ALERT: Because of Good Friday and Easter, there is no Friday Noon Musicale this week at the First Unitarian Society of Madison. The free concerts, from 12:15 to 1 p.m., will resume next week.
By Jacob Stockinger
By any measure José Antonio Abreu (below), who died on March 24 at age 78, was a titan — but a beloved and accessible titan.
He invented and nurtured the famous El Sistema program of music education for all students – especially poor students – in his native Venezuela.
First he worked hard to make the program grow and succeed throughout his homeland.
Then in recent years, he helped to spread his inspired model around the world.
A tireless educator, Abreu has altered how we think about music education and how we do it. As a result, many countries and cities as well as music schools and professional music organizations have adopted El Sistema.
If you have heard of him before, it is likely because of his most famous pupil, the superstar conductor of the Los Angeles PhilharmonicGustavo Dudamel (below right).
Here are two excellent obituaries, with a lot of background and details about El Sistema in Venezuela and around the world, including the United States, about Abreu:
You can find many tributes to Abreu, including an 18-minute TED Talk by Abreu himself, on YouTube. Many of them are in Spanish and many offer a lot of music.
Here is something shorter and simpler to remember him by: the beautiful and stately “Pavane for a Dead Princess” by Maurice Ravel accompanying Abreu’s own words and those of others.
Music director Brad Schultz of the Madison Area Concert Handbells (MACH) will finish his tenure with MACH by conducting “Postcards from France” in two performances this weekend.
Concerts are on Saturday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m. in Asbury Church, 6101 University Avenue; and on Sunday, May 15, at 3 p.m. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Avenue, near Camp Randall Stadium.
Tickets can be purchased in advance ($12 adult, $9 senior/student) at any of the advance ticket outlets (Cool Beans Coffee Café, Ward-Brodt Music, Metcalfe’s Market at Hilldale, and Orange Tree Imports) or at the door ($15 for adults, $12 for seniors and students).
After three very successful years of directing the choir, music director Brad Schultz (below) has resigned due to added responsibilities on the Luther College faculty starting next fall. Throughout his tenure, Brad has helped MACH’s ringers retain the spirit and skills which have led this auditioned choir to be recognized as one of the leading handbell groups in America. He introduces the concert as follows:
“Maybe it was the first time you tasted a delicious French roll, or saw the Eiffel Tower. Maybe it was an exposure to music, culture, or fashion. Maybe it was in your early ventures as a reader (“In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines”), or depictions of la belle vie (the French “good life”) in the movies. We have always had a fascination with all things French; from culture to custom, from cuisine to cinema.
“There’s no denying French advancements in music, either. From the cathedral to the salon, Leonin and Pérotin to composers of chanson and popular music, France has always left a musical mark on the world.
“We invite you to join us this weekend for a celebration of all things French. Revered composers Bizet, Ravel, Debussy, Chopin and Faure will be represented, alongside pieces that remind us of French culture, landscape and architecture. We’re excited to be joined again this season by flutist Barbara Paziouros Roberts.”
MACH rings over 6 octaves of handbells and 7 octaves of handchimes, the largest assemblage of these instruments in Wisconsin. This fall, while the choir searches for a new director, MACH will be led by founder and former director Susan Udell, who retired from the group in 2010.
ALERT: This afternoon at 2:30 p.m in Overture Hall of the Overture Center is your last chance to hear the acclaimed all-French program by the Madison Symphony Orchestra with guest cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio. Here are links to two very positive reviews.
Here is the review written by critic John W. Barker for Isthmus:
This news is old and dated, and it comes late, too late for you to attend the memorial service. The Ear apologizes for his tardiness.
But the past several weeks have been very busy with concerts, and therefore with previews and reviews. Plus, he didn’t hear about the news until later.
Putting excuses aside, The Ear wants to take a moment to recognize the passing of an extraordinary talent many of us heard in performance and deeply appreciated.
Today is June 6, 2014 –- the 70th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies invaded the northwest coast of France on the beaches at Normandy and started the beginning of the end of Nazi domination in Western Europe by Adolf Hitler.
A lot of music commemorates war and the troops who fell in battle.
I offer two that may not be the best choices but that move me.
First, I offer the ninth variation, “Nimrod,” from British composer Sir Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations. American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns used it very effectively in a solo piano version in his epic film about World War II called simply “The War.”
But I cannot find that version. So here is the a haunting and deeply moving orchestral performance in a popular YouTube video played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under its former music director and conductor Daniel Barenboim:
And here is the “Pavane for a Dead Princess” by French composer Maurice Ravel. He actually wrote “Le Tombeau de Couperin” and dedicated each movement to a different friend of his who died in World War I. But there is something quietly eloquent about the way Ravel uses the stately and processional dance step of the Pavane to express understated sorrow.
Ravel usually composed on the piano, and then orchestrated his own work. So here are two versions, the first orchestral and the second done on the piano and played by the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, who captures just the right bittersweetness and poignancy.
You can decide which one best expresses your sentiments about today’s historic commemoration. Despite the coughing in the background, I tend to favor the simpler and more austere piano version. But both are deeply moving to me.
I am sure that many other works, from two famous funeral marches by Ludwig van Beethoven (in the Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” and the Piano Sonata in A-Flat Major, Op. 26) to the famous Funeral March by Frederic Chopin, would be appropriate.
Classical music –- instrumental, vocal and choral as well as operatic – offers so many appropriate choices. My guess is that NPR and Wisconsin Public Radio, like radio stations and even TV stations around the country and the world, will feature many such works in their programming for today. I would especially love to hear Requiems by Johannes Brahms, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gabriel Faure.
If you have a favorite, please leave a reply with a YouTube link if possible, plus the reasons why you like the work so much.