The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Meet Conor Nelson, the new flute professor at the UW-Madison
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By Jacob Stockinger
The UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music has a new flute professor who follows Timothy Hagen in taking the place of retired longtime predecessor Stephanie Jutt, who continues to perform locally with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society..
He is Conor Nelson (below) and he starts later this month at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Here is the biography — impressive for both his performing and his teaching –that the university released:
“Praised for his “long-breathed phrases and luscious tone” by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Canadian flutist Conor Nelson is established as a leading flutist and pedagogue of his generation.
“Since his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, he has frequently appeared as soloist and recitalist throughout the United States and abroad.
“Solo engagements include concertos with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Flint Symphony, and numerous other orchestras.
“In addition to being the only wind player to win the Grand Prize at the WAMSO (Minnesota Orchestra) Young Artist Competition, he won first prize at the William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition. He also received top prizes at the New York Flute Club Young Artist Competition, the Haynes International Flute Competition as well as the Fischoff, Coleman and Yellow Springs chamber music competitions. (Editor’s note: In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Conor Nelson perform the second and third movements of the Flute Sonata by French composer Francis Poulenc.)
“With percussionist Ayano Kataoka (below left, with Nelson), he performed at Merkin Concert Hall, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Hall and Izumi Hall. A recital at the Tokyo Opera City Hall received numerous broadcasts on NHK Television. Their CD entitled, “Breaking Training” was released on New Focus Recordings (NYC). His second CD, “Nataraja,” with pianist Thomas Rosenkranz, is also available on New Focus.
“He has collaborated with pianist Claude Frank on the Schneider concert series in New York City and appeared at numerous chamber music festivals across the country including the OK Mozart, Bennington, Skaneateles, Yellow Barn, Cooperstown, Salt Bay, Look and Listen (NYC), Norfolk (Yale), Green Mountain, Chesapeake, and the Chamber Music Quad Cities series.
“He is the Principal Flutist of the New Orchestra of Washington in Washington, D.C., and has performed with the Detroit, Toledo and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras. He also performed as guest principal with A Far Cry, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, and the Conceirtos de la Villa de Santo Domingo.
“A respected pedagogue, Dr. Nelson has given master classes at over 100 colleges, universities and conservatories.
“Prior to his appointment at UW-Madison, he served as the flute professor at Bowling Green State University for nine years and as the Assistant Professor of Flute at Oklahoma State University from 2007-2011.
“His recent residencies include Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea; the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China; the Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico; and the Associacao Brasileira de Flautistas in Sao Paulo.
“He is also a regular guest of the Texas Summer Flute Symposium and has been the featured guest artist for 11 flute associations across the country. His former students can be found performing in orchestras, as well as teaching at colleges, universities and public schools nationwide. They have also amassed over 60 prizes in young artist competitions, concerto competitions and flute association competitions.
“Nelson received degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University and Stony Brook University where he was the winner of the school-wide concerto competitions at all three institutions. He is also a recipient of the Thomas Nyfenger Prize, the Samuel Baron Prize and the Presser Award.
“His principal teachers include Carol Wincenc, Ransom Wilson, Linda Chesis, Susan Hoeppner and Amy Hamilton. Nelson is a Powell Flutes artist and is the Assistant Professor of Flute at UW-Madison where he performs with the Wingra Wind Quintet.”
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Classical music: On Saturday and Sunday, the Madison Savoyards and Central Wisconsin Ballet team up in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pineapple Poll” and “Trial by Jury.” Plus, the first Stoughton Chamber Music Festival starts Saturday
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ALERT: The two concerts of the first Stoughton Chamber Music Festival will take place on this Saturday afternoon, Aug. 17, at 3 p.m. and on Monday night, Aug. 19, at 7 p.m. at the Stoughton Opera House, 381 East Main Street. Admission is FREE with a suggested donation of $15.
Featured is music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Samuel Barber, Edvard Grieg, George Gershwin and Paul Schoenfield as well as Norwegian folk music. The Ear did not receive details, but here is more information from a story in Isthmus: https://isthmus.com/events/stoughton-chamber-music-festival/
By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, the Madison Savoyards and Central Midwest Ballet Academy team up to present two of the less well-known works by Gilbert and Sullivan: the comic ballet Pineapple Poll and the operetta Trial by Jury (below, in a photo by Kat Stiennon).
