The Well-Tempered Ear
Longtime friends organist Greg Zelek and Madison native and award-winning trumpeter Ansel Norris team up for a FREE live-streamed concert this Tuesday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
Two longtime friends and fellow musicians will team up this Tuesday night, April 27, to close this season’s organ concert series, sponsored in the Overture Center by the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
It will be live-streamed online because of the pandemic restrictions on attendance.
The concert features the critically acclaimed MSO organist Greg Zelek (below left) and Ansel Norris (below right), an award-winning trumpeter who is a native of Madison.
The program includes works by Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn and Samuel Barber among others.
The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. CDT. It is FREE but you must register. The concert will be available to registered listeners for unlimited access through May 31.
Here is a link to the MSO website where you can register. It also has more information about the program and biographies of the two performers: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/norris-zelek-2021-streamed/
Here is more background. It appeared in the latest issue of the email newsletter of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO), of which Norris was a member for many years:
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Ansel Norris and Greg Zelek first met in 2010 as high school seniors who had both been selected as finalists in the YoungARTS Awards. The YoungARTS Award is a big competition with just a small percentage of students selected for the $10,000 prize from the thousands of high school applicants. In classical music that year, 12 students became finalists and assembled in Miami for a week of master classes with internationally recognized arts leaders. “You know, there really is a synergy with trumpet and organ. The sounds are produced in a similar way and the way the sounds blend together is really special. Even then, I imagined a concert together.” Ten years later, the two friends were dreaming up this concert when Greg was in Miami in February, 2020. And then the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Norris has distinguished himself as a solo, orchestral and chamber musician. As Greg Zelek (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) writes: “Concerti of Bach and Haydn will bookend this program filled with music that is both written and arranged for this electrifying pairing of instruments. Mr. Norris’ remarkable technique and soaring lyricism will be on full display while our Mighty Klais both supports and shimmers in this exhilarating performance you won’t want to miss!” Register here for Tuesday’s concert!
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The UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quintet performs a FREE online virtual concert this Wednesday night. Plus, local music critic Greg Hettmansberger has died
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NEWS ALERT: Local music critic and blogger Greg Hettmansberger (below) was killed in a car accident on Dec. 2, near Wichita, Kansas. Hettmansberger, 65, was driving when he hit a deer and then another car hit him. His wife survived but remains hospitalized in Wichita in critical condition. Here is a link to a news account: https://www.kake.com/story/42993718/man-dies-in-crash-caused-by-deer-in-pratt-county
By Jacob Stockinger
This Wednesday night, Dec. 9, the UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quintet (below, in 2017) will perform a FREE virtual online concert from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Here is a direct link to the pre-recorded video premiere on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/e1NhVZJW2cA
Due to the pandemic, the Wingra Wind Quintet has been unable to perform chamber music in a traditional way since March 2020. (You can hear the quintet play “On, Wisconsin” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In response, the quintet put together a program that allowed each member to record parts separately and have those parts edited together.
Current faculty members (below) are: Conor Nelson, flute; Lindsay Flowers, oboe; Alicia Lee, clarinet; Marc Vallon, bassoon; and Devin Cobleigh-Morrison, horn
The engineer/producer is Kris Saebo.
The program is:
The first piece “Allegro scherzando” from Three Pieces by Walter Piston (below, 1894-1976)
The Chaconne from the First Suite in E-flat for Military Band by Gustav Holst (below, 1874-1934)
“Retracing” by Elliott Carter (below, 1908-2012)
Selections from “Mikrokosmos” by Bela Bartok (below, 1881-1945)
“A 6 letter letter” by Elliott Carter
Intermezzo from the First Suite in E-flat for Military Band by Gustav Holst
“Esprit rude/esprit doux” by Elliott Carter
Since its formation in 1965, the Wingra Wind Quintet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music has established a tradition of artistic and teaching excellence.
