The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: This Friday night, the Wisconsin Union Theater presents a world-class Spanish string quartet and will also announce the special concerts to mark its centennial anniversary next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
Think of it as a two-fer, and then some, at the Wisconsin Union Theater this Friday night, March 1.
The main event is the Madison debut of a world-class string quartet from Spain.
The other event is the announcement of the schedule for the Concert Series’ 2019-2020 season — the series’ 100th season.
The first event is the concert by Cuarteto Casals (below) at 7:30 p.m. in Shannon Hall.
Prices for the event are: the general public, $25-40; for Union members, $25-36; for UW faculty and staff members, $25-38; for young people, $20; and for UW-Madison students, $10. Tickets can be bought online, by phone at 608-265-ARTS (2787) or in person. See locations and hours here.
The program includes the String Quartet in C Major “The Bird,” Op. 33, No. 3, by Franz Joseph Haydn; the String Quartet No. 3 by Bela Bartok; selections from the Fantasies for String Quartet by Henry Purcell; and the String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10, by Claude Debussy. (You can hear the Cuarteto Casals play a movement of a different Haydn string quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Cuarteto Casals was founded in 1997 at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid. They are named after great 20th-century Catalan cellist Pau (Pablo) Casals (below). Members of the quartet are Vera Martinez Mehner and Abel Tomas, violins; Jonathan Brown, viola; and Arnau Tomas, cello.
The group achieved international recognition after winning First Prizes at the London and Brahms-Hamburg competitions. After receiving the prestigious Burletti-Buitoni Trust award designed to assist young musicians, the quartet acquired a matching set of Baroque and Classical period bows, used to distinguish between musical styles.
The year 2017 marked the 20th anniversary of the quartet, and also the start of a commemorative project: a six-concert series of the complete Beethoven quartets, accompanied by six commissioned works from great composers since the 17th century.
The quartet was selected as ambassadors of Catalan culture by the Generalitat of Catalunya, and accompanies the King of Spain on diplomatic visits.
It is the quartet-in-residence at the Spanish Royal Palace through 2020 and the quartet-in-residence at the Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Carol Carlson (below) will offer a free pre-concert lecture at 6 p.m. Carol holds both Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in violin performance from the UW-Madison.
Carlson dedicates herself to music education as co-founder, co-director and teacher of Music con Brio, a non-profit organization that provides affordable violin lessons and equipment for students at Emerson Elementary School in Madison. Music con Brio (below, in a photo by Scott Maurer) will perform on the stage of Shannon Hall from 7 to 7:20 p.m.
This program 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. The media sponsor is WORT 89.9 FM.
Tags: #BarcelonaSpain, #BaroquePeriod, #BelaBartok, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #Burletti-BuitoniTrust, #CarolCarlson, #CatalanCulture, #ChamberMusic, #Classicalperiod, #ClaudeDebussy, #ConcertSeries, #CuartetoCasals, #DoctorofMusicalArts, #EmersonElementarySchool, #EscolaSuperiordeMusicadeCatalunya, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FirstPrize, #FranzJosephHaydn, #HamburgGermany, #HenryPurcell, #JohannesBrahms, #KingofSpain, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadridSpain, #MasterofMusic, #MediaSponsor, #MusicalStyle, #MusicconBrio, #MusicEducation, #MusicLessons, #NationalEndowmentfortheArts, #NonprofitOrganization, #PabloCasals, #PauCasals, #Quartet-in-Residence, #ShannonHall, #SpanishRoyalPalace, #StateofWiscosnin, #StringQuartet, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #WisconsinArtsBoard, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #WORT-FM89.9, #YoungPeople, #YouTubevideo, admission, affordable, ambassador, anniversary, announcement, Arts, audience, award, Barcelona, Baroque, Béla Bartók, Beethoven, bird, blog, bow, Brahms, Burletti-Buitoni Trust, Carol Carlson, Catalan culture, Catalonia, Cello, centennial, Chamber music, Classical, Classical music, Claude Debussy, Compact Disc, Competition, composer, Concert, concert series, Cuarteto Casals, culture, debut, degree, diplomatic, director, Doctor of Musical Arts, Emerson Elementary School, equipment, Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya, event, Facebook, fantasies, fantasy, first prize, forward, founder, Franz Joseph Haydn, free, Hamburg, Henry Purcell, international, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, King, lecture, lessons, like, link, London, Ludwig van Bethoven, Madison, Madrid, Master of Music, matching, media, member, Music, Music con Brio, Music education, musical style, National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, non-profit, organization, Pablo Casals, Pau Casals, performance, performer, period, pre-concert, prestigious, price, public, recognition, schedule, Season, series, set, Shannon Hall, share, Spain, Spanish Royal Palace, sponsor, State of Wisconsin, String quartet, Student, style, tag, Teacher, two-fer, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison, Viola, Violin, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Union Theater, word, works-class, world-class, WORT, WORT-FM 89.9, young people, YouTube
Classical music: The Willy Street Chamber Players conclude this summer season on such a high note that one already hungers for next summer
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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
At Immanuel Lutheran Church last Friday night, the Willy Street Chamber Players ended the 2018 summer season – their fourth — with a concert full of fascinating variety.