The performances of the two one-acts are in the Mitby Theater at Madison College (formerly Madison Area Technical College), located at 1701 Wright Street on Madison’s east side, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday night, Aug. 17, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 18.
Tickets are $30 for adults; $28 for seniors; and $15 for young people and students. Children 3 and under get in for free.
For more information, call the Mitby Theater Box Office at (608) 243-4000 or got to: www.TrialbyPineapple.com
The music director and conductor of the professional orchestra, who is making his debut with the Madison Savoyards, is Sergei Pavlov (below), who teaches at Edgewood College and directs the Festival Choir of Madison.
The “Pineapple Poll” choreography is by Marguerite Luksik (below) of the Central Midwest Ballet Academy.
The stage director of “Trial by Jury” is J. Adam Shelton (below).
PROGRAM NOTES
Here are some program notes provided by The Madison Savoyards:
In an age of international copyright and patent tension, Pineapple Poll ballet suite is an intriguing story. The composer, Arthur Sullivan, had died in 1900. The 50-year copyright moratorium on his music expired in 1950, but his librettist partner, W.S. Gilbert, died in 1911. So in 1950, the leading 20th-century conductor, the late Sir Charles Mackerras (below), could only use the work of the former to create a new work in their honor.
From this legal oddity came the only ballet based on the works of Gilbert and Sullivan (below) and, according to The Times of London, one of the best loved of English ballets. It was first performed in the United States in 1970 by the Joffrey Ballet in New York City; and, most recently, in El Paso, Tulsa, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Livermore, Sarasota and Northampton, Mass.
The music for Pineapple Poll,as a suite, has been played in numerous venues in the U.S., including a performance with band director Mike Leckrone at the UW-Madison in 2008 and at the UW-La Crosse in 2015, thus indicating a strong Wisconsin interest in the music alone.
From its opening notes leaping off the pages of Mikado, Pineapple Poll is a vigorous listen and a visual delight. Clement Crisp of the Financial Times called it, “that rarest of delights, a true balletic comedy.” The National Association for Music Education had identified it as a model piece for elementary school children. In 2003, Christopher Rawson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observed that, in its pairing with Trial by Jury, “if there’s ever been a Gilbert and Sullivan show for people who don’t like Gilbert and Sullivan, this is it.”
Trial by Jury contrasts with the non-verbal Pineapple Poll, showcasing Gilbert’s lyric style in songs that tell the Victorian tale of marital promissory breach with the resulting farcical trial ending in marriage. It was Gilbert and Sullivan’s second collaboration and established their successful reputations. (In photos by Aimee Broman, below top shows Thore Dosdall playing the defendant Edwin (at left) getting the feeling that the jury is not on his side. Below bottom shows the plaintiff Angelina, played by Megan McCarthy).
The Central Midwest Ballet Academy’s Marguerite Luksik and Michael Knight have created original choreography for Pineapple Poll, and performances will feature students from the Academy’s pre-professional level.
In contrast to the tragic-dramatic plots of traditional ballets, the lighthearted nature of Pineapple Poll appeals to a broader audience. Pineapple Poll presents a combination of balanced spectacle and the challenge of experimental work.
Yoked to Trial by Jury, the two productions spark social and artistic novelty, critique and entertainment.
It is worth noting that the performances this weekend are a new collaboration between two homegrown Madison troupes. The Savoyards have been performing every summer since 1963, while Central Midwest Ballet has been active since 2015.
Here is an example of the Sullivan operetta tunes patched together in the Opening Dance of “Pineapple Poll.” (You can hear the Overture in the YouTube video at the bottom):
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- The Mikado, Opening Act 1.
- Trial By Jury, “Hark, the hour of Ten is sounding.”
- The Mikado, “So please you, sir, we much regret” (“But youth, of course, must have its fling. . .”
- Patience, “The Soldiers of our Queen.”
- Trial by Jury, “He will treat us with awe” (“Trial-la- law”).
- The Gondoliers, “Good Morrow, Pretty Maids” (orchestral accompaniment).
- Trial By Jury, “Hark, the hour of Ten is sounding.”
- The Mikado, “So please you, sir, we much regret.”
