The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Oakwood Chamber Players will play music by Russian, British, Canadian and American composers this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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ALERT: If you attend the concert by the Cuarteto Casals tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Shannon Hall of the Wisconsin Union Theater, you night want to read local writer and amateur cellist Paul Baker’s interview with the Chicago-born violist who analyzes the interpretation of each piece on the program. Here is a link to Baker’s blog “Only Strings” where you can find the interview: https://onlystringswsum.wordpress.com/author/pbaker/
For more information about the group and the concert, go to yesterday’s post: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/classical-music-this-friday-night-the-wisconsin-union-theater-presents-a-world-class-spanish-string-quartet-and-will-also-announce-the-special-programs-for-its-centennial-anniversary-next-season/
By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, the Oakwood Chamber Players (below) continue their season theme of Vignettes with compositions that depict concepts and stories.
The program includes dances from Panama, a string quartet from Russia and interpretation of the natural world woven into a composition by an American composer.
Performances will take place Saturday night, March 2, at 7 p.m. and Sunday afternoon, March 3, at 2 p.m. Both concerts will be held at the Oakwood Center for Arts and Education, 6209 Mineral Point Road, on Madison’s far west side not far from West Towne Mall.
Tickets can be purchased with cash or personal checks at the door: $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors, and $5 for students. Visit www.oakwoodchamberplayers.com or call (608) 230-4316 for more information.
Five Novelettes for string quartet by Russian composer Alexander Glazunov (below) showcase the composer’s imagination and romantic writing. From the opening elegance in the Spanish style to the spirited Hungarian character in the finale, each of the five contrasting movements is graceful and captivating.
Red Hills Black Birds was composed by American composer Libby Larsen (below) for clarinet, viola and piano after she viewed contrasting paintings of New Mexico by Georgia O’Keeffe. Many of O’Keeffe’s works embody a sense of perspective, color and horizon. Larsen’s music uses her impressions of O’Keeffe’s art as her compositional focus. She reimagines six paintings of the southwest and shapes her composition to concepts of breadth and timelessness.
Dash for flute, clarinet and piano by American composer Jennifer Higdon (below) is a riotous musical chase. The composer chose these three instruments specifically for their capability of velocity. The unrelenting pulse creates a breath-taking technical sprint for the players.
O Albion by British composer Thomas Adès (below) is excerpted from his string quartet Arcadiana. The music has an ethereal quality and mesmerizes with its slow beauty and simplicity. (You can hear “O Albion” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Trio for flute, clarinet and bassoon is an upbeat piece written by Canadian composer, bassoonist and jazz pianist Bill Douglas. His writing brings together both classical and jazz influences.
The concert concludes with Danzas de Panama by William Grant Still (below) for string quintet and flute. A noted 20th century African-American composer, Still based this piece on Panamanian folk tunes collected in the 1920s. He used the lushness of the songs and compelling rhythms with great success. He was a talented orchestrator and it is hard to resist the panache and charm of the four movements: Taborita, Mejorana, Punto and Cumbia y Conga.
Oakwood Chamber Players members are Marilyn Chohaney, flute; Nancy Mackenzie, clarinet; Amanda Szyczs, bassoon; and Maggie Townsend, cello. They will be joined by guest artists Elspeth Stalter-Clouse, violin; Ariel Garcia, viola; Brad Townsend, bass; and Satoko Hayami, piano.
This is the fourth of five concerts in the Oakwood Chamber Players’ 2018-2019 season series entitled Vignettes. Remaining concerts will take place on May 18 and 19.
The Oakwood Chamber Players are a group of Madison-area professional musicians who have rehearsed and performed at Oakwood Village for over 30 years. They have also played in other local groups, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Oakwood Chamber Players is a professional music ensemble proudly supported by Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries and the Oakwood Foundation.
