The Well-Tempered Ear
The UW Symphony Orchestra performs a FREE online concert Thursday night and Friday night the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra debuts its second chamber music concert. But in-person micro-concerts on Sunday by the the Willy Street Chamber Players are sold-out
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By Jacob Stockinger
The second half of the music season is well under way, with just about every major group performing online – or in one case even in person.
Here are three selections this week:
THURSDAY
Two of the most musically and technically impressive concerts The Ear heard last semester took place at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. They were by the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Oriol Sans (below).
First, Sans conducted a socially distanced and virtual all-strings concert (below).
Then, for the second concert, the conductor had the winds and brass – which spray dangerous aerosol droplets – record their parts individually. Then for the live performance, Sans donned earphones and masterfully combined all the forces into a full orchestra performance (below).
You can see similar results – with percussion joining for the strings for the last piece — this Thursday night, Feb. 25, at 7:30 p.m. on YouTube when the UW Symphony Orchestra live-streams a 90-muinute concert from the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall in the Hamel Music Center. No in-person attendance is allowed.
Here is the program:
I Crisantemi (Chyrsanthemums) by Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), with Michael Dolan, guest conductor
“Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout” by contemporary American composer Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972) Coqueteos (Flirtations)
“Carmen” Suite (after the opera by Georges Bizet) by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin (b.1932): Introduction; Dance; Carmen’s entrance and Habanera Torero; Adagio; Fortune-telling; and Finale.
Here is a link to the live-streamed video: https://youtu.be/GSrMLKrjlVg
And here is a link to more information, including program notes and the names of members of the orchestra: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-madison-symphony-orchestra-2/
FRIDAY NIGHT
On Friday night at 7:30 p.m. the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below, in a photo by Mike Gorski) will offer the second of its Winter Chamber Series. It will run between 60 and 75 minutes.
There will be string, brass and percussion music by Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Steve Reich, Craig H. Russell and Thomas Siwe. Be aware that three of the works – string quartets by Mozart and Beethoven and a string sonata by Rossini — are presented in excerpts. That is not listed on the webpage.
The cost for one-time access between Friday night and Monday night is $30.
Here is a link to more information, including a link to ticket sales from the Overture Center box office and program notes by WCO music director and conductor Andrew Sewell (below, in a photo by Alex Cruz): https://wcoconcerts.org/events/winter-chamber-series-no-ii
SOLD-OUT
The Micro-concerts scheduled for this coming Sunday, Feb. 28, by the esteemed Willy Street Chamber Players (below), are SOLD-OUT.
The 10-minute private concerts for two, which require masks and social distancing for all, are perhaps the most innovative move by any local music group during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Ear, who expects concert habits to change after the pandemic, thinks such micro-concerts have a very bright future even after the pandemic is under control and audiences can return safely to mass events.
The concert are pay-what-you can but a $20 donation for two was suggested.
For more information about the micro-concerts, listen to the YouTube video at the bottom and go to: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org/micro-concerts.html
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Classical music: Looking for serious fun? The thoroughly successful opening concerts by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society bode well for the upcoming second weekend
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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.
By Jacob Stockinger
After 28 summers, going to a concert by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society still feels like attending a family reunion – the best kind of family reunion where everyone is familiar and friendly, where everything is fun, and where you always leave glad that you went.
That’s not by chance.
The first thing that co-founders and co-artistic directors Stephanie Jutt and Jeffrey Sykes did last Friday and Saturday nights was to thank the loyal audience. And the audience, full of longtime fans, returned the favor by being attentive to and appreciative of the first-rate music-making as well as responsive to the horseplay and antics – such as the surreal scene of virtuoso Axel Strauss playing “The Skater’s Waltz” on his violin while rollerblading around the stage (below).
BDDS players really mean it when they say that their audiences are in for something different, something they won’t find elsewhere and won’t forget.
