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By Jacob Stockinger
This season marks the centennial of the Concert Series at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below are photos of the Memorial Union and Shannon Hall).
And so far, so good.
The anniversary features a variety of genres, and both individuals and ensembles, during the season-long event. Plus, many of the performers are returning to what The Ear calls “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.”
The anniversary started with a sold-out performance of the a cappella singing group Chanticleer and continued with a close to sold-out house for pianist Emanuel Ax in an all-Beethoven recital.
The first semester winds up this Friday night, Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m. with the acclaimed piano trio of pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson (below).
The trio will be returning to Shannon Hall for the third time, this time as part of the new David and Kato Perlman Chamber Music Series.
The program features both the familiar and the unfamiliar.
It starts with the rarely heard Canonic Etudes by Robert Schumann. Then it continues with two of the most popular piano trios in the repertoire: the Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor by Felix Mendelssohn and the “Archduke” Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 97, by Ludwig van Beethoven. (You can hear the trio play the slow movement and finale of the “Archduke” Trio in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The trio will also give a FREE and PUBLIC one-hour master class TODAY – Thursday, Dec. 5 — at 1:30 p.m. in the Collins Recital Hall of the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave.
Such an activity is not unusual. Not only are the members of the trio active performers, they are also devoted to teaching and music education.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Black Friday followed by Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday — all with special deals and sales.
With that in mind, here is a list of the recently announced nominees in classical music for the 2020 Grammy Awards.
Although it is a self-serving list for a competition sponsored by The Industry, it can also be good way to find holiday gifts to give to others or to receive for yourself.
The list can be useful for spotting trends and finding new releases you may not have heard of.
For example, this year seems especially good for new music or recent works and contemporary composers. You won’t find any Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky or Mahler although you will find Berlioz, Schumann, Wagner, Bruckner, Berg, Rachmaninoff and Copland.
Another favorite seems to be the rediscovery of older composers such as Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996, below) whose centennial has become an occasion for bringing his neglected works to the forefront.
You can also see that like the Oscars, the Grammys seem to be paying more attention to women composers and conductors, artists of color and crossovers or mixed and hybrid genres.
The 62nd annual Grammy Awards will be presented on Sunday, Jan. 26, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and will be broadcast live on CBS television.
Best Engineered Album, Classical An Engineer’s Award. (Artist names appear in parentheses.)
AEQUA – ANNA THORVALDSDÓTTIR
Daniel Shores, engineer; Daniel Shores, mastering engineer (International Contemporary Ensemble)
BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO. 9
Mark Donahue, engineer; Mark Donahue, mastering engineer (Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)
RACHMANINOFF – HERMITAGE PIANO TRIO
Keith O. Johnson & Sean Royce Martin, engineers; Keith O. Johnson, mastering engineer (Hermitage Piano Trio)
RILEY: SUN RINGS
Leslie Ann Jones, engineer; Robert C. Ludwig, mastering engineer (Kronos Quartet)
WOLFE: FIRE IN MY MOUTH
Bob Hanlon & Lawrence Rock, engineers; Ian Good & Lawrence Rock, mastering engineers (Jaap Van Zweden, Francisco J. Núñez, Donald Nally, The Crossing, Young People’s Chorus Of NY City & New York Philharmonic)
Producer Of The Year, Classical A Producer’s Award. (Artist names appear in parentheses.)
