inauguration | The Well-Tempered Ear

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra starts its four-concert Winter Chamber Series TONIGHT at 7:30. Tickets are $30 for one-time access from Friday night to Monday night

January 22, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The new semester of virtual online concerts begins tonight with the inauguration of the Winter Chamber Series by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO, below in a photo by Mike Gorski).

Tonight’s program features music by Giovanni Gabrieli, Valerie Coleman, Alec Wilder, Craig Russell and Franz Schubert. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the first movement of the Schubert Cello Quintet, played by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.)

The programs are short and feature classic works as well as new music and neglected composers. Often single movements or excerpts rather than complete works are performed.

Concerts all debut on Fridays and remain available through Monday night. Debut dates are TONIGHT, Jan. 22; Feb. 26; March 26; and April 16. A ticket entitles the purchaser to one viewing.

Here is a description of the chamber music series from the WCO:

“While full orchestras remain sidelined, the WCO is excited to present the Winter Chamber Series. This new series will feature chamber works for multiple ensembles ranging from trios to octets, showcasing the versatility and caliber of the WCO’s 34 world-class musicians.

“Patrons will enjoy the four-concert series in the comfort of their own home, streaming each concert on WCO Live on-demand starting at 7:30 p.m. on the evening of the concert launch.

“All programs will be 60–75 minutes in length, with not only music but also stories from the WCO’s own musicians on their journey to becoming professional musicians.

“Also included is a pre-concert talk with maestro Andrew Sewell and Norman Gilliland, as well as a post-concert reflection with musicians of the WCO.”

Here is a link to the concerts, with programs plus notes by music director and conductor Sewell (below in a photo by Alex Cruz) as well as a link to purchase tickets from the Overture Center box office: https://wcoconcerts.org/concerts-tickets/winter-chamber-series

In addition, the WCO has started a musician’s relief fund. It seeks donations to pay musicians for the wages they have lost due to postponed or canceled concerts.

Here is a link: https://wcoconcerts.org/support/donate

Posted in Classical music
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This Wednesday, Just Bach debuts its free 30-minute online concert of solo and chamber organ music with a sing-along cantata chorale

January 19, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement to post:

Happy New Year from Just Bach!

We hope this finds you all well, and ready to experience more of the timeless beauty of music by Johann Sebastian Bach (below, 1685-1750) in 2021, because we have a lovely new program ready to debut on this Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 8 a.m. (It will stay up indefinitely after the premiere, so you can listen to it before or after the Inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.)

As regular performers on Luther Memorial Church’s weekly “Music at Midday” concert series, Just Bach presents half-hour programs on the third Wednesday of each month. The spring semester’s dates are: Jan. 20, Feb. 17, March 17, April 21 and May 19.

Our online concerts — Dave Parminter is the videographer — are posted early Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m. on the Just Bach and Luther Memorial YouTube Channels. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcyVFEVsJwklHAx9riqSkXQ

Viewing the virtual concerts is free to the public, but we ask those who are able to help us pay our musicians with a tax-deductible donation at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick…

Our January concert opens with Just Bach co-founder and Grammy-nominated soprano Sarah Brailey (below) – a graduate student at the UW-Madison — providing welcoming remarks.

The program offers two trio sonatas from the set of six that Bach composed for solo organ. Bruce Bengston (below) will perform Sonata No. 4 in E Minor, BWV 528, on the big Austin organ up in the church’s balcony.

Then Bruce will switch to the small portative organ and join violinist Kangwon Kim (below top) and violist Marika Fischer Hoyt (below middle) in a performance of Sonata No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 526, arranged for violin, viola and organ continuo (a rehearsal photo is below bottom).

Sarah, who also recorded herself paying a cello part, closes the program with the final chorale from Cantata 149 —Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein (Ah, Lord, let your dear little angel) — a powerfully transcendent movement that Bach also used to close the St. John Passion. (You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

We encourage viewers to sing along by following the chorale sheet music, which will be displayed on the computer screen as Sarah sings and Bruce accompanies on the organ.

