The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Critics for The New York Times name their favorite works by and performers of Richard Strauss. Plus, catch the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra and the Madison Early Music Festival on radio this Sunday.
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HERE ARE TWO ALERTS FOR SUNDAY:
At 10 a.m, on WORT FM 89.9: The Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) under the direction of Mikko Utevsky will be featured in an hour-long broadcast this coming Sunday (January 4).
The “Summer Voices” concert was recorded live last August 22 at Music Hall on the UW-Madison campus. Included are interviews with MAYCO founder and conductor Mikko Utevsky and guest soprano Caitlin Ruby Miller (below).
The program includes: the Overture to “The Magic Flute” by Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the cantata “Knoxville Summer of 1915” by American composer Samuel Barber; and the Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. The hosts of Musica Antiqua yielded the final hour of their early music show so that WORT can provide these young musicians with the station’s largest classical music audience.
Then at 1 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Radio (88.7 FM in the Madison area and online at wpr.org): Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) will broadcast a concert of 16th-century Renaissance music from Italy inspired by “I Trionfi” by Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374). The concert was designed and conducted by Grant Herreid, and was performed at the Madison Early Music Festival’s concluding All-Festival Concert (bel0w) in July 2014 at Luther Memorial Church in Madison. This recording is part of WPR’s new program, “Wisconsin Classical.”
Listen to station 88.7 FM at 1 p.m.or stream it online at http://www.wpr.org/
By Jacob Stockinger
One of the public’s favorite Late Romantic composers is Richard Strauss, seen below in old age in a photo by H. Hoffmann and Ullstein Bilderdienst.
Writing about Strauss is timely, if belatedly so, because 2014 was the 150th anniversary year of his birth.
But better late than never.
Strauss composed in every genre, from orchestra and opera to chamber music, and the last part of his career was controversial because of his involvement with Hitler and Nazi Germany during World War II.
What is your favorite work by Richard Strauss?
Your favorite performances and performers?
Your favorite recordings?
Various critics for The New York Times recently offered their own year-end takes on those questions.
Here is a link:
And here is my favorite Strauss music — the Suite from the opera “Der Rosenkavalier” in a YouTube video — although it is also hard to beat “Four Last Songs” for soprano and orchestra:
Tags: Ariadne auf Naxos, Arts, Barber, Baroque, Cantata, Chamber music, Classical music, Compact Disc, Der Rosenkavalier, Deutsche Grammophon, Early music, Four Last Songs, Germany, Grant Herreid, Herbert von Karajan, Hitler, I Trionfi, Italian Renaissance, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Karl Böhm, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Late Romantic, Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra, Madison Early Music Festival, MAYCO, MEMF, Mikko Utevsky, Mozart, Nazi, New York City, New York Times, opera, Orchestra, Petrarch, public radio, Radio, Reniassance, Richard Strauss, Romantic, Samuel Barber, Shostakovich, soprano, Strauss, symphony, The Magic Flute, The New York Times, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, World War II, WORT FM 88.9, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Area Youth Chamber Music Orchestra (MAYCO) performs music of Haydn and Mendelssohn plus a world premiere of a work by Madison composer Olivia Zeuske this Friday night at the First Unitarian Society.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Few young musicians, or older ones for that matter, lead a busier schedule than the young University of Wisconsin-Madison violist and conductor Mikko Rankin Utevsky (below).
Recently returned from a stay in Europe, Utevsky will show his latest ambitious achievement in a program this Friday night.
That is when the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, seen below in a performance last year in Mills Hall at the UW-Madison), which was founded by Utevsky while he was still a student at Madison East High School, opens its fourth season on Friday night at 7:30 p.m.
The concert will take place in the crisply designed Atrium auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison (below, in a photo by Zane Williams), 900 University Bay Drive, on Madison near west side. Tickets are $7, with donations requested from students.
The gifted pianist Thomas Kasdorf (below), a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where he studied with Christopher Taylor and where he will return as a graduate student this fall, joins the orchestra for the Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major by Franz Joseph Haydn. (You can hear the legendary Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter play the concerto in a YouTube video at the bottom)
You may recall that this spring Kasdorf answered a Q&A for this blog when he performed the Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg with the Middleton Community Orchestra.
Here is a link to Kasdorf’s interview:
And here is a link to The Ear’s positive review of his performance of the Grieg concerto (below):
Also on the program are the “Reformation” Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn and the world premiere of the chamber symphony “Experiment No. 1” by Olivia Zeuske (below). Zeuske just graduated from the UW-Madison with a double major in English and music composition, which she studied with professor and composer Steven Dembski.
MAYCO’S NEXT CONCERT
MAYCO’s next concert this summer will be at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, August 22, 2014. Called “Summer Magic,” it features soprano Caitlin Ruby Miller. The program includes the Overture to “The Magic Flute” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” by Samuel Barber: and the Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70, by Dmitri Shostakovich. The concert will be held in UW Music Hall, 925 Bascom Mall, at the base of Bascom Hill.
For more information about MAYCO, including background, concerts, programs, photos and how to support and join MAYCO, visit:
http://madisonareayouthchamberorchestra.org/
Tags: Arts, Barber, Bascom Hill, Chamber music, chamber orchestra, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich, Edvard Grieg, Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Franz Josef Haydn, Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Madison, Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra, Madison East High School, Mendelssohn, Middleton Community Orchestra, Mozart, Music, Olivia Zeuske, Olivia Zueske, Orchestra, Piano, Piano concerto, Richter, Samuel Barber, Shostakovich, soprano, Sviatoslav Richter, symphony, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, vocal music, voice, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, world premiere, YouTube, Zane Williams
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