BLANTON ALSPAUGH
Artifacts – The Music Of Michael McGlynn (Charles Bruffy & Kansas City Chorale)
• Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique; Fantaisie Sur La Tempête De Shakespeare (Andrew Davis & Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
• Copland: Billy The Kid; Grohg (Leonard Slatkin & Detroit Symphony Orchestra)
• Duruflé: Complete Choral Works (Robert Simpson & Houston Chamber Choir)
• Glass: Symphony No. 5 (Julian Wachner, The Choir Of Trinity Wall Street, Trinity Youth Chorus, Downtown Voices & Novus NY)
• Sander: The Divine Liturgy Of St. John Chrysostom (Peter Jermihov & PaTRAM Institute Singers)
• Smith, K.: Canticle (Craig Hella Johnson & Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble)
• Visions Take Flight (Mei-Ann Chen & ROCO)
JAMES GINSBURG (below)
Project W – Works By Diverse Women Composers (Mei-Ann Chen and Chicago Sinfonietta)
• Silenced Voices (Black Oak Ensemble)
• 20th Century Harpsichord Concertos (Jory Vinikour, Scott Speck and Chicago Philharmonic)
• Twentieth Century Oboe Sonatas (Alex Klein and Phillip Bush)
• Winged Creatures & Other Works For Flute, Clarinet, And Orchestra (Anthony McGill, Demarre McGill, Allen Tinkham and Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra)
MARINA A. LEDIN, VICTOR LEDIN
Bates: Children Of Adam; Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem (Steven Smith, Erin R. Freeman, Richmond Symphony & Chorus)
• The Orchestral Organ (Jan Kraybill)
• The Poetry Of Places (Nadia Shpachenko)
• Rachmaninoff – Hermitage Piano Trio (Hermitage Piano Trio)
MORTEN LINDBERG
Himmelborgen (Elisabeth Holte, Kare Nordstoga & Uranienborg Vokalensemble)
• Kleiberg: Do You Believe In Heather? (Various Artists)
• Ljos (Fauna Vokalkvintett)
• LUX (Anita Brevik, Trondheimsolistene & Nidarosdomens Jentekor)
• Trachea (Tone Bianca Sparre Dahl & Schola Cantorum)
• Veneliti (Hakon Daniel Nystedt & Oslo Kammerkor)
COPLAND: BILLY THE KID; GROHG
Leonard Slatkin, conductor (Detroit Symphony Orchestra)
NORMAN: SUSTAIN
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
TRANSATLANTIC
Louis Langrée, conductor (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra)
WEINBERG: SYMPHONIES NOS. 2 and 21
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, conductor (City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra & Kremerata Baltica)
Best Opera Recording Award to the Conductor, Album Producer(s) and Principal Soloists.
BENJAMIN: LESSONS IN LOVE & VIOLENCE
George Benjamin, conductor; Stéphane Degout, Barbara Hannigan, Peter Hoare & Gyula Orendt; James Whitbourn, producer (Orchestra Of The Royal Opera House)
BERG: WOZZECK
Marc Albrecht, conductor; Christopher Maltman & Eva-Maria Westbroek; François Roussillon, producer (Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra; Chorus Of Dutch National Opera)
CHARPENTIER: LES ARTS FLORISSANTS; LES PLAISIRS DE VERSAILLES
Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, conductors; Jesse Blumberg, Teresa Wakim & Virginia Warnken; Renate Wolter-Seevers, producer (Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble; Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble)
PICKER: FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Gil Rose, conductor; John Brancy, Andrew Craig Brown, Gabriel Preisser, Krista River & Edwin Vega; Gil Rose, producer (Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Boston Children’s Chorus)
WAGNER: LOHENGRIN
Christian Thielemann, conductor; Piotr Beczała, Anja Harteros, Tomasz Konieczny, Waltraud Meier & Georg Zeppenfeld; Eckhard Glauche, producer (Festspielorchester Bayreuth; Festspielchor Bayreuth)
Best Choral Performance Award to the Conductor, and to the Choral Director and/or Chorus Master where applicable and to the Choral Organization/Ensemble.
BOYLE: VOYAGES
Donald Nally, conductor (The Crossing)
DURUFLÉ: COMPLETE CHORAL WORKS
Robert Simpson, conductor (Ken Cowan; Houston Chamber Choir)
THE HOPE OF LOVING
Craig Hella Johnson, conductor (Conspirare)
SANDER: THE DIVINE LITURGY OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
Peter Jermihov, conductor (Evan Bravos, Vadim Gan, Kevin Keys, Glenn Miller & Daniel Shirley; PaTRAM Institute Singers)
SMITH, K.: THE ARC IN THE SKY
Donald Nally, conductor (The Crossing)
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance For new recordings of works with chamber or small ensemble (twenty-four or fewer members, not including the conductor). One Award to the ensemble and one Award to the conductor, if applicable.