The world needs this soul-centering music now more than ever. Please join us this Wednesday, Jan. 20.

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Classical music: During the COVID-19 pandemic, hosts at Wisconsin Public Radio suggest music that expresses gratitude and hope

May 13, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The various hosts of Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) — an indispensable companion during self-isolation at home — listen to a lot of music and think a lot about it, especially about its meaning and appeal to the public.

So it comes as no surprise that they have once again suggested music to listen to during the coronavirus pandemic and the mounting toll of COVID-19.

Almost two months ago, the same radio hosts suggested music that they find calming and inspiring. They did so on the WPR home page in an ongoing blog where they also included YouTube audiovisual performances.

Here is a link to that earlier posting, which is well worth reading and following: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=Wisconsin+Public+Radio

This time, the various hosts – mostly of classical shows but also of folk music and world music – suggest music that inspires or expresses hope and gratitude. (Below is Ruthanne Bessman, the host of “Classics by Request,” which airs at 10 a.m. on Saturdays.)

Here is the genesis of the list and public service project:

“At a recent WPR music staff meeting, we talked about the many ways music can unite us and about how music can express the gratitude we feel for people and things that are important to us, often much better than words.

“That discussion led to this collection of music, which we wanted to share with you. It’s eclectic and interesting, just like our music staff.”

The composers cited include some familiar names such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Benjamin Britten and John Williams.

But some new music, based on historical events and written by contemporary or modern composers, is also named. It includes works by the American composer Daniel Gawthrop (b. 1949, below top) and the Israeli composer David Zehavi (1910-1977, below bottom). Here are links to their biographies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_E._Gawthrop

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/zehavi-david

Sound-wise, it is quite an eclectic list that runs from solo harpsichord music to orchestral and choral music as well as chamber music.

Many of the performers have played in Madison at the Overture Center, with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, at the Wisconsin Union Theater, at the UW-Madison and on the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos.

They include: the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; cellist Amit Peled and pianist Eli Kalman, who received his doctorate from the UW-Madison and now teaches at the UW-Oshkosh; conductor-composer John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers; and superstars violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma along with Venezuelan pianist-improviser Gabriela Montero in a quartet that played at the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Here is a link to the new WPR suggestions: https://www.wpr.org/wpr-hosts-share-music-gratitude-and-hope

Happy listening!

If you read the blog or listen to the music, let us know what you think in the Comment section.

The Ear wants to hear.

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Classical music: Free “Just Bach” concerts change the starting time to NOON and begin their second season this Wednesday at Luther Memorial Church. Here are programs for this semester

September 15, 2019
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The Ear has received the following announcement from the organizers and performers of Just Bach, which had a very successful inaugural run last season:

Join us on this coming Wednesday, Sept. 18, as we kick off our second season of “Just Bach” concerts. The concerts are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, with a goodwill offering collected.

The Just Bach concert series – which features Baroque period instruments and historically informed performance practices — resumes as part of the weekly free noontime “Music at Midday” concerts in the gorgeous sanctuary (below) of Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Ave. For more information and a schedule of other performances and performers in the series, go to: luthermem.org/music-at-midday

PLEASE NOTE: While the one-hour Just Bach concerts last season started at 1 p.m., this season they will start at NOON.

The photo (below, from left) shows three performers for this upcoming first concert: soprano Sarah Brailey, violist Marika Fischer Hoyt, and traverse flutist Linda Pereksta.

The season-opener is an instrumental program titled “Gamba Sonatas Without the Gambas.” (Gamba is the Italian word for leg and was used to describe what would evolve into the modern cello.)

Of the three sonatas written for viola da gamba (an early version of the modern cello) and harpsichord, BWV 1027-1029, we’ll hear the first and third, but in alternate versions.