Four works were performed, each introduced by one of the players. Personnel shifted according to the scorings.
To begin, a core group of the organization (below, from left) — violinists Eleanor Bartsch and Paran Amirinazari, cellists Lindsay Crabb and Mark Bridges, and violist Beth Larson — played Luigi Boccherini’s Cello Quintet in C major (G. 324), which has the Italian title translatable as “Night Music of the Streets of Madrid.” (The piece, which has military or martial aspects to it, was featured in the soundtrack to the popular film “Master and Commander,” which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Typical of the composer’s prolific writing for string quintets, it is unique in offering in its seven movements a dusk-to-dawn evocation of Madrid’s street life in Boccherini’s day. This delightful work was performed with relish.
Next came a contemporary work by American composer Andrew Norman (below top). Written in his 20s, Night Screens (2002),for flute and string quartet, is a playful work inspired by the asymmetrical stained glass windows designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
The music is quite tonal, but very episodic in its succession of tempos and rhythms. For this work, Amirinazari, Larson and Crabb were joined by a friend of the composer, flutist Timothy Hagen (below), now a faculty member of the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Rarely heard in concert, but a really fascinating novelty is Sergei Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34. This was composed in 1919, during the composer’s stay in the U.S. It is based on two melodies whose actual Jewish origins are in doubt, but their juxtaposition and elaboration are fascinating to follow.
The colorful scoring is for clarinet, piano, and string quartet, so this drew other guest artists, Alicia Lee (below top) also of the UW faculty, and pianist Thomas Kasdorf (below bottom) to join Bartsch, Amirinazari, Larson and Bridges.
Finally came a rare opportunity to encounter Johann Strauss II collaborating with Arnold Schoenberg, or rather vice-versa. For a fund-raising concert on behalf of his radical atonal ensemble in Vienna in 1925, Schoenberg made a chamber arrangement of the great waltz master’s Kaiser-Walzer or “Emperor Waltz.”
He scored it for flute, clarinet, piano and string quartet — perfectly allowing seven of the eight performers (less Crabb) to offer a triumphant grand finale. Even in such a lean and reduced format, Schoenberg faithfully conveyed Strauss’s melodic genius, and brought the large audience enthusiastically to its feet.
The Willys continue to match great enterprise in programming with superb artistry in playing, all in a summer season that leaves us hungering for the next one.
Tags: #AliciaLee, #AmericanComposer, #AmericanRecordGuide, #AndrewNorman, #ArnoldSchoenberg, #AtonalMusic, #BethLarson, #BlogPosting, #CelloQuintet, #ChristianChurch, #ChristianReligion, #ContemporaryComposer, #ContemporaryMusic, #EleanorBartsch, #EmeritusProfessor, #FacultyMember, #FilmMusic, #FilmScore, #FilmSoundtrack, #FluteMusic, #FrankLloydWright, #Fridaynight, #GrandFinale, #ImmanuelLutheranChurch, #IsthmusNewspaper, #JohannStrauss, #JohnW.Barker, #LindsayCrabb, #LivingComposer, #LuigiBoccherini, #LutheranChurch, #LutheranReligion, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MadridSpain, #MarkBridges, #MartialMusic, #MasterandCommander, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MedievalHistory, #MilitaryMusic, #MovieMusic, #MovieScore, #MovieSoundtrack, #MusicReview, #NewMusic, #NightMusic, #OvertureonHebrewThemes, #ParanAmirinazari, #PianoMusic, #RadioHost, #RadioShow, #RussellCrowe, #SergeiProkofiev, #StainedGlass, #StreetLife, #StringQuartet, #StringQuintet, #SummerSeason, #TheWillys, #ThomasKasdorf, #TimothyHagen, #TonalMusic, #UnitedStates, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #ViennaAustria, #WillyStreetChamberPlayers, #WORT-FM89.9, #YouTubevideo, American, American Record Guide, Andrew Norman, architect, artistry, asymmetrical, atonal, audience, Austria, Beth Larson, blog, Boccherini, cellist, Cello, clarinet, clarinetist, classicalmusic, Concert, critic, dawn, delightful, dusk, Early music, earlymusic, elaboration, Eleanor Bartsch, emeritus, Emperor, episode, episodic, faculty, fascinating, feet, film, flute, flutist, format, Frank Lloyd Wright, Friday, friend, genius, guest, Hebrew, History, Immanuel Lutheran Church, inspiration, inspired, Isthmus, Italian, Jewish, John W. Barker, juxtaposition, lecture, Lindsay Crabb, Luigi Boccherini, Madison Early Music Festival, Madrid, Mark Bridges, martial, Master and Commander, Medieval, melodic, melody, member, MEMF, military, movie, Music, Music of Spain, New Music, night, night music, novelty, origin, Overture, Paran Amirinazari, perform, Piano, playful, playing, popular, post, posting, professor, programming, Prokofiev, prolific, quintet, relish, review, rhythm, Russell Crowe, score, Sergei Prokofiev, soundtrack, Spain, stained glass, street, String quartet, summer, superb, Tempo, The Willys, theme, tonal, translate, triumphant, U.S., United States, variety, video, Vienna, Viola, Violin, violinist, violist, Waltz, Willy Street Chamber Players, window, work, WORT-FM 89.9, Writer
Classical music: Why are the Willy Street Chamber Players so successful at presenting neglected and new music?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Many individuals and groups, large and small, like to program neglected works and new music.