Last weekend that meant the return of two longtime guest performers: San Francisco cellist Jean-Michael Fonteneau and Montreal violinist Axel Strauss (below, with pianist Jeffrey Sykes). Neither disappointed as they performed very varied music by Franz Joseph Haydn, C.P.E. Bach, Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Faure, Lili Boulanger, Maurice Ravel and Ned Rorem. And as always, the amazing pianist Jeffrey Sykes proved a chameleon who blended masterfully into the style of each period and each composer.
But for The Ear, the unexpected standout last weekend was guest accordion player Stas Venglevski from Milwaukee. Born in Russia and trained at the Moscow Conservatory, he is a virtuoso player, a sensitive arranger and a convincing composer – all done with good humor and a charismatic stage presence.
The Ear never thought of the accordion – the Russian bayan, to be specific – as an instrument for chamber music. But he does now, after hearing Venglevski play serious Russian, French and Latin American music that ran the gamut from a graceful waltz and a sprightly polka to torchy tangos. And then there were his flying fingers punching out “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” a real crowd-pleaser.
The large audience responded on both nights with wild applause and a standing ovation every time that Venglevski (below) played, and Jutt promised the audience that he will be back.
“As you can see, we have fun here,” Jutt deadpanned.
She is not exaggerating.
Which bodes well for the second weekend of three that will happen this coming weekend.
The second weekend — two programs in three venues — celebrates Jutt and Sykes, plus two of BDDS’ favorite guest artists: violinist Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio and Madison pianist Thomas Kasdorf.
Kasdorf (below) and Sykes are both featured in a program called “Rock the Sykes-o-delic Kas-bah.” Kasdorf is featured in Brahms’ Horn Trio with guest horn player Karl Kramer Johansen, and in the appealing and accessible Café Concertino by the contemporary Australian composer Carl Vine.
Sykes will perform another chamber transcription of a Classical-era symphonic work, which over the years has become a welcome specialty of BDDS. In this case it is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s snappy and appealing Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, the “Jeunehomme” concerto. (You can hear the irresistible last movement of the piano concerto, used in the film “Amadeus,” in the YouTube video at the bottom.) Sykes will also perform in Robert Schumann’s “Fairy Tales” for clarinet and viola.
A Madison native, cellist Alison Rowe (below) — an artist from the Dynamite Factory, which is BDDS’ program for emerging talent — will be featured in the Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Major by Johann Sebastian Bach.
“Rock the Sykes-o-delic Kas-bah” will be performed at the Stoughton Opera House on Friday, June 21, at 7:30 p.m. Braisin’ Hussies Food Cart will be parked outside the Opera House prior to the performance. The program will also be performed in Spring Green at the Hillside Theater, Sunday, June 23, at 2:30 p.m.
Jutt (below top) and Sant’Ambrogio (below bottom, in a photo by Stephanie Ann Boyd) worm their musical way into the most unexpected places in the other program, “Steph Infection.” The Nocturne for flute, violin, horn and piano of Franz Doppler opens the program, which continues with Jutt’s own arrangement of Antonin Dvorak’s popular “American” String Quartet, with a flute substituting for one of the two violins.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Five Pieces for flute, clarinet and piano add spice to the program, and the evening concludes with Ernst von Dohnanyi’s epic Sextet for clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello and piano. A work that ranges from stormy and turbulent to tender and funny, it features an all-star cast including audience favorite clarinetist Alan Kay, horn player Karl Kramer Johansen, violist Carol Cook (principal at the Lyric Opera of Chicago), and Madison’s own cellist of the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet, Parry Karp (below).
“Steph Infection” will be performed at The Playhouse, Overture Center for the Arts, Saturday, June 22, at 7:30 p.m.; and in Spring Green at the Hillside Theater, Sunday, June 23, at 6:30 p.m.
And of course there could also be some unannounced surprises – more door prizes, perhaps a mystery guest, or more shenanigans and antics that correspond to the “Name Dropping” pun theme of the programs.
For tickets ($43-$49) and more information, go to: https://bachdancing.org
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