CERRONE: THE PIECES THAT FALL TO EARTH
Christopher Rountree and Wild Up
FREEDOM & FAITH
PUBLIQuartet
PERPETULUM
Third Coast Percussion
RACHMANINOFF – HERMITAGE PIANO TRIO
Hermitage Piano Trio
SHAW: ORANGE
Attacca Quartet
79. Best Classical Instrumental Solo Award to the Instrumental Soloist(s) and to the Conductor when applicable.
THE BERLIN RECITAL
Yuja Wang
HIGDON: HARP CONCERTO
Yolanda Kondonassis; Ward Stare, conductor (The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra)
TORKE: SKY, CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN
Tessa Lark; David Alan Miller, conductor (Albany Symphony)
80. Best Classical Solo Vocal Album Award to: Vocalist(s), Collaborative Artist(s) (Ex: pianists, conductors, chamber groups) Producer(s), Recording Engineers/Mixers with 51% or more playing time of new material.
THE EDGE OF SILENCE – WORKS FOR VOICE BY GYÖRGY KURTÁG
Susan Narucki (Donald Berman, Curtis Macomber, Kathryn Schulmeister & Nicholas Tolle)
HIMMELSMUSIK
Philippe Jaroussky & Céline Scheen; Christina Pluhar, conductor; L’Arpeggiata, ensemble (Jesús Rodil & Dingle Yandell)
SONGPLAY
Joyce DiDonato; Chuck Israels, Jimmy Madison, Charlie Porter and Craig Terry, accompanists (Steve Barnett and Lautaro Greco)
A TE, O CARA
Stephen Costello; Constantine Orbelian, conductor (Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra)
Best Classical Compendium Award to the Artist(s) and to the Album Producer(s) and Engineer(s) of over 51% playing time of the album, if other than the artist.
AMERICAN ORIGINALS 1918
John Morris Russell, conductor; Elaine Martone, producer
MELTZER: SONGS AND STRUCTURES
Paul Appleby & Natalia Katyukova; Silas Brown & Harold Meltzer, producers
THE POETRY OF PLACES
Nadia Shpachenko; Marina A. Ledin & Victor Ledin, producers
SAARIAHO: TRUE FIRE; TRANS; CIEL D’HIVER
Hannu Lintu, conductor; Laura Heikinheimo, producer
Best Contemporary Classical Composition A Composer’s Award. (For a contemporary classical composition composed within the last 25 years, and released for the first time during the Eligibility Year.) Award to the librettist, if applicable.
BERMEL: MIGRATION SERIES FOR JAZZ ENSEMBLE & ORCHESTRA
Derek Bermel, composer (Derek Bermel, Ted Nash, David Alan Miller, Juilliard Jazz Orchestra & Albany Symphony Orchestra)
HIGDON: HARP CONCERTO
Jennifer Higdon, composer (Yolanda Kondonassis, Ward Stare & The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra)
MARSALIS: VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MAJOR
Wynton Marsalis, composer (Nicola Benedetti, Cristian Măcelaru & Philadelphia Orchestra)
NORMAN: SUSTAIN
Andrew Norman, composer (Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)
WOLFE: FIRE IN MY MOUTH
Julia Wolfe, composer (Jaap Van Zweden, Francisco J. Núñez, Donald Nally, The Crossing, Young People’s Chorus Of NY City & New York Philharmonic)
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ALERT: One of the Thanksgiving traditions for music fans is that from 10 a.m. to noon today, Wisconsin Public Radio will again broadcast highlights from this year’s honors concerts by choirs, bands and orchestras from the Wisconsin School Music Association. Music education is something to give thanks for. You can hear middle school and high school student performers from around the state as well as WPR’s usual Thanksgiving offerings of American composers and music, and then special Thanksgiving programs about gratitude.