But no one does it better than the Willy Street Chamber Players, who are now in the middle of their fourth annual summer season.
So what is the secret of the Willys?
Some clues were given at the outstanding and thoroughly successful opening concert last Friday night, when the Willys, with guest mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil (below), played new music by Caroline Shaw, Colin Jacobsen and Michael Kelley – all to a very enthusiastic reception from the large audience.
More chances to experience such success and figure out the reasons behind it are coming up.
Tonight from 4 to 7 p.m. – and again on next Thursday, July 19, at the same time and place — at the Art and Literature Laboratory, 2021 Winnebago Street, the Willys will hold an open rehearsal. Admission is FREE, and you can bring something to eat and have a drink, including beer ($5 donation), as you listen and wander around to explore the space.
Then on Friday from noon to 1:30 p.m., during the Community Connect Concert for the whole family at the Goodman Community Center (below top) at 149 Waubesa Street, the Willys will perform “Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout” by the contemporary American composer Gabriela Lena Frank (below bottom) and the rarely performed “Procession of the Military Night Watch in Madrid” by the Classical-era composer Luigi Boccherini. (Starting at 11 a.m. there is also an instrument “petting zoo.”)
(You can hear an excerpt from the work by Gabriela Lena Frank in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
On this Sunday from 5 to 6 p.m., the Willys will perform the same program — which also features some string quartet selections by Romantic composer Robert Schumann — for FREE on the Union Terrace (below).
Other regular series concerts include the rarely heard String Quintet in A Major by Alexander Glazunov on July 20 and “Light Screens” (2002) by Andrew Norman (below) on July 27.
For times, place and details about series and special concerts, and for other information, go to: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org/calendar.html
Anyway, the way The Ear sees it there are several reasons to explain the Willys’ success with new and neglected music.
One can start with the basics: The impressive musicianship of all the Willys, who are remarkable for both technique and interpretation.
Another reason is the players’ unflagging ability to project energy and enthusiasm, suggested by upbeat and exciting tempi and by even such a small gesture as the two violinists and two violists playing while standing up, as was the custom in the Baroque era, rather than seated.
The Willys also introduce the pieces, providing not only information but also some humor, often self-deprecating. They prepare you for liking the music, not just for listening to it.
They often choose shorter and easily digestible pieces, so it is never an ordeal that overwhelms you. Sometimes you want a musical short story, not a musical novel.
But most of all the Willys do what more proponents of new music should do: They seem to keep their listeners in mind when they choose the pieces they will play.
Never do you get the feeling that listening to new or neglected music is some sort of aesthetic obligation imposed on you. It is there to be enjoyed, and you are there to be pleased, not just instructed or preached to.
Too often new music seems chosen as a gesture of R&D – research and development – that feels more important to the performers rather than to the audiences.
Maybe there is more to say? What do others think? The Ear looks forward to hearing what you think.
In the meantime, The Ear suggests you take in as much as you can of the superlative music-making of both classics and new music by the Willy Street Chamber Players.
He doubts you will be disappointed and is pretty sure you will be as pleased and impressed as he is.
