed U.S. about 30 times in his 50-year career.

He was a very popular, charismatic and somewhat extravagant figure, which eventually resulted in “Paddymania” phenomenon. He was largely influenced by Chopin in his composition of sonatas, concertos, polonaises, Polish dances, symphonies, mazurkas, krakowiaks, minuets and even one opera. He also relentlessly supported and lobbied for Poland ‘s independence as World War I unraveled.  He influenced U.S. politicians and played a crucial diplomatic role in Poland regaining its independence in 1911.

Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969, below): Violinist, pianist, teacher, writer and composer, she was one of the few female classical music composers at the time in Poland and in the world. Thanks to a generous grant from Ignaz Jan Paderewski, she was able to study music in Paris. She composed numerous concertos, string quartets, sonatas, symphonies.

Pawel Mykietyn (1971-, below in a photo by Oliva Soto): Composer, clarinetist, member of Nonstrom Ensemble. In 1995, he won a first prize in the young composers category during the UNESCO composers competition in Paris. Mykietyn’s composing style is at times aggressive and postmodern, incorporating sharp rhythms to create a vivid and provocative sound. He has composed concertos, sonatas, symphonies, preludes and string quartets.

Thanks to all the sponsors and community support, this concert is FREE and open to the public.


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