The Well-Tempered Ear
Bach Around the Clock 2021 will incorporate many new aspects – including more audiences and artists of color — into the 10-day free virtual festival that runs March 17-26
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following update about Bach Around the Clock (BATC), the annual March free event to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below). Like last year, the year’s will be virtual and online and spread out over 10 days, from March 17 to March 26.
The BATC 2021 Festival is shaping up brilliantly. We have about 50 participants signed up so far, with musical selections totaling more than eight hours.
As always, it has a nice mix of ages and levels of performers, from young students to seasoned professionals. It also runs from traditional instruments like the violin, viola, cello, oboe, bassoon, piano and organ as well as the human voice to more unusual instruments like the clavichord, 6-string electric bass and a saxophone quartet.
We are so grateful to all the participants who have volunteered to share their talents. (Below is the Webb Trio playing last year from home.)
Last year’s virtual format forms the basis of this year’s festival, but we’ve expanded on that in some very exciting ways.
BATC board member Melanie de Jesus (below) is producing two mini-films aimed at making the festival more accessible to participants. For the tech-challenged among us, the “How to Film Yourself” video will make it easier for musicians to participate virtually.
This film will be available this THURSDAY, Feb. 25, in time to help participants film and submit their performances by the March 5 deadline. Would you like to perform? For information about signing up for slots. Click here to let us know!
Make your own recording or request a time slot at a BATC venue where a professional videographer will create a recording for you to keep. Harpsichord, piano and organ are available.
Melanie’s “Bach for Kids” film will be published during the festival, and will introduce basic musical concepts to the youngest participants. It will culminate in a sing-along, play-along, dance-along performance of some simple Bach tunes, as demonstrated by some (very) young students at the Madison Conservatory, where de Jesus is the director.
Another significant new element of this year’s festival will be our evening Zoom events, including receptions with performers, and guest artists giving special performances, lecture/demos, master classes and panel discussions.
In keeping with this year’s theme of “Building Bridges Through Bach,” we will celebrate and feature musicians and guest artists of color.
We are thrilled to announce Wisconsin Public Radio music host Jonathan Overby (below) as our keynote speaker. Overby’s work to research and demonstrate how music, especially sacred music, serves as a cultural bridge, has taken him all over the planet. His core values are in close alignment with the theme of this year’s festival, and his address will set the tone for the rest of the festival.
The virtual format enables us to bring in guest artists from afar. Lawrence Quinnett (below), on the piano faculty of Livingstone College, a private, historically black college in Salisbury, North Carolina, will perform all six French Suites, and give a brief talk on his approach to ornamentation. (You can hear Quinnett performing French Suite No. 1 by Bach in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Clifton Harrison (below, in photo by Stephen Wright), violist in the Kreutzer String Quartet, in residence at Oxford University in England, will give a master class for interested BATC participants. Information on how to audition for this opportunity will be shared very soon.
We are extremely pleased that Trevor Stephenson (below), artistic director of the Madison Bach Musicians, will give an evening lecture and demonstration on the Goldberg Variations.
Through his performances, interviews and extremely popular pre-concert lectures, Trevor has served as a very important builder of bridges to the music of J.S. Bach in Madison and beyond. It would be hard to overstate the impact of Trevor’s work to make Bach’s music accessible to local audiences of all ages and backgrounds. We’re sure viewers will enjoy this event.
An astonishing new development resulted from BATC’s outreach efforts to local high schools: Steve Kurr (below), orchestra director at Middleton High School and former conductor of the Middleton Community Orchestra, decided to incorporate BATC into his curriculum this semester.
Fifteen of his students will perform for BATC, filmed by four other students, and then the students will all view the performances and write essays about them.
BATC is delighted with this creative initiative, looks forward to receiving the videos from this cohort of students, and hopes to expand on this kind of outreach in future years. Maybe we can include the final essays on our website, if the students agree.
There are a few other ideas still under construction; perhaps a panel discussion with educators, or one with local musical bridge-builders (aka “Angels in our Midst”)?
Please help us keep this festival free and open to all.
Bach Around The Clock is a unique program in our community. It offers everyone the opportunity to share their love of the music of Bach. There is no charge to perform or to listen.
But the festival is not free to produce! BATC provides venues, instruments, videographers, editors, and services for performers and audience.
We need your support!