The ensemble has been featured in performance at national conferences such as MENC (Miami), MTNA (Kansas City), and the International Double Reed Society (Minneapolis).
The quintet also presented an invitational concert on the prestigious Dame Myra Hess series at the Chicago Public Library, broadcast live on radio station WFMT.
In addition to its extensive home state touring, the quintet has been invited to perform at numerous college campuses, including the universities of Alaska-Fairbanks, Northwestern, Chicago, Nebraska, Western Michigan, Florida State, Cornell, the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Paris Conservatoire, where quintet members offered master classes.
The Wingra Wind Quintet has recorded for Golden Crest, Spectrum, and the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music recording series and is featured on an educational video entitled Developing Woodwind Ensembles.
Always on the lookout for new music of merit, the Wingra has premiered new works of Hilmar Luckhardt, Vern Reynolds, Alec Wilder, Edith Boroff, James Christensen and David Ott. The group recently gave the Midwest regional premiere of William Bolcom’s “Five Fold Five,” a sextet for woodwind quintet and piano, with UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor (below).
New York Times critic Peter Davis, in reviewing the ensemble’s Carnegie Hall appearance, stated “The performances were consistently sophisticated, sensitive and thoroughly vital.”
The Wingra Wind Quintet is one of three faculty chamber ensembles in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
Deeply committed to the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, the group travels widely to offer its concerts and educational services to students and the public in all corners of the state. (Editor’s note: For more about the Wisconsin Idea, which seems more relevant today than ever, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Idea.)
Portions of this recording were made at the Hamel Music Center, a venue of the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Classical music: Madison native and virtuoso trumpeter Ansel Norris has made it to the final round of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition. You can hear him perform live on Thursday morning or in replay
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A REMINDER and CORRECTION: American pianist Kenneth Broberg, who performed last season in Madison on the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos, will be the last finalist – not the second-to-last – in the final concerto round of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition. The pianist from China that was to play after him played yesterday instead.
Broberg will play the “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” by Sergei Rachmaninoff and the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, by Tchaikovsky. You can watch his performance live still on Thursday morning at 11:45 a.m. by going to https://tch16.medici.tv/en/ and clicking on PIANO LIVE or REPLAY after the performance.
By Jacob Stockinger
This news came to The Ear late or he would have passed along more information much earlier.
Ansel Norris (below), a 26-year-old Madison native and virtuoso trumpeter, has made it as one of the nine finalists — the contest started with 47 contestants in trombone, French horn, trumpet and tuba — in the first-ever Brass Competition at the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition.
You can hear Norris perform live on Thursday morning at 7:45 a.m. via live-streaming or afterwards via replay. Just go to https://tch16.medici.tv/en/
Then click on BRASS and choose WATCH or REPLAY.
You can also listen to his earlier performances.
Here is a link to his performance in the first round, when he played a concerto by Franz Joseph Haydn plus works by Allen Vizzutti and Georges Enescu:
https://tch16.medici.tv/en/replay/first-round-with-ansel-norris/
And here is a link to his performance in the semi-final round, where he played concertos by Johann Friedrich Fasch and Vladimir Peskin — you can hear a much younger Norris play the first movement with piano in the YouTube video at the bottom — as well as a solo competition piece by Théo Charlier:
https://tch16.medici.tv/en/replay/semi-final-with-ansel-norris/#filter?instrument=brass
His performance in the finals, with an orchestra in St. Petersburg instead of Moscow, will take place on Thursday, June 27, at 7:45 a.m.
He will play Lensky’s aria “Where, Where Have You Gone?” from the opera “Eugene Onegin” by Tchaikovsky and the Trumpet Concerto by Rodion Shchedrin. Playing opera arias and art songs on the trumpet is a Norris specialty.