Tags: #ArthurSullivan, #BalletMusic, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BoxOffice, #CentralMidwestBalletAcademy, #ChamberMusic, #CharlesMackerras, #ChoralMusic, #EastSide, #EdgewoodCollege, #EdvardGrieg, #ElementarySchool, #ElPaso, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FestivalChoirofMadison, #FinancialTimes, #FolkMusic, #GilbertandSullivan, #IsthmusNewspaper, #J.AdamShelton, #JoffreyBallet, #JohannesBrahms, #JohannSebastianBach, #LondonEngland, #MadisonAreaTechnicalCollege, #MadisonCollege, #MadisonSavoyards, #MargueriteLuksik, #MikeLeckrone, #MitbyTheater, #NationalAssociationforMusicEducation, #OperaMusic, #PaulSchoenfield, #PineapplePoll, #PittsburghPost-Gazette, #SamuelBarber, #SarasotaFlorida, #SaturdayNight, #SeattleWashington, #SergeiPavlov, #StageDirector, #StoughtonChamberMusicFestival, #StoughtonOperaHouse, #StoughtonWisconsin, #Sundayafternoon, #TheEar, #TheGondoliers, #TheMikado", #TheTimes, #TheU.S., #TrialbyJury, #TulsaOklahoma, #UnitedStates, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UW-Lacrosse, #VictorianAge, #VocalMusic, #W.S.Gilbert, #YouTubevideo, active, afternoon, alert, Arthur Sullivan, artistic, Arts, audience, Bach, balance, ballet, balletic, band, blog, box office, Brahms, breach, Central Midwest Ballet Academy, challenge, Chamber music, Charles Mackerras, children, choral music, choreography, Classical music, collaboration, college, comedy, comic, composer, Concert, conductor, copyright, critique, dance, debut, delight, details, director, donation, dramatic, east side, Edgewood College, Edvard Grieg, El Paso, elementary, England, English, Entertainment, experimental, expire, expired, Facebook, farcical, Festival Choir of Madison, Financial TImes, first, Florida, Folk music, forward, free, George Gershwin, georgegershwin, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gilbert&Sullivan, Grieg, homegrown, honor, inaugural, information, interest, international, intriguing, Isthmus, J. Adam Shelton, Jacob Stockinger, Joffrey Ballet, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, jury, known, LaCrosse, librettist, libretto, lighthearted, like, link, Livermore, London, Madison, Madison Area Technical College, Madison College, Madison Savoyards, maid, Marguerite Luksik, marital, Marriage, Massachusetts, MATC, Mikado, Mike Leckrone, Mitby Theater, moratorium, Music, National Association for Music Education, nature, New York City, Newspaper, night, non-verbal, Northampton, Norway, Norwegian, novelty, Oklahoma, one-act, opera, Operetta, Orchestra, original, pages, partner, patent, patience, Paul Schoenfield, Pennsylvania, performer, Pineapple Poll, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, please, plot, post, posting, production, professional, promissory, protection, queen, reputation, Samuel Barber, Sarasota, Saturday, Saturday night, Seattle, Sergei Pavlov, share, sing, singer, Singing, social, soldier, songs, spectacle, stage, stage director, story, Stoughton, Stoughton Chamber Music Festival, Stoughton Opera House, students, subscriber, successful, suggested, Suite, summer, Sunday, tag, tale, technical, Texas, The Ear, The Gondoliers, The Times, Tragic, trial, Trial by Jury, troupe, Tulsa, tune, United States, University of Wisconsin–Madison, venue, Victorian, vigorous, vocal music, Washington, weekend, Wisconsin, word, work, Youth, YouTube
Classical music: Madison Bach Musicians hold their fourth annual Baroque Summer Chamber Music Workshop with a faculty concert and afternoon performances and classes this coming Tuesday through Friday. Many events are open to the public
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By Jacob Stockinger
The fourth annual Madison Bach Musicians Summer Chamber Music Workshop offers an evening Faculty Concert and various afternoon classes exploring baroque dance, ornamentation, continuo playing, specific instrument master classes, and more. (Below is a photo by Mary Gordon from last year’s workshops.)
The workshops, classes and concerts will be held this coming Tuesday through Thursday, July 24-27, at the West Middleton Lutheran Church, 3763 Pioneer Road, in Verona, Wisconsin.
Tickets for the Madison Bach Musicians Faculty Concert on Wednesday night from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. are $15.
The Friday all-workshop concert from 2 to 3:30 p.m. is FREE and open to the public.
An Auditor’s Pass for afternoon programing for the entire festival — including the Faculty Concert — is $40.
MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson, MBM concertmaster Kangwon Kim and other outstanding faculty members will share their expertise over four afternoons.
