The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Middleton Community Orchestra and violinist Naha Greenholtz perform this Wednesday night in the new Hamel Music Center at the UW-Madison. At noon, the FREE Just Bach concert celebrates Christmas
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ALERT 1: This Wednesday, Dec. 18, at noon in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, Just Bach wraps up its FREE one-hour period-instrument concerts for this semester. The program features “joyous selections” from the Christmas Oratorio, the Magnificat, and the Advent Cantata 36. For more information about the program and the performers, go to: https://justbach.org
ALERT 2: The Madison Symphony Orchestra, which just gave three sold-out performances of its Christmas concert, is holding its annual holiday ticket sale. It started Monday and runs through Dec. 31. You can save up to 50 percent on tickets to the remaining concerts of the season. For more information and to order, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/holidaysale/
By Jacob Stockinger
Looking for a break from holiday music?
This Wednesday night, Dec. 18, the mostly amateur but critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (below) will perform in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall of the new Hamel Music Center at the UW-Madison – NOT at its usual venue, the Middleton Performing Arts Center that is attached to Middleton High School.
The appealing program under guest conductor Kyle Knox starts at 7:30 p.m. It features the dramatic Overture to “Die Meistersinger” (The Master Singers) by Richard Wagner (you can hear the Overture in the YouTube video at the bottom); the popular and virtuosic Symphonie Espagnole (Spanish Symphony) by French composer Edouard Lalo, with violin soloist Naha Greenholtz; and the lovely Suite from the opera “Der Rosenkavalier” by Richard Strauss.
There will be a post-concert reception in the lobby.
Admission is $15; free for students. Tickets are available at the door – student tickets are available at the door only — and at the Willy Street Coop West. The hall is at 740 University Avenue with parking in the nearby Lake Street Ramp. The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and doors to the hall open at 7 p.m.
The Ear asked the co-founders and co-directors of the group – Mindy Taranto and Larry Bevic — why they chose to play in the Hamel Music Center this time. He recieved the following reply:
“We decided to rent the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall (below top, in photo by Bryce Richter for University Communications) in the Hamel Music Center (below bottom) for several reasons.
“This is our 10th anniversary season and we wanted to give our musicians a really special experience. Many of us are curious about the new hall and are really excited to be playing there.
“Also, Kyle Knox (below) – a UW-Madison graduate and the music director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras — is a phenomenal conductor and this program is exceptionally difficult and beautiful.
“It is an honor to get to perform at the UW-Madison with Kyle conducting such a beautiful program. He has brought this orchestra along so far, and for that we are incredibly grateful. He is a brilliant musician and our work with him has improved the orchestra so remarkably over the eight years he has been regularly working with us.
“We also thought that so many of our patrons enjoy our concerts when violinist Naha Greenholtz (below, in a photo by Chris Hynes) – the concertmaster of the Madison Symphony Orchestra — is our soloist, and with the MSO connection, holding the concert at Hamel will hopefully boost attendance at the concert.
Naha sounds amazing and if you could see how much our musicians enjoy her annual appearance with MCO, you’d know why we want to play with her every year.
“As we conclude the first half of our 10th season, we are grateful to the musicians in MCO and to the community that supports us.
“We are probably one of the few organizations on the Madison arts scene that puts literally every dollar into music. As the two co-founders, we run the organization on a volunteer basis and we don’t spend any money on advertising.
“All of our resources go to hiring astonishing local musicians, renting performance space, and buying music to provide meaningful musical experiences for our musicians and our patrons.”
For information about how to join the orchestra, how to support it and what its remaining concerts are this season, go online to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org or call 608-212-8690.