Norris, a graduate of Northwestern University who was also a member of the well-known New World Symphony in Miami, studied with John Aley, University of Wisconsin-Madison Emeritus Professor and Principal Trumpet of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and played for many years in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Norris is the son of Katherine Esposito, the concert manager and publicity coordinator at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Here is a link to the more complete and current biography posted by the Tchaikovsky Competition:
https://tch16.medici.tv/en/competitors/ansel-norris/
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Classical music: Madison native Ansel Norris returns to perform a FREE recital this Saturday night of songs transcribed for trumpet and piano
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CORRECTION: In some downloads of yesterday’s post, the performance by the Ancora String Quartet was mistakenly listed for Friday night. The performance is SATURDAY night. The Ear apologizes for the error. For more information, go to:
By Jacob Stockinger
On this Saturday night, July 29, at 7 p.m., trumpeter Ansel Norris and pianist Beth Wilson will perform a FREE recital of vocal music in an unusual format — for solo trumpet and piano, with the poetry that inspired the music spoken in between each song.
“In music for voice and piano there lies a special intimacy, and the composers featured each captured something close to the essence of the form,” Norris (below) told The Ear. “I wanted to see what happened if I split the songs up into a poem, read it out loud, and then played a wordless melody to follow. The result was interesting and felt meaningful, so I’ve decided to give it another go.”
The recital, in the Grand Hall at Capitol Lakes Retirement Community, 333 West Main Street, downtown and three blocks off the Capitol Square.
The program includes: Richard Strauss, “Morgen”; Robert Schumann, “Liederkreis,” Op. 24, No. 5;” Richard Strauss, “Die Nacht”: Robert Schumann, “Liederkreis,” Op. 24, No. 1; Robert Schumann, “Liederkreis,” Op. 24, No. 9; Johannes Brahms, “Die Mainacht”; Franz Schubert, “Der Einsame”; Johannes Brahms, “Unbewegte laue Luft”; Robert Schumann, “Liederkreis,” Op. 24, No. 3; Richard Strauss, “Befreit”; and Peter Tchaikovsky, “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” (“None but the Lonely Heart,” sung by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Admission is FREE and open to the public.
Ansel Norris grew up on the east side of Madison, and last set foot in Capitol Lakes (below) in the spring of 2010, for his graduation recital. In recent years, he has distinguished himself as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician of enthusiasm and diverse taste.
Norris has won a number of prizes as a soloist, including first-prize twice in the National Trumpet Competition, and has drawn acclaim as an orchestral player, performing with the Chicago and Boston Symphonies and holding a fellowship with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida.
Norris has also worked in close relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, at the Tanglewood Music Center, in the summers of 2014 and 2015.
He says he is fascinated with the relationship between music and storytelling, and is currently exploring interesting formats of solo recitals to draw new connections between them. In a sense, this recital is an experiment, but one conducted with great love, care and curiosity.
While in Madison, Ansel Norris said, he was lucky to participate in a number of the diverse opportunities available to young musicians. He was a three-year member of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Orchestra and a four-year, inaugural member of the Winds of Wisconsin.
He was also a participant in the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s “Final Forte” was a winner of the Neale-Silva Young Artist Competition held by Wisconsin Public Radio. He was a devoted student of the UW-Madison’s recently retired professor of trumpet, John Aley (below), who to this day is one of his greatest inspirations.
As he grows older, Norris says, he often reflects on what a special place Madison was to grow up in, and he looks forward to every chance he has to be home.
Beth Wilson (below) currently lives in Madison and is a freelance musician and professional pianist. She is a member of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, playing for the “Nutcracker Ballet” and “Concerts on the Square.” She also performs with Grupo Candela, a salsa band. Broadway touring shows contract her to play in the pit orchestra including the recent shows “Wicked,” “Book of Mormon,” “Sound of Music” and “Beautiful –The Carole King Musical.”
As an accompanist, Beth Wilson has collaborated with Bernhard Scully of the Canadian Brass; Diana Gannett of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; and Ansel Norris — with whom she is now reunited after seven years.