Tags: #AlexanderGlazunov, #AndrewNorman, #ArtandLiteratureLaboratory, #CarolineShaw, #ChamberMusic, #Classicalera, #ColinJacobsen, #GabrielaLenaFrank, #GoodmanCommunityCenter, #JaziminaMacNeil, #LuigiBoccherini, #MichaelKelley, #NeglectedMusic, #NewMusic, #RobertSchumann, #StringQuartet, #StringQuintet, #SummerSeason, #UnionTerrace, #WillyStreetChamberPlayers, #WisconsinUnionTerrace, #YouTubevideo, Alexander Glazunov, Arts, Baroque, Beer, Cello, Chamber music, classic, Classical music, Colin Jacobsen, composer, Concert, eat, Glazunov, instrument, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Madison, Madrid, Michel Kelley, military, Music, night watch, petting, place, program, Schumann, Season, singer, Spain, String quartet, summer, time, Union Terrace, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, violinist, violist, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Terrace, YouTube, zoo
Classical music: You probably know Brahms, but who are Caroline Shaw, Colin Jacobsen and Michael Kelley? The Willy Street Chamber Players will show you this Friday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
The fourth annual concert series by the Willy Street Chamber Players (below) promises to be one of the high points of the summer season.
For more background about the Willys, go to:
Three concerts in July – at 6 p.m. on July 6, 20 and 27 in the Immanuel Lutheran Church (below) at 1021 Spaight Street on the near east side – are all inviting. (A subscription to all three is $40, while admission is $15 for each one separately.)
Each concert lasts about 60 to 90 minutes with no intermission.
That’s something The Ear really likes and would like to see copied by other groups and presenters. Such a format leaves you plenty of time to do other things to start the weekend – including enjoying the post-concert reception (below) with snacks the Willys obtain from east-side providers.
The opening concert seems especially promising to The Ear.
That is because so far the Willys have had a knack for programming new music that The Ear really likes.
This time is no different.
Along with the regular members, who rotate in and out, a guest singer, mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil (below), who sang a new work by John Harbison with the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte String Quartet this past winter, will team up to present new works.
The three contemporary composers and their works are: “Cant voi l’aube (composed in 2015 and heard in the YouTube video at the bottom) by Caroline Shaw (below top), a composer whose work the Willys have performed before with great success; “For Sixty Cents” (2015) by Colin Jacobsen (below middle, in a photo by Erin Baiano); and “Five Animal Stories” for string sextet and “Ashug” (2018) by Michael Kelley (below bottom).
Then to leaven newness with something more classic and familiar, the concert will close with the String Quintet No. 2, Op. 111, by Johannes Brahms. (The Willys have been working their way through the string quintets and sextets of Brahms with terrific performances.)
Other concerts will include:
On July 20, six arias from the opera “Porgy and Bess” by George Gershwin as transcribed and played by UW-Madison soprano saxophonist Les Thimmig (below) and the rarely performed String Quintet in A Major, Op. 39, by the Russian composer Alexander Glazunov ;
And on July 27, a program featuring wind music that includes “Night Music in the Streets of Madrid,” Op. 30, No. 6, by Luigi Boccherini; the Overture on Hebrew Themes by Sergei Prokofiev “Light Screens” (2002) by Andrew Norman (below); and the Kaiser Waltzes of Johann Strauss II, as arranged by Arnold Schoenberg.
The three local soloists for the final concert are: flutist Timothy Hagen (below top) and clarinetist Alicia Lee (below middle), who both teach at the UW-Madison and are members of the Wingra Wind Quintet, and pianist Thomas Kasdorf, who is finishing his doctorate at the UW-Madison and has often soloed with the Middleton Community Orchestra.
For more information about the Willy Street Chamber players—including a FREE community concert at the Goodman Community Center on Friday, July 13, at noon (with an instrument “petting zoo” for children at 11 a.m.) and at the Wisconsin Union Terrace — go to:
http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org
Tags: #AlexanderGlazunov, #AliciaLee, #AndrewNorman, #ArnoldSchoenberg, #CarolineShaw, #ChristianReligion, #ColinJacobsen, #ContemporaryComposer, #ContemporaryMusic, #GoodmanCommunityCenter, #ImmanuelLutheranChurch, #JaziminaMacNeil, #JohannesBrahms, #JohannStraussII, #JohnHarbison, #KaiserWaltzes, #LesThimming, #LivingComposers, #LuigiBoccherini, #LutheranChurch, #LutheranReligion, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MemorialUnion, #MichaelKelley, #MiddletonCommunityOrchestra, #OvertureonHebrewThemes, #PorgyandBess, #ProArteQuartet, #RussianComposer, #SergeiProkofiev, #SopranoSaxophone, #StringQuintet, #StringSextet, #SummerSeason, #ThemeAndVariations, #ThomasKasdorf, #TimothyHagen, #UnionTerrace, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #WillyStreetChamberPlayers, #WindMusic, #WindQuintet, #WingraWindQuintet, #YouTubevideo, Alicia Lee, Andrew Norman, animal, aria, arranged, arrangement, Arts, Boccherini, Caroline Shaw, Cello, Chamber music, church, clarinet, classic, Classical music, Colin Jacobsen, composer, Concert, contemporary music, familiar, flute, georgegershwin, Gershwin, Glazunov, Goodman Center, Goodman Community Center, Hebrew, Jacob Stockinger, Jazmina Macneil, Johann Strauss, Johannes Brahms, kaiser, living composers, Madison, Madrid, Mead Witter School of Music, Memorial Union, Mezzo-soprano, Michael Kelley, Music, Music of Spain, New Music, opera, Overture, performance, Piano, Pro Arte Quartet, program, programming, Prokofiev, reception, Religion, Russia, Russian, Saxophone, Schoenberg, series, singer, snacks, soprano, Spain, stories, story, string quintet, string sextet, subscription, summer, theme, Thomas Kasdorf, Timothy Hagen, Union Terrace, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Waltz, Willy Street Chamber Players, wind music, winds, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Terrace, YouTube
Classical music: Starting this Friday, the Madison Early Music Festival will devote a week to exploring familiar and unfamiliar Iberian music during the age of Cervantes. Part 1 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday, when the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) starts its week-long exploration of Iberian music during the Renaissance Age of novelist Miguel de Cervantes (below) and his pioneering novel “Don Quixote,” much will be familiar but much will also be new.