First on the program is the hauntingly beautiful Sonata No. 3 in G Minor, BWV 1029, performed on viola da braccio (baroque viola) and harpsichord. (You can hear the opening movement of the original version, played on a modern cello and piano by Janos Starker and Gyorgy Sebok, respectively, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Following that will be the jaunty Sonata in G Major BWV 1039, the Trio Sonata arrangement for cello, flute and harpsichord that Bach made of the Sonata No. 1, BWV 1027.

Just Bach regulars traverse flutists Linda Pereksta and Monica Steger and violist Marika Fischer Hoyt return to the stage. They will be joined by cellist Lindsey Crabb (below top) and UW-Madison harpsichordist John Chapell Stowe (below bottom on the right), who are making their debuts at Just Bach.

Just Bach organizer and regular performer, as well as UW graduate student and professional touring soprano, Sarah Brailey (below) leads the chorale sing-along, a beloved audience-participation feature of these programs.

Bring your lunch, bring your ears and your voice, and bring a friend, but most of all bring yourself to enjoy the sublime music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Here is a schedule of upcoming Just Bach concerts this fall, all taking place on Wednesdays at noon:

Oct. 16: Cantata 158 Der Friede sei mit dir (Peace be with you)

Nov. 20: Cantata 151 Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kommt (Sweet comfort, my Jesus comes)

Dec. 18: Christmas Pastiche

For more information, including tips on parking, go to the website justbach.org

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Classical music: Pianist Gabriela Montero plays music by Schubert and Schumann and then does her own spontaneous improvisations this Saturday night at the Wisconsin Union Theater

February 8, 2017
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By Jacob Stockinger

Pianist Gabriela Montero (below, in a photo by Shelley Mosman) will perform in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater on this Saturday night, Feb. 11, at 8 p.m. Montero last performed in Madison with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and wowed the house at the Overture Center.

On this Friday, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Mills Hall, Montero will also hold a master class, FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.

Here are ticket prices for her recital: UW-Madison students are $10; Union members and non-UW students are $42, $38 and $25; UW-Madison faculty and staff are $44, $40 and $25; the general public is $46, $42 and $25; and young people 18 and under are $20.

Tickets can be bought online; by phone at 608-265-ARTS (2787); or in person — see locations and hours here.

The first half of Montero’s program features the first set of Four Impromptus, Op. 99, D. 899, by Franz Schubert and the playfully Romantic “Carnival” by Robert Schumann.

After intermission, the former prodigy will perform the spontaneous improvisations – usually on themes suggested by the audience – that she is acclaimed for.

According to The New York Times, “[Gabriela] Montero’s playing has everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power in climactic moments, soulful lyricism in the ruminative passages and, best of all, unsentimental expressivity.”

Here she is performing the third Schubert impromptu, in G-flat major, in the set of four that she will play here:

Montero was born in Venezuela and gave her first performance to a public audience at the age of five. When she was eight, she made her concerto debut in Caracas, which led to a scholarship for private study in the United States.

Montero played with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and clarinetist Anthony McGill at Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Inauguration.

She has been invited to perform with the world’s most respected orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Liverpool Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony and more, performing in the Kennedy Center, Avery Fisher Hall and Wigmore Hall, among others.

Celebrated for her ability to brilliantly improvise, compose and play new works, Montero is an award-winning and best-selling recording artist.

She has received the Bronze Medal at the Chopin Competition, two Echo Klassik Awards in 2006 and 2007, and a Grammy nomination for her Bach and Beyond follow-up Baroque work in 2008.

She participated in the 2013 Women of the World Festival in London and spoke at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. She has also been recognized as a composer for her Piano Concerto No. 1.

In the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear Montero improvise on a famous melody by Sergei Rachmaninoff in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach.

This performance is presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Performing Arts Committee and was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Media sponsors are WORT 89.9 FM and the UW-Madison student station WSUM 91.7 FM.

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Classical music: The Ear asks again — why hasn’t an opera about Martin Luther King Jr. been written? What classical music should be played to honor him?