By Jacob Stockinger
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today – Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019 – is Thanksgiving Day.
It was Sergei Rachmaninoff (below) who once remarked, “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
How true, how true.
There is such a wealth of composers, works and performers — going back many centuries — that we can be grateful for. In the Comment section, The Ear wants to hear from you about what one you would name — with a YouTube link, if possible.
But this year he has his own choice: the “Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving” – by Beethoven (below), who used it as a movement in his late String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132.
You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom, where the playing of the four string instruments also gets an interesting and fascinating graphic depiction of its structure.
The composer wrote this sublime and other-worldy music when he recovered from what he thought was a life-threating illness.
But with the Beethoven Year of 2020 fast approaching – along with celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth – The Ear has another reason for his choice.
If you missed last Friday’s superb FREE opening concert of the complete cycle of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet (below, in the new Collins Recital Hall of the Hamel Music Center), you have a chance to catch a second performance this coming Sunday afternoon, Dec. 1. (Members, below left are David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violins; Sally Chisholm, viola; and Parry Karp, cello.)
From 12:30 to 2 p.m. the Pro Arte will performance the same program – and ultimately the complete cycle of six concerts — for Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen. You can attend it in person for FREE in Brittingham Gallery 3 (below) of the museum or you can stream it live.
And here is a link to the complete schedule of the Beethoven string quartet cycle, done over the next 14 months, by the Pro Arte Quartet, which includes background on the Pro Arte. You’ll notice, by the way, that the Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving will be performed on the program for next Oct. 2:
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By Jacob Stockinger
It has been a busy week for students and staff in the opera program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
This week – on Tuesday night, Nov. 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall (below) at the foot of Bascom Hill – the UW-Madison Opera Workshop will present a concert that presents a series of stripped down, quasi-staged opera scenes. There is piano accompaniment instead of an orchestra, and sometimes a prop with the suggestion of a costume instead of full costumes and full sets.
Admission is FREE to the public and no tickets are required.
David Ronis (below top, in a photo by Luke Delalio) and Mimmi Fulmer (below bottom) are the directors, and Ben Hopkins is the Teaching Assistant
No specific roles, arias or works are listed.
But the program features scenes from: “Werther” by the French composer Jules Massenet; “Fidelio” by Ludwig van Beethoven; “Little Women” by American composer Mark Adamo (below top); “Eugene Onegin” by Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky; “A Little Night Music” by American Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim; “Dead Man Walking” by American composer Jake Heggie (below bottom); and “Hansel and Gretel” by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck.
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By Jacob Stockinger
As you might have already heard, 2020 is a Beethoven Year. Musicians are already marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827, below).
One of the big local events – unfolding over the next 14 months — is that the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s acclaimed Pro Arte Quartet will perform a complete, six-concert cycle of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets, which are considered to be a monumental milestone in chamber music and in the development of the genre.
They encompass the styles of Beethoven’s early, middle and late periods, and often served as an experimental laboratory for musical ideas he used on other works. Each of the Pro Arte’s programs wisely features works from different periods, which makes comparisons and differences easier to understand. (You can hear Beethoven biographer Jan Stafford discuss the late quartets in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
A Beethoven cycle is also what originally brought the Pro Arte Quartet from Belgium — where it was founded by students at the Royal Conservatory in 1912 — to Madison, where they performed it at the Wisconsin Union Theater in 1940. In fact, they were in the process of performing the cycle when they heard that their homeland of Belgium has been invaded by Hitler and the Nazis, and they could not go home.
Stranded here by World War II, they were offered a chance to be artists-in-residence at the UW-Madison. They accepted — and the quartet has remained here since, becoming the longest performing quartet in music history.
Current members of the Pro Arte Quartet (below from left, in a photo by Rick Langer) are: David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violins; Sally Chisholm, viola; and Parry Karp, cello.