Adds Stephenson: “We’re excited about a wonderful new venue for the event—at West Middleton Lutheran Church, which is located at the intersection of Mineral Point and Pioneer Roads, just 10 minutes west of West Towne Mall.
“Twenty-four participants ranging in age from high school to older adulthood will get personalized ensemble coaching from outstanding instructors in violin, cello, piano, harpsichord, recorder and flute.”
Kim (below) adds: “I am thrilled. Of our 24 participants this year, almost half are returning students, which we love. Most of the our participants come from the Dane County area, but last year we had a participant from France and this year we have a couple from Oklahoma.
“Chamber music is the best way to get to know people as you are learning a new piece – you have a personal voice, but you also need to listen and blend with the other voices. I am always amazed to see the transformation both musically and socially over the four days of the workshop. I am so excited to meet everyone and to see the magic that happens when these musicians work together.”
Harpsichordist Jason Moy (below) will be returning this year to discuss the art of continuo playing.
Lisette Kielson (below) who offers recorder workshops throughout the United States will lead a class “To Flourish and Grace: Ornamentation!”
Sarah Edgar (below), a specialist in 18th-century stage and dance performance, will focus on the interplay of music and dance rhythms in two afternoon baroque dance classes.
MBM cellist Martha Vallon (below) will explore how to play creative and enjoyable continuo lines for cellists and bassoonists.
The Wednesday night Faculty Concert from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. will feature works by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Telemann, Boismortier, Biber and a special Baroque dance performance-–all performed by the faculty members who specialize in early music with play period instruments.
For information about the specific schedule and enrolling in the workshops, go to take a look the schedule
You can also find more general information at: http://madisonbachmusicians.org/education-and-outreach/summer-workshop/
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Classical music: We are all “Dead Men Walking.” After the tears come the thoughts, as The Ear takes in the Madison Opera.
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By Jacob Stockinger
To my ears and eyes, the reviews were justifiably unanimous: The Madison Opera scored an unqualified artistic success with the two performances of its production last weekend of composer Jake Heggie’s and librettist Terrence McNally’s opera “Dead Man Walking.” (Below, in a photo by James Gill, is the penultimate scene, as the shackled convicted killer prepares for his execution at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola with the prison warden, prison guards and prison chaplain.)
In case you missed those reviews or have forgotten what they said, here is a link to Mikko Utevsky’s review for this blog, along with links to other reviews by John W. Barker fo Isthmus and Greg Hettmansberger for Madison Magazine.
I agree with what all that those discerning reviewers said. But my purpose for writing today is different.
After taking in the powerful musical drama, which stands out and above the Madison Opera’s many previous successes, I found “Dead Man Walking” powerful but also thought-provoking.
It deserves a second later and more considered look, and that is what this posting is. After the tears – and many, if not most, in the audience left with wet faces – came the thoughts. These are mine:
I now understand even better why a prosecutor and a judge in Madison both told me that if Wisconsin had capital punishment, they would no longer practice criminal law. I find I am in complete agreement with them.
The death penalty is just too iffy and wrong — when the Illinois governor suspended it, Death Row had a wrongful conviction rate higher than 50 percent — too discriminatory and too inhumane. It is simply not worthy of us. Crime does not justify crime.
One particularly touching moment in the opera when was one victim’s father (seated far left in the photo by James Gill of victims’ families witnessing the execution of Joseph De Rocher, who killed the young man and raped and killed the young woman) says that the death of the murderer will not bring him peace about the loss of his daughter.
That said, I have to add that the opera is not really about capital punishment and the death penalty. It is about love. To be sure, it is not about the romantic or erotic kind of love. It is about “agape,” that more spiritual kind of love that is embodied by Sister Helen Prejean in her relationship with the convicted murderer, and in his with her. It is about the truest, most Christian kind of love -– and I say that as a person who is not at all religious.
If you had to pick one line about what the opera is all about, it would be when spiritual advisor Sister Helen Prejean asks convicted murder Joseph De Rocher to look at her face while he is being executed. “We all deserve to have the last face we see in this world be the face of love.”
In our final moments, isn’t that what we all want and hope for?
In that sense, I thought later, we are all of us “dead men walking.” We may not know the date, time and reason for our “execution.” And we may not know whether the “death chamber” will be our bedroom, our car, our home, a hospital room, a hospice room or someplace else.
