The Well-Tempered Ear

Today’s Just Bach concert starts the 10-day Bach Around the Clock festival that runs through March 26. All events are free and online. Here are the lineups

March 17, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

Today — Wednesday, March 17 – brings the free monthly Just Bach concert that is online for 30 minutes.

This year that concert will also serve as the opening event of the annual Bach Around the Clock (BATC) festival to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Here is a link to the lineup of the Bach Around the Clock events. As of this writing, many of the special morning and evening guests and events are listed. But the daytime programs and performers are listed only for today, tomorrow and the final concert. The Ear understands the rest of the listings will be up by the end of today: https://bachclock.com/concert-schedule

There might be frequent additions, changes and updates, so it is best to check back often.

The Ear has heard that, as usual, the festival will include students, amateurs and professionals; young people and adults; individuals, smaller chamber music ensembles and larger groups; and many well-known and neglected works from many genres. 

Those genres include vocal and choral music; keyboard music for clavichord, harpsichord, piano and organ; string music for violin, viola and cello; wind and brass music; and much more.

Daily festival concerts will be posted starting at 8 a.m. Central Daylight Time and evening segments will begin at 7 p.m CDT. All events and concerts will be posted and available during the entire festival.

As for today’s Just Bach concert, here is the announcement from Marika Fischer Hoyt (below), the artistic director of Bach Around the Clock and a co-founder and co-director of Just Bach:

Greetings from Just Bach! We hope this finds you well, and ready to experience more of the timeless beauty of Bach, this month in music for organ and strings.

Our concert TODAY opens with a welcome and program overview from me. We figure when Just Bach and Bach Around The Clock join forces, the Master himself (below, in a cutout, in a photo by Barry Lewis) is summoned.

Today’s program opens with organist Mark Brampton Smith (below) playing two Sinfonias from Cantata 35. 

These are arrangements of two dramatic organ concerto movements, and Mark brings off the virtuosic passages with flair, while the strings provide a spirited accompaniment. 

Then the strings take center stage – in arrangements for string quartet — bringing a yearning melancholy to the slow Andante movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, BWV 1047, and energy and excitement to Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048.

The program closes with our popular chorale sing-along, “Befiehl du deine Wege” (Commend Your Ways), BWV 271. I will introduce the piece and the text, and my sister, soprano Barbara Fischer, will sing it — with Mark on the organ.

We encourage viewers to sing along by following the chorale sheet music, which will be displayed on the computer screen.

Do you have a question for the performers? Would you like to listen in as they chat about the program? Please join us for a half-hour live Zoom post-concert reception tonight, March 17, at 7 p.m. The link is posted on the Just Bach website: https://justbach.org/concerts/

As regular performers on Luther Memorial Church’s weekly “Music at Midday” concert series, Just Bach presents half-hour programs starting at 8 a.m. on the third Wednesday of each month and then remain posted. Remaining dates this semester: March. 17, April 21, and May 19. Our concerts are posted on the Just Bach and Luther Memorial YouTube Channels: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcyVFEVsJwklHAx9riqSkXQ

Viewing the concerts is free, but we ask those who are able, to help us pay our musicians with a tax-deductible donation at: https://justbach.org/donate/

Today’s performers include members of the Madison-based early music group Sonata à Quattro (below in photo by Barry Lewis) and are: Christine Hauptly Annin and Aaron Yarmel, violin; Marika Fischer Hoyt, viola; Charlie Rasmussen, cello; Mark Brampton Smith, organ; and Barbara Fischer, guest soprano.

Dave Parminter is the videographer and Barry Lewis is the photographer.


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The Madison Symphony Orchestra holds a FREE live-streamed organ concert of Bach and Handel by Juilliard professor Paul Jacobs this Tuesday night at 7:30

November 16, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

A FREE online organ concert on this Tuesday night, Nov. 17, will provide a classic example of the compare-and-contrast programs that The Ear likes so much.

Here are details:

On this Tuesday night, Nov. 17, at 7:30 CST, Juilliard organ professor Paul Jacobs (below) will return to Overture Hall to give a FREE live-streamed performance as part of the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s concert organ series.

In 2018, the Grammy Award-winning Jacobs made his Madison debut and garnered praise for an all-Bach program. This time, Jacobs – who taught MSO organist Greg Zelek – will perform a program that alternates between Johann Sebastian Bach (below top) and George Friderich Handel (below bottom).

The program features Jacobs offering his musical insights into Handel’s Organ Concertos. Bookended by his arrangements of two of Handel’s Op. 4 Concertos for solo organ, the versatility of the MSO’s Klais organ (below) will be on full display. (You can hear the theme-and-variations finale of the Organ Concerto, Op. 4, No. 1, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Although the virtual concert, which can be viewed through this Wednesday, Nov. 18, is FREE, registration is required. You can also register to see the free Oct. 13 concert by Greg Zelek through this Wednesday.

To see the complete Bach and Handel program, read more background about Paul Jacobs, and register to watch, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/paul-jacobs-2020-streamed/

Concert sponsors are: Jeff and Beth Bauer; Jane Hamblen; and Robert F. Lemanske.

 


Classical music: The chamber music group Con Vivo opens its new season this Saturday night with a program that spotlights the harp and the organ.

October 30, 2014
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By Jacob Stockinger

con vivo!…music with life (below) opens its 13th season of chamber music with a concert entitled “63 Strings and 2008 Pipes” on this coming Saturday night, November 1, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Avenue, across from Camp Randall.

Con Vivo core musicians

Joining con vivo! for this concert is guest musician Karen Beth Atz on harp. Atz is principal harp with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

Karen Beth Atz with harp

The program includes the Sonata in C Minor for violin and harp by Louis Spohr (below top); the Suite from The Victorian Kitchen Garden for clarinet and harp by Paul Reade; and Ganagobie for solo harp by Bernard Andres (below bottom), featuring Atz as soloist.

Louis Spohr

Bernard Andres

The performance will also feature the outstanding church organ in the Concerto in G Minor for organ and strings, opus 4, no. 1, HMV 298, by George Frideric Handel (below). (You can hear this popular work performed by Richard Egarr and The Academy of Ancient Music in a YouTube video at the bottom.)

handel big 3

Audience members are invited to join con vivo! musicians after the concert for a free reception to discuss this chamber music literature and to hear about their Carnegie Hall debut this past December.

Con Vivo at Carnegie Hall

Tickets can be purchased at the door for $18 for adults, $15 for seniors and students.

Artistic Director Robert Taylor, in remarking about the concert said, “con vivo! is excited to have Karen Beth Atz join us for this concert. We are looking forward to presenting chamber music that includes harp, the most angelic of all instruments, and organ, the ‘King of Instruments!’ It will be a night of new works and wonderful sounds for all.”

con vivo! is a professional chamber music ensemble comprised of Madison area musicians assembled from the ranks of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and various other performing groups familiar to Madison audiences.

For more information visit, http://www.convivomusicwithlife.org

 

 

 

 

 


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