PROGRAM I: Friday, Nov. 22, 8 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall
String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2 (1798-1800)
String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95 “Serioso” (1810)
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130 (1825-6)
PROGRAM II: Friday, Feb. 28, 8 p.m., Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1 (1798-1800)
String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 74 “Harp” (1809)
String Quartet in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131 (1826)
PROGRAM III: Thursday, April 16 (NOT April 23, as was mistakenly listed in a press release), 7:30 p.m., Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3 (1798-1800)
String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2 (1806)
String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 127 (1825)
PROGRAM IV: Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, 8 p.m., Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5 (1798-1800)
String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4 (1798-1800)
String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132 (1825)
PROGRAM V: Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, 8 p.m., Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6 (1798-1800)
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 (1826)
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 (1806)
PROGRAM VI: Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021, 8 p.m., Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1 (1806)
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130 with the Great Fugue Finale, Op. 133 (1825)
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ALERT: At noon this Saturday, Nov. 16, Grace Presents offers a FREE one-hour concert by Lawren Brianna Ware and friends. The concert is at Grace Episcopal Church, 116 West Washington Avenue, downtown on the Capitol Square.
Pianist and composer Ware, the 2017 Grand Prize Winner of the Overture Rising Stars Competition, will perform a program of original, contemporary and classical solo and chamber works entitled “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things.” Featured are works by Aram Khachaturian, Fazil Say, Frederic Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert W. Smith, Martin Ellerby and Eric Ewazen.
By Jacob Stockinger
You have to hand it to Farley’s House of Pianos and its Salon Piano Series: They sure know how to book young up-and-coming performers to stay ahead of the curve.
Last season, they presented Kenneth Broberg, a silver medalist at the last Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, before he was accepted into the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where he won a bronze medal.
This weekend, the Salon Piano Series presents another timely choice.
This Sunday afternoon, Nov. 17, at 4 p.m., the 17-year-old American piano prodigy Maxim Lando (below, in a photo by Matt Dine) will perform a solo recital at Farley’s showroom, 6522 Seybold Road, on Madison’s far west side near West Towne Mall.
Once again, Lando was booked just before winning a big award and honor.
In addition, at his Salon Piano Series premiere, Lando will have grandparents in the audience, as well as an aunt, uncle and cousins, all from the Madison area.
The son of pianist Pippa Borisy, who grew up in Madison, and clarinetist Vadim Lando, Maxim was raised in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, and has a full-time career as a touring pianist while still finishing high school.
Lando first received national attention in 2017 when he performed with superstar Chinese pianist Lang Lang and jazz great Chick Corea with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall’s Gala Opening Night.
He won the 2018 Young Concert Artists auditions at the age of 16 and Susan Hall of Berkshire Fine Arts has described him as having “a very old musical soul.”
This fall he received a Gilmore 2020 Young Artist Award, which recognizes the most promising of the new generation of U.S.-based pianists, age 22 or younger. He will perform a series of concerts this season at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival as part of the recognition.
For this Salon Piano Series concert, Lando will perform the same program he performed for recent sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Lando’s program includes: Nikolai Kapustin’s Concert Etude “Toccatina”; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109 (you can hear the opening movement in the YouTube video at the bottom); Alexander Scriabin’s Prelude in B major and Etude in D-sharp minor; and Franz Liszt’s “Transcendental Etudes.”
Tickets are $45 in advance (full-time students are $10) or $50 at the door (if any remain). Service fees may apply. Student tickets can only be purchased online and are not available the day of the concert.
Also, on this Saturday, Nov. 16, at 4 p.m., Maxim Lando will teach a master class at Farley’s House of Pianos, where he will instruct four local students.
This is a free event that the public is invited to observe.
For a complete list of the music by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Clementi to be performed as well as the names of the local students and their teachers, go to: https://salonpianoseries.org/concerts.html
The master classes for the 2019-20 season are supported by the law firm of Boardman and Clark LLP.
This concert is 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.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, prize-winning pianist Joyce Yang (below) will return to Madison to join the Madison Symphony Orchestra in her local concerto debut and perform Prokofiev’s brilliant, bravura and tuneful Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26.