To provide a look at what to expect, the longtime co-artistic directors of the festival – wife-and-husband singers soprano Cheryl Bensman Rowe and baritone Paul Rowe (below) – provided the following overview through an email Q&A with The Ear.
All-festival passes are $90 and tickets to individual concerts cost $20, $10 for students.
Click here to buy online, call 608-265-ARTS (2787), or visit the Campus Arts Ticket Box Offices in Memorial Union or Vilas Hall (click here for hours).
(Note: All MEMF Concert Series concerts and lectures are free for participants in the MEMF Workshop. There is a $4 transaction fee per ticket when purchasing online or by phone.)
How successful is this year’s festival compared to others in terms of enrollment, budgets, performers, etc.? How does this program of MEMF’s reach nationally or even internationally compare to previous years?
We will have about 100 students at our workshop this summer, which has been a steady number for the past five years. Our budget increased to cover the big Don Quixote project by Piffaro, which you can read about below.
We continue to attract workshop participants and performers from all over the United States and Canada, and this year our concert series will present Xavier Diaz-Latorre from Spain. For more information, go to: www.xavierdiazlatorre.com
What is new and what is the same in terms of format, students, faculty members and performers?
The following events are new to MEMF this summer:
The Historical Harp Society will be giving a conference before MEMF begins, from Thursday, July 6 through Saturday, July 8, with classes and lectures that will culminate in a concert of Harp Music from the Spanish Golden Age on Friday, July 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, which is FREE and open to the public. Go to www.historicalharpsociety.org
Master teacher and performer Xavier Diaz-Latorre will be giving a master class in Morphy Recital Hall on Saturday, July 8, from 10 a.m. to noon. It is free and open to the public.
We have a new partnership with the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies (LACIS) Program at UW-Madison. LACIS has helped us translate materials and supported MEMF with two grants. www.lacis.wisc.edu
A new display in the Memorial Library foyer will celebrate the 2017 Madison Early Music Festival with a special exhibit of Don Quixote Through the Ages, featuring a selection of books, musical scores, and other materials from the UW-Madison Libraries. While viewing the exhibition, patrons can scan a QR code and listen to a Spotify playlist featuring music that will be heard at the MEMF 2017 Concert Series! This is a MEMF first, created by co-artistic director Paul Rowe.
We worked with several librarians to select the materials: Paloma Celis-Carbajal, Ibero-American Studies and Romance Languages Librarian; Jeanette Casey, head of Mills Music Library; and Lisa Wettleson from Special Collections at Memorial Library (below, in a photo by Brent Nicastro).
Dates: June 26 – August 10, 2017
Location: Memorial Library foyer | 728 State Street | Madison
Library Hours: 8 a.m.-9:45 p.m.
We have several new performers this year.
Xavier Diaz-Latorre, a vihuela player from Spain, and the ensemble Sonnambula from New York. Xavier is a world-renowned musician, and plays the vihuela, a Spanish Renaissance type of guitar, and the lute.
Xavier will perform a solo recital featuring music of the vihuela by composers Luis Narváez, Alonso Mudarra, Gaspar Sanz and Santiago de Murcia. The link below will give you more information about the predecessors to the guitar:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/aboutLute/Vihuela.html
Daphna Mor and Kane Mathis will present a program featuring music from the geographic regions of Andalusia, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the Sephardic Diaspora. Based on the monophonic music of modes referred to as the Makam, the audience will be drawn to distinct beauty and great similarities of music from the courts, liturgical forms, dance airs and folk music.