January 16, 2017
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By Jacob Stockinger

Today is an important and, in some parts of the United States, still controversial holiday: Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Such an occasion and its artistic celebration assumes even greater importance now that we are on the verge of the Trump Era, which starts this coming Friday with the Inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Once again The Ear looked for classical music to mark the occasion and the holiday. But the results he found were limited. Do we really need to hear Samuel Barber’s famous and sadly beautiful but overplayed “Adagio for Strings” again on this day?

So The Ear asks the same question he asked two years ago: Why hasn’t anyone written an opera about the pioneering civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968 and would today be 88?

Here is a link to that more extended post that asks the same question:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/classical-music-why-hasnt-anyone-written-an-opera-about-martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-civil-rights-movement/

If you know of such an opera, please let The Ear know in the COMMENT section.

Or perhaps a composer could write something about King similar to Aaron Copland‘s popular “A Lincoln Portrait.” King certainly provided lots of eloquent words for a inspiring text or narration.

And if there is classical music that you think is appropriate to mark the occasion, please leave word of it, with a YouTube link if possible.

In the meantime, in the YouTube video below The Ear offers the first movement from the “Afro-American Symphony” by the underperformed black American composer William Grant Still (1874-1954):

Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble performs music by J.S. Bach, Handel, Purcell, Telemann and others this Sunday afternoon at 3. In Sunday night Con Vivo performs music by Prokofiev, Mozart, Bruch, Gershwin and others at the Stoughton Opera House.

February 6, 2015
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REMINDER: The Con Vivo! (music with life) chamber music ensemble (below) invites the public to its debut performance at the Stoughton Opera House on this coming Sunday night. The concert has been rescheduled to this Sunday evening due to the snowstorm last weekend.

Here are the details: Sunday, February 8, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.
Stoughton Opera House
381 E. Main St. Stoughton, WI
(608) 877-4400
Tickets are $20, $10 for an obstructed view and are available at www.stoughtonoperahouse.com

Here is the program:
Sergei Prokofiev: “Overture on Hebrew Themes” for Piano, string quartet and clarinet, Op.34
Max Bruch: “Romance” for Viola and Piano op. 85
Jay Ungar: “Ashokan Farewell” for violin and piano
John Williams – “Air and Simple Gifts” for violin, cello, clarinet and piano (It was performed by violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill and piano Gabriela Montero and others at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration.)
George Gershwin – Preludes for solo piano
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, KV 581

Here is a link to the original post about the concert:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/classical-music-con-vivo-music-with-life-will-perform-chamber-music-by-mozart-gershwin-prokofiev-bruch-and-others-at-the-stoughton-opera-house-this-sunday-afternoon-before-kickoff/

By Jacob Stockinger

The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble will give a concert of baroque chamber music on this coming Sunday afternoon, February 8, at 3 p.m.

The concert will take place in the historic Gates of Heaven synagogue located in downtown Madison, in James Madison Park at 300 East Gorham Street.

Tickets are at the door only: $20, $10 for students.

For more information, call 238-5126 or info@wisconsinbaroque.org, or you can visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org.

Participating members in the concert – the veteran ensemble uses period instruments and historically informed performance practices — are:

Mimmi Fulmer – soprano

Brett Lipshutz – traverso

Eric Miller – viola da gamba, baroque cello

Consuelo Sañudo – mezzo-soprano

Monica Steger – traverso, harpsichord

Anton TenWolde – baroque cello

Max Yount – harpsichord

Here is the program:

Gabriel Bataille – “Sortez soupirs”

Henry Purcell – “Sweeter than roses”

Gabriel Bataille – “Que douce est la violence”

Georg Philipp Telemann – “Die Landlust”

Louis de Caix d’Hervelois – sonata for traverso and continuo

INTERMISSION

Benoît Guillemant – Sonata in D Major, Op. 2 Nr. 6 for two traversos

Johann Sebastian Bach – “Betörte Welt”

Giuseppe Sammartini – Sonata 3 for violoncello and continuo

George Frideric Handel – “Tanti Strali”

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