The concert opens with Kernis’ Newly Drawn Sky and concludes with Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall, 201 State Street, on Friday night, Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m.; on Saturday night, Nov. 9, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon, Nov. 10, at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are $19-$95 with discounts available. See below for details.
Speaking about the program, music director and maestro John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) says: “November brings us another Madison Symphony debut, that of the amazing pianist Joyce Yang. She will perform the Prokofiev’s dazzling Piano Concerto No. 3, one of the great and most popular concertos, and certainly a favorite of mine.”
Adds DeMain: “I can’t wait for audiences to experience the hauntingly beautiful Newly Drawn Sky by Aaron Jay Kernis. And of the four symphonies by Robert Schumann, many regard his second as the greatest of them all.”
According to Aaron Jay Kernis (below), who has won the Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award and who teaches at the Yale School of Music, “Newly Drawn Sky” is “a lyrical, reflective piece for orchestra, a reminiscence of the first summer night by the ocean spent with my young twins, and of the summer sky at dusk.”
The chromatically shifting three-note chords that begin in the strings and transfer to the winds are a central element in the creation of this work. The works last approximately 17 minutes and was premiered at the Ravinia Festival in 2005 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Sergei Prokofiev (below) himself played the solo part at the world premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 on Dec. 16, 1921 in Chicago with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Although he started work on the composition as early as 1913, the majority of it was completed in 1921 and the piece didn’t gain popularity until 1922 when it was confirmed in the 20th-century canon. (You can hear Prokofiev play the first movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.) The Ear thinks that the work has much Russian Romanticism in it and if you like Rachmaninoff, you will probably like this Prokofiev.
Originally a composer for keyboard, Robert Schumann (below with wife Clara) began writing symphonies around the time of his marriage to his virtuoso pianist and composer wife Clara Wieck, who encouraged his compositional expansions.
The uplifting Symphony in C major was created while the composer was troubled with depression and hearing loss; a Beethovenian triumph over pessimism and despair, the creation of this symphony served as a healing process for Schumann.
ABOUT JOYCE YANG
Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (The Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang, who years ago played a recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater, captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism and interpretive sensitivity.
Yang first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takacs Quartet), and Best Performance of a New Work.
In 2006 Yang (below) made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut alongside conductor Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center along with the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea.
CONCERT, TICKET AND EVENT DETAILS
The lobby opens 90 minutes prior to each concert.
One hour before each performance, Wisconsin Public Radio host Anders Yocom (below, in a photo by James Gill )will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers’ understanding and listening experience. It is free to ticket holders.
The MSO recommends concert attendees arrive early for each performance to make sure they have time to pass through Overture Center’s security stations, and so they can experience the Prelude Discussion.
Single Tickets are $19-$95 each and are on sale now at: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/joyce-yang-plays-prokofiev/through the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street, or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online/phone sales.
Student rush tickets can be purchased in person on the day of the concert at the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street. Students must show a valid student ID and can receive up to two $15 or $20 tickets. More information is at: https://www.madisonsymphony.org/studentrush
Seniors age 62 and up receive 20% savings on advance and day-of-concert ticket purchases in select areas of the hall.
Flex-ticket booklets of 8-10 vouchers for 2019-20 symphony subscription concerts are available. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/flex
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
Major funding for this concert is provided by Madison Magazine, Stephen D. Morton, National Guardian Life Insurance Company, Scott and Janet Cabot, and Peggy and Tom Pyle. Additional funding provided by Foley & Lardner LLP, Howard Kidd and Margaret Murphy, and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Saturday night, Nov. 2, brings two separate but noteworthy recitals by Grammy-winning pianist Emanuel Ax and by UW-Madison clarinetist Alicia Lee.
Here are details:
EMANUEL AX
Emanuel Ax and Madison go way back.
Since 1974, the Wisconsin Union Theater has often seen Emanuel Ax (below, in a photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco) perform both as a soloist and a chamber musician with the legendary violinist Nathan Milstein and the superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who is also a close friend. (Ax has also performed with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra at the old Civic Center and with the Madison Symphony Orchestra in the Overture Center.)