Daphna Mor (below top) sings and plays several historical wind instruments, and Kane Mathis (below bottom) plays the oud, a lute type of stringed instrument with 11 or 13 strings grouped in 5 or 6 courses, commonly used in Middle Eastern music.
Percussionist Shane Shanahan (below) will join them. Shane is an original member of the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and a Grammy award winner. https://www.stepsnyc.com/faculty/bio/Shane-Shanahan/
And watch Shane play frame drum in the Cave Temples of Dunhuang at the Getty Museum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjC3y6CXQ8
Hear and read about Daphna Mor: http://www.daphnamor.com/
You can watch Kane Mathis play the oud at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tHrxEohai8
Sonnambula (below), an ensemble of violins and viol da gambas, has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and have a regular series at the Hispanic Society of America in New York. It played a sold-out program of Spanish Golden Age works drawn from the over 450 pieces in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, a manuscript at the Royal Palace of Madrid. This same program will be presented at MEMF on Friday, July 14. (You can hear them perform Spanish music in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Why was the theme of the Spain’s Golden Age and The Age of Cervantes and Don Quixote chosen for the festival? What composers and works will be highlighted?
We liked the connection with last year’s theme, Shakespeare 400, because, although they never knew one another, Cervantes and Shakespeare (below) were contemporaries and share a “deathaversary,” as they both died on April 23, 1616. They led quite different lives, as Shakespeare was very successful throughout his lifetime and Cervantes wasn’t well known until the end of his life, when Don Quixote was published in 1605.
http://www.dw.com/en/shakespeare-and-cervantes-two-geniuses-and-one-death-date/a-19203237
Also, the Renaissance band Piffaro (below, in a photo by Church Street Studios) — an ensemble from Philadelphia that is well loved by MEMF audiences — suggested we explore this connection to Don Quixote and present their program The Musical World of Don Quixote, a huge project that they have been researching for several years.
They created a musical soundtrack to the novel in chronological order, and their program will open our 2017 concert series. This link from the Early Music America article “Piffaro Tilts At Musical Windmills” will tell you about their project in depth:
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/emag-piffaro-tilts-at-musical-windmills/
The other concerts in the series draw from the music that is mentioned in Don Quixote and from the Spanish Renaissance, known as Siglo de Oro, or the Century of Gold. Many composers from this time period will be represented: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, Luis de Milán and Alonso Lobo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/concerts.htm
Check out our website for the most up-to-date information and how to get tickets:
Tomorrow: What makes Renaissance music in Spain different? What composers and music will be featured in concerts?
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Classical music: Mixing old and new music. Violinist Hilary Hahn talks about the works she commissioned and will play alongside classics when she performs Sunday night at the Wisconsin Union Theater
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By Jacob Stockinger
There are many great violinists playing today. But arguably the most important and innovative is 36-year-old Hilary Hahn (below), the thoughtful virtuoso who returns to perform a MUST-HEAR recital in Shannon Hall of the Wisconsin Union Theater at 7:30 p.m. this coming Sunday night.
The last two recitals there by Hahn were two of the most memorable live chamber music performances The Ear has ever heard.
Tickets are $27.50 to $50.50. UW-Madison students are $10.
Here is a link to information about tickets, the program and audio samples:
http://uniontheater.wisc.edu/Season15-16/hilary-hahn.html
During her 20-year career, Hahn – who often mixes the old and new both in live performances and on recordings — has consistently turned in astounding performances of the violin repertoire, including classics. Those works include concertos and sonatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Niccolo Paganini, Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Charles Ives, Jean Sibelius, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Samuel Barber, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein and others.
But she also frequently commissions and adds new works to the repertoire, including a concerto by Edgar Meyer and a Pulitzer Prize-winning concerto by Jennifer Higdon, who teaches composition at the Curtis Institute of music where Hahn studied. Plus, she is a talented and charming “postcard” blogger and interviewer.
Both sides of Hilary Hahn’s artistry – the classic and the contemporary — will be on display during her Madison recital. The very busy Hahn (below, in a photo by Peter Miller) recently agreed to do an email Q&A with The Ear:
You have long been known as an innovative artist. What are your new and upcoming projects, including recordings and commissions?
I’m in the middle of a 14-month-long artist residency at the Vienna Konzerthaus. It’s my first such experience, so I feel like a kid in a candy store, getting to try out ideas sequentially that I would otherwise have to stretch over several years.
I’m excited to include among my residency performing as soloist with five different orchestras in the same hall, as well as giving a recital there and developing local initiatives to bring the community and classical music even closer together. Next year, I will be in residence in Seattle and Lyon. It’s been fun seeing what residency activities I want to carry over and what I can add that is specific to each city.