Tags: #AmateurMusicians, #ArtsPatron, #BachCantata, #BaroqueMusic, #BaroqueOratorio, #Beautifulmusic, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BoxOffice, #ChristianChurch, #ChristmasOratorio, #CommunitySupport, #CriticallyAcclaimed, #DerRosenkavalier, #DieMeistersinger, #EdouardLalo, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #Frenchcomposer, #HamelMusicCenter, #HolidayMusic, #HomeWebsite, #JesusChrist, #JohannSebastianBach, #JustBach, #KyleKnox, #KyleT.Strauss, #LakeStreet, #LarryBevic, #LutherMemorialChurch, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MadisonWisconsin, #MeadWitterFoundationConcertHall, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MiddletonCommunityOrchestra, #MiddletonHighSchool, #MiddletonPerformingArtsCenter, #MindyTaranto, #MusicDirector, #NahaGreenholtz, #PerformanceSpace, #PopularMusic, #RichardStrauss, #RichardWagner, #SymphonieEspagnole, #TheEar, #TheMagnificat, #TicketSale, #UniversityAvenue, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #ViolinConcerto, #WillyStreetCoopWest, #WisconsinYouthSymphonyOrchestras, #YouTubevideo, acclaimed, Advent, advertising, amateur, anniversary, annual, Arts, attendance, Baroque music, beautiful, blog, boost, box office, brilliant, buy, Cantata, Christ, Christian, Christianity, Christmas, Christmas Oratorio, church, Classical music, classicalmusic, co-director, co-founder, community, composer, Concert, concertmaster, concerto, conclude, conductor, critically acclaimed, curious, daving, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, difficult, door, doors, dramatic, Edouard Lalo, ensemble, excited, experience, Facebook, forward, France, free, French, graduate, grateful, group, guest soloist, hall, Hamel Music Center, hiring, Holiday, holiday music, home website, improve, information, Jacob Stockinger, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Johann Sebastian Bach, join, Joy, Just Bach, Kyle Knox, Lake Street, Lalo, Larry Bevic, like, link, lobby, local, Luther Memorial Church, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Magnificat, Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, Mead Witter School of Music, meaningful, Middleton Community Orchestra, Middleton High School, Middleton Performing Arts Center, Mindy Taranto, money, Music, Music director, Musician, Naha Greenholtz, online, opera, oratorio, Orchestra, organization, Overture, parking, patron, performance space, performers, play, playing, popular, post, posting, reason, reception, remarkable, Rent, reply, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, sale, save, scene, Season, semester, share, special, spend, Strauss, Suite, support, Symphonie Espagnole, tag, The Ear, ticket, ticket sale, United States, University Avenhue, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison, venue, Violin, violinist, virtuosic, virtuoso, volunteer, Wagner, Website, Willy Street Coop West, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, work, WYSO, YouTube
Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet excels in music by Haydn, Dvorak and especially Ravel as it impressively opens its new season in two acoustically different venues
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. He also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
The Ancora String Quartet offered a nicely balanced program last Saturday night to open its new season at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
The program began with Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4, known as the “Sunrise” quartet. A work of the composer’s maturity, published in 1799, it shows him straining the boundaries of Austrian Classicism and pushing close to the proto-Romanticism of his student, Beethoven.
Each work in the program was preceded by a spoken introduction, given by a member of the ensemble, and for the Haydn quartet violist Marika Fischer Hoyt did the honors.
Then came three (Nos. 2, 5 and 10) of the 12 arrangements for quartet that Antonin Dvorak made from his song cycle, Cypresses. The spoken introduction in this case was given by first violinist Wes Luke (below), who not only spoke but also sensibly read aloud — in English translation — the words of each song. Dvorak’s deeply personal lyric expression came through the more meaningfully for that.
Finally came the Quartet in F Major by Maurice Ravel. For this, cellist Benjamin Whitcomb (below) gave a cogent spoken introduction. Ravel’s work matches Debussy’s string quartet — to be played later this season — as a chamber music contribution to so-called French “Impressionism.” But it also is one of the last great demonstrations of how initially stated themes can be quoted or re-introduced in new characters and colors throughout all the movements.
This program had special value for me because it was one I was able to hear twice on two successive evenings. I particularly profited from a double hearing of the Ravel, which allowed me to listen how the various themes popped out here and there in ever-varied differences. (You can hear the String Quartet by Ravel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The performances each time were beautifully precise and atmospheric, but the particular points of contrast involved instead a factor too often forgotten in evaluating a concert: the acoustic divergences of different performing sites.
The previous Friday evening, I heard the program in the Grand Hall of the Capitol Lakes Retirement Center. Its acoustics are tight and bright, bringing great clarity and immediacy to the playing.
By comparison, the sound at St. Andrew’s is bigger, richer and more reverberant, although differing in relation to how far up front or way back you sit—another variable to consider.
I spoke with the players about this, and it is clear that they must, and do, take account of such acoustic differences as they move from one performing site to another. Careful concert-goers, too, should always consider these differences as they listen.
A final thought: The Ancora String Quartet, which also includes Robin Ryan as second violin, has always played with splendid expertise and stylistic sense. But it seems clear to me by now that the settling in of Wes Luke as the new first violinist has brought added vigor and assertiveness to the group’s playing, making it an even more important ensemble than ever before in Madison’s musical life.
The concert will be repeated tonight in Janesville at 7:30 p.m. in the Kilmark Theatre of the UW-Rock County at 2909 Kellogg Avenue. The performance is FREE and OPEN to the public.
For more information about the Ancora String Quartet and its new season, go to the website: http://ancoraquartet.com
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The Well-Tempered Ear 