This Saturday night, Nov. 2, Emanuel Ax returns again to help celebrate the centennial of the Union Theater’s Concert Series and to help kick off the Beethoven Year in 2020, which marks the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in Shannon Hall with a pre-concert lecture, given by Andrea Fowler, a UW-Madison graduate student in musicology. Her lecture is at 6 p.m. in the Memorial Union’s Play Circle.
The program centers on the first three piano sonatas, Op. 2, by Beethoven (below) plus two rarely heard sets of theme-and-variations. In addition, he will start the performance with the popular “Für Elise” Bagatelle known to so many piano students, their parents and the public. (You can hear “Für Elise” and see a graphic depiction of it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Tickets run from $15 for UW-Madison students to $70. For more information about tickets, Emanuel Ax, the program, sample reviews and links to Ax’s website, go to:
NOTE: This time, there will also be a special event as part of his appearance.
On Saturday afternoon from 1 to 2 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall at the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave., Ax will participate in a FREE and public Q&A.
Here is a publicity blurb about that event: “Join us for a Q&A with Grammy Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax. Now is your chance to ask how he selects repertoire, what his practice schedule is like, if he has any pre-recital rituals, or whatever you would like to know!”
“This event is intended for UW-Madison students and UW campus community, however the Madison community is welcome.”
At 8 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall, UW-Madison clarinetist Alicia Lee (below), who also plays in the UW Wingra Wind Quintet, will give a FREE recital of chamber music.
The program includes music by Robert Schumann, Bela Bartok, Isang Yun, Eugene Bozza and Shulamit Ran.
Two faculty colleagues will join Lee: pianist Christopher Taylor and violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Think of it as Viola Week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music — a chance to celebrate the gorgeous, mellow sound of a frequently but unjustly maligned instrument (below) the range of which falls between the higher violin and the lower cello.
The world-famous Japanese violist Nobuko Imai (below) is returning to the UW-Madison campus this week for a two-day residency where she will give master classes and perform.
Imai will be joined by two other distinguished guest violists, both Taiwanese: Wei-Ting Kuo (below top, in a photo by Todd Rosenberg) now of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and formerly the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; and En-Chi Cheng (below bottom), a prize-winning, concertizing student of Imai now studying at the Juilliard School.
The violists will give two FREE concerts in the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Avenue.
At 7 p.m. TONIGHT, Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Collins Recital Hall, Nobai and the two other guest artists will perform with viola students at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. No program has been given for them. Nobuko will also perform a chorale by Johann Sebastian Bach with UW-Madison collaborative pianist Martha Fischer (below).
Then at NOON tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 31, in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, the UW’s Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) will perform the melodious “American” Viola Quintet by Antonin Dvorak with Imai. (You can hear the second movement of the Dvorak quintet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In addition to a viola arrangement of the “Song of the Birds” by Pablo Casals, Imai will perform the Adagio movement from Beethoven’s Trio in C Major for Two Oboes and English Horn, Op. 87, with Wei-Ting Kuo and Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm (below, second from right).
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE 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.
ALERT: Word arrived late last night that the respected longtime music critic John W. Barker, a retired UW-Madison professor of medieval history, died Thursday morning. He wrote locally for Isthmus, The Capital Times and this blog. Details will be shared when they are known.
By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, Oct. 25-27, marks the official gala opening of the new Hamel Music Center (below, in a photo by Bryce Richter for University Communications) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. It is located at 740 University Ave., next to the new wing of the Chazen Museum of Art, which has a special exhibit relating to the new music center.
The impressive $58-million structure, which has taken many years to fund (completely privately) and then to build, will celebrate its opening tonight, Saturday night (while the 14th annual Halloween FreakFest on State Street is happening) and Sunday afternoon.
The performers will include distinguished alumni, faculty members and students.
UW-Madison composer Laura Schwendinger (below) has been commissioned to write a Fanfare that will receive its world premiere tonight.