As far as commissions go, over this season and next, I’m world-premiering and touring a significant new contribution to the solo violin repertoire, Six Partitas by Antón García Abril (below), written for me.
That is a meaningful project for me, because I sensed that Mr. García Abril would write a fantastic set of pieces if I could convince him to take on the assignment. He decided to do it and the music turned out to be more wonderful and inspiring to play than I could have imagined. It feels like those phrases breathe with me and the notes fit in my hands.
In addition, I am in the process of wrapping up the original trajectory of my project, In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores. After some concerts on this upcoming tour, as encores, my recital partner Cory Smythe and I will be giving world premieres of the Honorable Mentions from my Encores contest.
Finally, in the fall, the complete edition of the sheet music for all 27 original works will be published as a single edition, with my fingerings, bowings and performance notes.
Is there an underlying unity or purpose to your program of works by Mozart, Bach, García Abril, Copland and Davidson?
I hope the listeners will find their own versions of unity and purpose in the program. The pieces weren’t assembled randomly, but then again, everyone listens differently.
García Abril’s Six Partitas, of which I will play No. 1, entitled “Heart,” are solo polyphonic works. The violin alone carries multiple melodic lines, as well as providing its own harmonies. Johann Sebastian Bach (below top) wrote his polyphonic Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin in 1720. I felt it was important to carry forward this particular type of composition into the present day, so I commissioned Mr. García Abril (below bottom, in a photo by Julio Ficha) to create this set of works. (You can hear Hilary Hahn interview Anton Garcia Abril in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
His writing for violin is compelling, fluid, emotional, clever and expressively rich in a way that I felt needed to be explored further. Especially as this is the premiere tour of his Partita No. 1, I wanted to juxtapose the new work with one of Bach’s, namely the Third Sonata with its complex and multifaceted fugue.
As for the duo pieces on the program, the compositional styles — though they span 250 years — have a certain openness in common: the writing is not densely layered, leaving lots of room for imagination.
What about the works by Mozart and Copland?
Mozart’s set of sonatas for keyboard and violin is one of the most extensive for this instrumentation, and since I was a student, I’ve been adding at least one to my repertoire annually. It’s wonderful to explore such a prolific composer’s work over a long stretch of time. This particular sonata vacillates among stormy drama, lyricism and playfulness.
The piece by Aaron Copland (below) is gorgeous, revealing. In this sonata, Copland’s musical language is clearly recognizable, but the texture is more sparse than in his famous larger-ensemble works, making it boldly direct and engrossing to listen to.
And the music by Tina Davidson?
The work by Tina Davidson (below) follows on the tonality of the Copland, but the composer’s treatment of the music goes in an entirely different direction. “Blue Curve of the Earth” was written in Wyoming during an artist residency, and was inspired by a photo of the edge of the Earth from space. The music is dreamy yet dimensional, angular yet lush. “Blue Curve of the Earth” is from the Encores project.
What would you like the public to know about composers Antón García Abril and Tina Davidson and their violin music or music in general?
I like to picture where pieces were written; the surroundings can add another dimension to the music. Environment influences the creative process. The studio is the private stage. Antón works in a studio outside of Madrid that his son, the architect by the same name, designed for him. Tina is based out of a refashioned church in Pennsylvania, with vaulted ceilings and a garden.
Both write beautifully for voice. Since violin can be a lyrical instrument and is tonally varied, capable of both sustaining and articulating, the ability to write expressively for voice transfers to the violin. Also, I have the impression that both composers start from a strong conceptual point with their works. When I play their music, the big line is the first thing that jumps out at me; the myriad fine details support the gestures.
If you play an encore or two, will they be from the ones you commissioned a couple of years ago and won a Grammy for?
That’s the plan! I feel very close to those pieces. Great encores exist from previous centuries, too; I never rule out the classics.
Why did you commission 27 short encores?
I began to notice that new encore pieces were not being showcased as much as other types of contemporary works. Shorter pieces remain a crucial part of every violinist’s education and repertoire, and I believed that potential new favorites should be encouraged and performed as well.
How successful have they been with the public and with other artists?
The public embraced the project. The music contained within the Encores is varied and imaginative. Each composer had a different concept of what an encore can add to today’s musical landscape.
I think every listener can find at least one work that is particularly poignant. I want the audience to discover these pieces for themselves. It is thrilling to listen to music that you have never heard before and, uninfluenced by other people’s opinions, be free to feel your own response.
This project is something I’ve been working on for a long time; I would estimate that my direct involvement in all of the different parts will wind up having a 15-year arc. What I have learned on musical and creative levels from working with the composers will stay with me for my whole career, and the logistical lessons from organizing such a big project will influence my future work.