Tags: #African-AmericanComposer, #AlexanderGlazunov, #AmateurMusician, #AmericanComposer, #Bassmusic, #BassoonMusic, #BillDouglas, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BritishComposer, #CanadianComposer, #CelloMusic, #ChamberMusic, #ChicagoIllinois, #ChristianReligion, #ClarinetMusic, #CuartetoCasals, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FluteMusic, #FolkDance, #FolkTune, #JazzPianist, #JenniferHigdon, #LibbyLarsen, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MusicalInterpretation, #MusicEnsemble, #NaturalWorld, #NewMexico, #OakwoodChamberPlayers, #OakwoodVillage, #OakwoodVillageWest, #OnlyStrings, #PanamaDances, #PaulBaker, #PersonalCheck, #PianoMusic, #RedHillsBlackBirds, #RomanticMusic, #RussianComposer, #SaturdayNight, #SeniorCitizen, #StringQuartet, #StringQuintet, #Sundayafternoon, #TheSouthwest, #ThomasAdès, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #ViolaMusic, #ViolinMusic, #WestSide, #WestTowneMall, #WilliamGrantStill, #WisconsinChamberOrchestra, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #YouTubevideo, admission, African American, afternoon, Albion, Alexander Glazunov, amateur, American composer, Arcadiana, Art, Arts, audience, bass, Bassoon, beauty, Bill Douglas, bird, black, blo, breadth, Canada, Canadian, captivating, cash, cellist, Cello, Chamber music, character, charm, chase, Chicago, Christian, clarinet, Classical music, color, compelling, composer, Composition, concept, Concert, contrast, Cuarteto Casals, dance, dances, DASH, depict, Education, elegance, ethereal, Facebook, finale, five, flute, Focus, folk tune, forward, graceful, hill, horizon, Hungarian, imagination, impressions, influence, information, instrument, interpretation, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen, like, link, lushness, Lutheran, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mead Witter School of Music, members, mesmerizes, ministries, ministry, movement, Music, Musical composition, natural world, New Mexico, night, novelette, Oakwood Chamber Players, Oakwood Village, Oakwood Village West, Only Strings, opening, orchestrator, paintings, panache, Panama, Panamanian, Paul Baker, performer, personal check, perspective, Pianist, Piano, players, post, posting, professional, program, Pulse, quality, quintet, red, Red Hills Black Birds, Religion, rhythm, riotous, Romantic, Russian, Russian composer, Saturday, Season, senior, sense, shape, share, simplicity, slow, song, southwest, Spanish, sprint, story, String quartet, string quintet, Student, success, Sunday, tag, technical, theme, Thomas Ades, tickets, timelessness, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, unrelenting, velocity, vignette, Viola, Violin, weekend, west, west side, West Towne Mall, William Grant Still, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wisconsin Union Theater, word, woven, writing, YouTube
Classical music: Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra concert shows Andrew Sewell is a born Bruckner conductor who uses a smaller orchestra to reveal structure
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below) gave the second concert of its season on Friday evening in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
The program opened with a rarely performed symphony, No. 30 in D Major, K. 202, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart did not muster in this score anything like the ideas he delivered in his symphonies on either side of this one.
Still, it is an engaging piece, and maestro Sewell always shows great sympathy for the Austrian Classical-era composers of the late 18th century, so the performance was nicely molded.
The guest soloist this time was Croatian-born guitarist Ana Vidovic (below). She was originally scheduled to play the Second Guitar Concerto by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, but for some reason she switched late on to the more substantial Concierto de Aranjuez by the 20th-century Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo.
Unfortunately, Vidovic followed other guitarists of today who feel they must fortify their performances with electronic amplification, so she brought her own rig with her. The result was a boomy, hollow sound, completely artificial, pitted in fake balance against the natural world of the orchestral writing that was rendered, by the way, with charm and delicacy.
The composer (below) was very careful about not allowing the orchestra to overwhelm the intimate guitar, and generations of guitar players have been able to perform this and parallel concertos without benefit of sonic hype.
Alas, the combination of technology with egotism! Vidovic is obviously a musician of genuine artistry, but she quite sabotaged her playing by use of this six-string howitzer. And the knobs were still on through an encore, a trivial Cavatina by one Stanley Meyer.
The evening was richly redeemed by the main work. Sewell has, in recent years, been working his way into the symphonies of the 19th century, late Romantic Austrian composer Anton Bruckner—a composer usually tackled by large orchestras. But he has brought off the first two numbered symphonies with aplomb, and now was the turn of the Third.
This is a work with a complex history of versions and revisions. Sewell bravely chose to use the 1874 revision of the original 1873 version, rather than the ill-fated revision of 1877 or the once-standard bowdlerization of 1889.
Sewell could command only 20 string players, but they proved quite sufficient, even with the occasional divisions of the violins. The reduced lushness resulting allowed inner parts to come through, and the rest of the orchestra played magnificently. Sewell understands Bruckner’s individual rhetoric, with its stop-and-start pacings and dramatic shifts between tremendous power and great delicacy.
Sewell (below) is indeed a born Bruckner conductor. The second movement in particular I have never heard played so eloquently. (You can hear the second movement of the 1874 edition in the YouTube video at the bottom.) I don’t know if Sewell plans to probe still further into Bruckner’s symphonies, but I am ready to follow him eagerly if he does.
Far from being put off by the often-maligned music of Bruckner, the very large audience gave the performance a justly deserved standing ovation. This was, I think, a genuine landmark in the WCO’s history.
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