The opening promises to be a success, complete with receptions at the end of each performance.
In fact, the public has signed on enough that the FREE tickets to all events are SOLD OUT, according to the School of Music’s home website.
Taste is personal and varies, and The Ear has heard mixed reviews of the new building. (For the special occasion, you can hear “The Consecration of the House” Overture by Beethoven, performed by the La Scala opera house orchestra in Milan under Riccardo Muti, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Basically, people seem to agree that the acoustics are much improved over Mills Hall and Morphy Recital Hall in the old Humanities Building.
But public opinion seems more divided over other aspects, from the overall external architecture and interior design to the smaller size of the big hall, the seats and seating layout, and the restrooms.
So if you go – or have already gone – let the rest of us know what you think about those various aspects of the new building and about the various performers and programs.
As a warm-up preview, here are photos of the main halls or spaces, all taken by Bryce Richter for University Communications:
Here is the 660-seat Mead Witter Concert Hall:
Here is the 300-seat Collins Recital Hall:
And here is the Lee/Kaufman Rehearsal Hall:
But what do you say? You be the critic.
The Ear and others hope to see COMMENTS from listeners and especially performers. What is it like to perform there? Or to sit and listen?
What does the public think of the new building and concert halls? Are you satisfied? What do you like and what don’t you like?
Should some things have been done – or not done – in your opinion?
Does the building and do the concert halls live up to the expectations and hype?
Classical music: Happy Thanksgiving! What composer, music or performer are you grateful for? Plus, the Pro Arte Quartet repeats the FREE but fantastic opening concert of its complete Beethoven cycle this Sunday afternoon
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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.
ALERT: One of the Thanksgiving traditions for music fans is that from 10 a.m. to noon today, Wisconsin Public Radio will again broadcast highlights from this year’s honors concerts by choirs, bands and orchestras from the Wisconsin School Music Association. Music education is something to give thanks for. You can hear middle school and high school student performers from around the state as well as WPR’s usual Thanksgiving offerings of American composers and music, and then special Thanksgiving programs about gratitude.
By Jacob Stockinger
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today – Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019 – is Thanksgiving Day.
It was Sergei Rachmaninoff (below) who once remarked, “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
How true, how true.
There is such a wealth of composers, works and performers — going back many centuries — that we can be grateful for. In the Comment section, The Ear wants to hear from you about what one you would name — with a YouTube link, if possible.
But this year he has his own choice: the “Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving” – by Beethoven (below), who used it as a movement in his late String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132.
You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom, where the playing of the four string instruments also gets an interesting and fascinating graphic depiction of its structure.
The composer wrote this sublime and other-worldy music when he recovered from what he thought was a life-threating illness.
But with the Beethoven Year of 2020 fast approaching – along with celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth – The Ear has another reason for his choice.
If you missed last Friday’s superb FREE opening concert of the complete cycle of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet (below, in the new Collins Recital Hall of the Hamel Music Center), you have a chance to catch a second performance this coming Sunday afternoon, Dec. 1. (Members, below left are David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violins; Sally Chisholm, viola; and Parry Karp, cello.)
From 12:30 to 2 p.m. the Pro Arte will performance the same program – and ultimately the complete cycle of six concerts — for Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen. You can attend it in person for FREE in Brittingham Gallery 3 (below) of the museum or you can stream it live.
Here are links to the program and to the streaming portal and the program: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen11/
https://c.streamhoster.com/embed/media/O7sBNG/OS1C0ihJsYK/iqf1vBMs3qg_5
And here is a link to the complete schedule of the Beethoven string quartet cycle, done over the next 14 months, by the Pro Arte Quartet, which includes background on the Pro Arte. You’ll notice, by the way, that the Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving will be performed on the program for next Oct. 2:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2019/11/19/classical-music-this-friday-night-nov-22-the-uw-madisons-pro-arte-quartet-starts-its-beethoven-cycle-of-the-complete-16-string-quartets-here-are-the-dates-times-venues-and-programs-for/
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