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Classical music: Madison Symphony Orchestra names Greg Zelek as its new principal organist
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following important news:
The Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) has announced that Greg Zelek (below) will become Principal Organist and Curator of the Overture Concert Organ, beginning Sept. 1, 2017.
Zelek will succeed Samuel Hutchison, who retired after 16 years in the position. Hutchison will remain active in an advisory role during the transition to his successor.
MSO Music Director John DeMain said “Greg Zelek’s decision to move to Madison and become our principal organist, is a testimony to the international reputation both the instrument and organ programs have gained in the past 12 years. Greg is simply a phenomenal virtuoso on the instrument and will be a wonderful addition to the symphony, the organ program, and the community.”
Samuel Hutchison (below) said: “Greg comes to Madison as one of the brightest lights of a new generation of concert organists. His effortless facility at the organ console coupled with highly creative programming ideas will provide great excitement for our organ audiences. I anticipate his tenure with great enthusiasm as he launches the new season of organ concerts with his inaugural recital on August 26.”
Greg Zelek is recognized as one of the most exciting young organists in the American organ scene. The South Florida Classical Review praised Zelek for his “effortless facility on the instrument.” He has performed with orchestras as both a soloist and professional ensemble member throughout the US, including appearances with the Miami Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in Carnegie Hall.
He was the organist in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Faust, and performed twice with the New World Symphony, including a performance of Lukas Foss’s Phorion, under Michael Tilson Thomas. Zelek was chosen by The Diapason magazine as one of the top “20 Under 30” organists in 2016, a feature which selects the most successful young artists in the field.
Zelek has appeared in multiple venues throughout the US, including a performance of Cochereau’s Bolero for Organ and Percussion in Alice Tully Hall. He closed the WQXR Bach Marathon at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, which was streamed live on New York City’s only classical music station.
A proponent of new music for the organ, Greg (below) has premiered and performed works by fellow Juilliard composers and faculty, including Wayne Oquin’s Reverie and Samuel Adler’s Partita for Organ in concerts. Awards he has received include First Prize in both the 2012 Rodgers North American Classical Organ Competition and the 2012 West Chester University Organ Competition, and selection as a 2010 NFAA Young Arts Silver Medal Winner.
He won First Prize, as well as the “Bach Prize,” at the East Carolina University Organ Competition, and was a prizewinner in the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival. Most recently, Greg was the Audience Prize winner and finalist in the 2016 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition. (You can hear Greg Zelek perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Greg’s engagements have included serving as the Music Director and Organist at the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew and St. Timothy in New York City; Organ Scholar at Hitchcock Presbyterian Church in Scarsdale, New York; Music Director of Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Miami; and summer organist for San Pedro Apostol Church in Ramales de la Victoria, Spain.
He is completing an Artist Diploma as a student of Paul Jacobs at the Juilliard School. A recipient of the inaugural Kovner Fellowship, Greg also received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Juilliard.
Zelek is enthused about the opportunity and says. “I’m deeply honored to have received this unique opportunity with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. I look forward to building on Sam Hutchison’s outstanding work of promoting and elevating the art of organ music in performance and the magnificent Klais organ (below) to new heights.”
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Classical music: Farley’s Salon Piano Series starts a new season this coming Sunday afternoon with the prize-winning Varshavski-Shapiro piano duo. Plus, tonight is your last chance to hear and see the University Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s “Albert Herring.”
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ALERT: Tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall on Bascom Hill, is your last chance to hear the University Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s comic chamber opera “Albert Herring,” which is based on a short story by the 19th-century French writer Guy de Maupassant. (Below, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson, is a crucial scene.)
Tickets are available at the door. They are $22 for the public, $18 for seniors and $10 for students.