Most importantly, I hope the Encores themselves will continue in the active repertoire beyond my lifetime. That will be up to other performers, of course.
You have played here several times, both concertos and solo recitals. Is there anything you would like to say about performing in Madison and about Madison audiences?
I really enjoy Madison itself. It’s in a beautiful part of the country. I’ll never forget the first time I visited, in the winter, when the city was covered by snow and one of the sidewalks featured a table topped by a tower of knit hats and sweaters. As for the Madison audience, their curiosity and involvement are energizing.
Is there anything else you would like to say?
Hello, everyone!
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Classical music: Oscar got it wrong for the Best Picture in 2006, but that Academy Awards mistake has been corrected and now, for a couple of months, you can hear the new opera version of “Brokeback Mountain” for FREE.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Tomorrow, on Sunday night, March 2, the annual Oscars, the 86th annual Academy Awards, will be given out starting at 6 p.m. CST on ABC-TV, which will also stream the awards broadcast live.
The Ear hopes that this time Oscar gets it right.
I recall one memorable year when they got it wrong.
That was in 2006 at the 78th annual Academy Awards.
Even the late, great and popular film critic Roger Ebert (below, in a photo by Vince Bucci), whose choices I usually admired and concurred with, got it wrong.
In 2006, two of the top contenders for Best Film were “Crash” and the heavily favored ‘Brokeback Mountain.”
“Crash” dealt with race and racial tensions in Los Angeles, and focused in interrelated stories that were well told and well acted by some fine names, including Thandie Newton (below left), Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon (below right) and Don Cheadle.
“Brokeback Mountain,” based on the short story by Annie Proulx that was first published in The New Yorker magazine, dealt with two young modern-day cowboys in Montana struggling to deal with and acknowledge their gay identity and their love for each other.
Late in the game, Roger Ebert came out in favor of “Crash” as the most deserving film to receive the Best Picture award. His influence may well have set the upset in motion.
But Ebert was wrong.
“Brokeback” deserved the honor. It was a moving film with great music and great cinematography. Most of all, its story and character study were very poignant and bittersweet, even heartbreaking. And it was masterfully acted by Jake Gyllenhaal (below left) and by the late Heath Ledger (below right).
Not that Crash wasn’t a fine film. It was. But race had been dealt with very well in a many other films over the years.
On the other hand, “Brokeback Mountain,” directed by the incomparable and eclectic Ang Lee, was a break-though work of art, a pioneering achievement that proved nothing less than revolutionary in the way it introduced gay subject matter and characters into mainstream Hollywood cinema in a sympathetic way.
And the current move of public opinion towards approving of marriage equality – or gay marriage or same-sex marriage – just goes to prove the point.
“Brokeback” did win three Oscars – but NOT the one for Best Picture, which went instead to “Crash,” a good movie but not a better movie than “Brokeback.”
But American composer Charles Wuorinen also found something inspiring in the story of two lonesome gay cowboys up on an isolated Montana mountain. So he asked the author to rework the story into an opera libretto while he went to work composing the music. (Below, in the title roles, are Tom Randle, left, and Daniel Okulitch, right):
The results are an opera based on the revised short story.
How good are the results?
Here is a balanced and insightful review of the opera’s world premiere at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain, from senior music critic Anthony Tommasini for The New York Times, who rightly thinks a love story calls for a little more singing and melody. He seems to be saying: Right story, wrong composer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/arts/music/lyrical-cowboys-in-love-on-stage.html?_r=0
And here is an overview, with a link to a streaming site for the opera, from the famed radio station in New York City, WQXR-FM:
http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/brokeback-mountain-opera-critics-weigh/
But more to the point, you can judge for yourself. You can now hear the opera FREE via streaming for another 60 days or so thanks to Medici TV. (You can get a taste in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is link to the story on NPR’s “Morning Edition” that features an interview with Proulx (below) and also give some background as well as a link to the opera broadcast on Medici.
Here is a link to the NPR story:
So let’s hope The Academy gets the right movies for the right awards Sunday night.
Here is a link to much more information about the Oscars.
And you can return here tomorrow where you will find more Oscar-related stories about music top serve as background before you tune into the always endless live broadcast with this years; host, Ellen DeGeneres –- an out lesbian whose appearance attests to the prescience of “Brokeback Mountain.”
Tags: ABC-TV, Academy Award, Annie Proulx, Arts, Brokeback Mountain, Charles Wuorinen, Classical music, Daniel Okulitch, Heath Ledger, Hollywood, Jacob Stockinger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Madison, Madrid, Medeci.tv, Music, New York City, New York Times, New Yorker, NPR, opera, Oscars, Roger Ebert, Spain, Teatro Real, YouTube
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