But make no mistake: Mortality is the human condition, and we never or rarely accept it as deserved. Except for severe pain or disability, we all want more and we all die protesting our death and the death of our loved ones. (Below are Michael Mayes as Joseph De Rocher and Daniela Mack as Sister Helen Prejean.)
And talk about being art imitating reality – or, as Oscar Wilde said, reality imitating art! And that is another key to the universality of “Dead Man Walking.”
Even as I am writing this, on the radio and in other media are two stories about capital punishment. One is a botched execution of Clayton Lockett that was done with a “new” and unexplained cocktail of lethal drugs cocktail, in Oklahoma. The other is story about a Wisconsin woman who is asking the parole board to pardon the killer of her daughter because she has experienced forgiveness. And, she adds, “forgiveness is not for the criminal, for the other person, but for ourselves.”
That could be right out of “Dead Man Walking,” which may indeed be “issue art” but is hardly a “lecture play” or a didactic treatment of capital punishment. It is a human story, in which all characters are victims of one kind or another.
Which is also why it is hard to accept the fact that “Dead Man Walking” is now 14 years old. It seems as current, as relevant, as today’s news headlines do — or even as tomorrow’s headlines will, and headlines for a long time to come.
And that takes me to another thought.
So much traditional opera, from George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, is historically based on successful drama and plays, sometimes novels or short stories, often by celebrated and successful or popular writers like William Shakespeare, Pierre de Beaumarchais, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Graham Greene, Tennessee Williams, or from folk-lore and myth, like Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.
But maybe, just maybe, the secret to successful and powerful, emotionally moving contemporary opera, is to rely on controversial non-fiction, to ground the story in reality.
I am generally not an opera fan. Too much of the drama and too many of the plots seem silly or contrived to me. But if you are lucky, the music is strong enough to overcome that handicap. Yet too much contemporary opera lacks that kind of powerful music.
Now I was knocked out by “Dead Man Walking,” but I can’t claim to have walked out of Overture Hall in the Overture Center humming any tune that lingered.
Still, I found Jake Heggie’s very textural and atmospheric music convincing, involving and compelling. True, I kept thinking that Heggie (below), like much of Giuseppe Verdi and especially Wagner, often has a better way with instruments than with voices – at least to my taste.
So in all modesty, I want to suggest that Heggie should extract a half-hour long symphonic suite from this opera score for orchestras to perform. It could be much the way composer Daron Hagen distilled an instrumental suite from “Shining Brow,” his operas about Frank Lloyd Wright that was premiered by the Madison Opera. Or Richard Strauss’ sublime suite from “Der Rosenkavalier.”
Certainly, the music has a range of tone from the eerie, fluttering harmonies at the opening up to the powerful rhythms and loud sounds of the death scene climax and finale. Just listen to the excerpts from a production by the Sydney Opera in a YouTube video at the bottom.
Such a suite would also help “Dead Man Walking” reach as large a public as possible – and I would sure like to see that happen.
I also would like to know if others who heard the score agree about that. So leave your opinion about that — or other matters — in the COMMENT section.
There are other things to say.
Terrence McNally (below) is a master librettist, with a refined and practical sense of pacing that includes comic relief. The scene where Sister Helen is caught speeding in a car is not unlike the porter scene in “Macbeth” or the gravedigger’s scene in “Hamlet.” It adds to the humanness of the story and the characters. With such relentless intensity at hand, we need an occasional break.
Here are links to the insightful interviews with both composer Jake Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally that freelance writer Michael Muckian did for this blog:
I would also add that rarely has a cast struck me as so superbly matched in terms of quality of singing and acting. The production was the very model of ensemble work –- and I include in my plaudits the Madison Opera’s general director Kathryn Smith (below top, in a photo by James Gill) and its artistic director and conductor John DeMain (below middle, in a photo by Prasad) as well as the Madison Symphony Orchestra musicians, the many solo singers, the Madison Opera Chorus, the Madison Youth Choirs and the stage director Kristine McIntyre (below bottom).
I also found the spare sets, on loan from the Eugene Opera in Oregon, appropriate and ingenious in the way they used chain link fencing and metal bars.
What else can I say? Only that at the end of my life, when I am adding up the greatest musical experiences I have ever had, this production of “Dead Man Walking” will rank right near the top.
This blog’s reviewer Mikko Utevsky called the opera life-changing. I would only add that is also life-affirming.
So The Ear says: Thank You to all who made it possible.
You gave us art that we need, not just art that we want.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 