Here is a link with more information:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/brittens-albert-herring-3/
And here is a link to a review by John W. Barker of Isthmus. The Ear, who saw the Sunday afternoon performance instead of the opening on Friday night, agrees with Barker on the major points:
http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=43859&sid=bd26396e522b7c37c6f143f5598af822
By Jacob Stockinger
Farley’s House of Pianos will host five concerts in the Salon Piano Series’ 2014-15 season, which starts this coming Sunday:
The Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo (below), this Sunday, November 2, at 4 p.m., in music by Schubert, Ravel, Milhaud, Saint-Saens and Poulenc.
Pianist Ilya Yakushev (below), Sunday, January 25, 2015, at 4 p.m. in music by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Schumann.
Pianist Marco Grieco (below), Friday, March 13, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. in music by Johann Sebatsian Bach-Feruccio Busoni, Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt.
Pianist Martin Kasík (below), Saturday, April 18, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. in music by Beethoven, Ravel and Prokofiev.
A spring jazz concert, still to be announced
These concerts constitute the second season of the Salon Piano Series, a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded by Tim and Renée Farley to continue the tradition of intimate salon concerts at Farley’s House of Pianos.
The setting replicates that experienced by audiences throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and enhances collaboration between performer and audience.
The Series offers audiences the chance to hear upcoming and well-known artists whose inspiring performances are enhanced by the setting and the fine pianos. Some performances are preceded by free lectures. An artists’ reception with light food and beverages follows each concert and is included in the ticket price.
VARSHAVSKI AND SHAPIRO
Here is more about the opening concert:
The program features: “Variations on a French Song”, D. 624, one piano-four hands, by Franz Schubert; “La Valse” for one piano-four hands by Maurice Ravel; the exciting and lyrical Brazil-inspired “Scaramouche” suite by Darius Milhaud (heard at the bottom played by piano superstars Martha Argerich and Evgeny Kissin in a YouTube video); “Variation on a Theme by Beethoven” for two pianos by Camille Saint-Saens; and the Sonata for Two Pianos by Francis Poulenc.
Ukrainian Stanislava Varshavski and Russian Diana Shapiro’s partnership began in 1998, while the two were students at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy in Israel. One year later, they won first prize at the International Piano Duo Competition in Bialystok, Poland.
Since then, the ensemble has participated in international festivals and performed solo recitals in at least eight different countries, and has appeared with a number of well-known orchestras, such as the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New World Symphony Orchestra of Miami.
In 2005, they placed first in the prestigious Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition. Varshavski and Shapiro both hold doctorates in Musical Arts from University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where they studied under Martha Fischer. The duo appeared together at Farley’s in 2012 when they premiered the Villa Louis Steinway Centennial grand (below) that was rebuilt in the Farley workshop. Learn more about the Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo at www.piano-4-hands.com.
SALON PIANO SERIES
Visit http://salonpianoseries.org/concerts.html for complete concert programs, and artist information. Tickets are $35 for each concert and can be purchased online at www.brownpapertickets.com
Tickets are also available at Farley’s House of Pianos and Orange Tree Imports.
Farley’s House of Pianos is located at 6522 Seybold Road on Madison’s far west side near the Beltline and West Towne. Plenty of free parking is available at Farley’s House of Pianos, and it is easy to reach by bicycle or Madison Metro.
Tags: Albert Herring, Arts, Bach, Bascom Hill, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Brazil, Busoni, Camille Saint-Saëns, Chamber music, chamber opera, Classical music, comic opera, Darius Milhaud, David Ronis, Evgeny Kissin, Farley's House of Pianos, four-hands, Franz Schubert, Guy de Maupassant, Ilya Yakushev, Israel, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Johann Sebastian Bach, John W. Barker, Liszt, Madison, Madison Metro, Marco Greico, Martha Argerich, Martin Kasik, Maurice Ravel, Miami, Music, opera, Piano, piano duo, Poland, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Ravel, Robert Schumann, Saint-Saens, short story, Steinway, Sunday, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Varshavski Shapiro Piano Duo, Warsaw, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, YouTube
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