Click on there link below to donate securely online with a PayPal account or credit card: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WU7WWBW5LBMQJ
Or you can make a check out to Bach Around The Clock and mail it to: Bach Around The Clock, 2802 Arbor Drive #2, Madison, WI 53704
Bach Around The Clock is a 501(c)(3) organization; your donation is tax-deductible as allowed by the law. Donors will be listed on the acknowledgments page of the BATC website .
For the latest updates, please visit our website, bachclock.org, or our Facebook page, facebook.com/batcmadison.
We hope you will join us.
Marika Fischer Hoyt, Artistic Director, Bach Around The Clock, (608) 233-2646
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Classical music: African pianist William Nyaho gives FREE lectures, master classes and concert during his residency later this week at the UW-Madison School of Music.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Ethnic diversity certainly matters to the current generation of music students who are helping to expand the field of classical music. Consider this letter sent to The Ear by a UW-Madison student:
My name is Ian Tomaz and I am a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. I am writing on behalf of our collegiate chapter of Music Teachers National Association which is hosting pianist William Chapman Nyaho on the week and weekend April 9-12 at the School of Music for a series of concerts, master classes and lectures. (In a YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Nyaho discuss what he does on campuses, this time at the University of Arizona.)
We are hoping to get the word out about the event. He is an excellent pianist and teacher, and he is presenting a program of traditional classical repertoire as well as African classical music plus lectures on African music and the music business. In addition to being a great pianist, he is a wonderful human being. I really think that the public would enjoy these events and the man behind them.
Here is the official blurb we’ve been using in other advertisements:
The University of Wisconsin-Madison MTNA Collegiate Chapter is planning a great event in April. We are bringing in the pianist and teacher William Chapman Nyaho for a three-day residency on April 9-11.
Here is the schedule of events:
Lecture: African Piano Music: Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 7 p.m. in Humanities Building, Room 2531
Lecture: Business Aspects of Music: Friday, April 10, 2015 at 4 p.m. in Humanities Building, Room 1351
Masterclass for Pianists: Friday, April 10, 2015 at 8 p.m. in Morphy Hall
Piano Recital: Saturday, April 11, 2015 at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall
Thursday night, April 9, at 7 p.m. in Room 2531: Nyaho will give a presentation and question-answer session about African piano music. He will discuss the melding of African and Western cultures found in classical piano music by composers of African descent.
On Friday, April 10, at 4 p.m. in Room 1351: Nyaho will give a presentation focused on several business aspects of music. He will draw from his own experience editing and compiling an anthology entitled “Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora.” He will also discuss the logistics of running his own private piano studio in Seattle.
Friday night at 8 p.m. in Morphy Hall, Nyaho will give a two-hour master class to four UW-Madison piano students.
On Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, Nyaho will give a solo piano recital of a mixture of Western and African classical music.
All events will be FREE and OPEN to the entire Madison community.
Here is more about Dr. Nyaho:
William Chapman Nyaho grew up in Ghana and studied music at Oxford University in England and in the United States. He is known around the world for his engaging piano performances of both Western classical music and piano music of Africa and the African Diaspora.
Nyaho compiled and edited a five-volume graded anthology of piano sheet music by composers of African descent published by Oxford University Press. This anthology represents a wide variety of newly published material and has become quite influential in the classical music realm by expanding the repertoire available to both students and concert pianists.
Nyaho has also released two critically-acclaimed CDs of his performances of solo piano music by composers from Africa and the African Diaspora.
In addition to his performing and recording career, Nyaho is known for his sensitive and empowering teaching. Having served as Visiting Professor at many university campuses around the United Sates, he is universally praised for his authenticity, enthusiasm and artistry as a clinician and teacher.
You can read more reviews about Nyaho at his website http://nyaho.com/reviews.cfm, including one by Maya Angelou, who had this to say about him: “A talented young man with a rare mixture of youthful enthusiasm and mature reliability… intelligent, sensitive and possesses remarkable character….”
For his recital, he will be playing a mixture of Western and African piano repertoire, including the Piano Sonata Op. 31, No. 3, by Ludwig van Beethoven. His specific program will be posted soon on the UW-Madison School of Music website at http://www.music.wisc.edu
Tags: Africa, African diaspora, African music, African people, Africana studies, Arts, Beethoven, Classical music, Compact Disc, diversity, England, Ghana, Jacob Stockinger, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Music, Music education, music teachers, Music Teachers National Association, Oxford University, Oxford University Press, Piano, piano music, Sonata, UK, United States, University of Arizona, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, YouTube
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