The Well-Tempered Ear
Pianist Lang Lang gets a Hollywood star
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By Jacob Stockinger
He is not the first classical pianist to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
But the controversial Chinese superstar Lang Lang (below) — once referred to as Bang Bang and compared to Liberace for his flamboyance and showmanship — is certainly the most popular.
As a performer, educator and philanthropist, he is also the first Asian pianist to be so honored, although The Ear is betting that his fellow Chinese and highly respected pianist Yuja Wang is not far behind him.
Lang Lang received the 2,778th star (below, in a photo by Jesse Grant of Getty Images) from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. He received it last week, on April 10.
His alma mater — the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where Lang Lang studied with Gary Graffman and graduated in 2002 — is deservedly proud of him, issuing the following press release with links:
And if you missed any or all of the 49 minutes-long fluffy ceremony, in the YouTube video at the bottom is a 5-minute clip of the event, during which Lang Lang played the piano on the street.
Do you have an opinion about Lang Lang?
What do you think is his best recording?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Tonight is that start of six weekly Concerts on the Square with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and guest artists under conductor Andrew Sewell. Here’s what you need to know
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By Jacob Stockinger
Tonight marks the first of this summer’s Concerts on the Square, performed by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below) and guest artists under the baton of music director Andrew Sewell.
The FREE community event was first proposed by famed “American Girl” dolls creator, businesswoman and philanthropist Pleasant Rowland decades ago when she worked downtown and lamented how abandoned the Capitol Square got after dark. This is the 34th season of the popular Concerts on the Square. Each concert now draws tens of thousands of listeners.
The concerts will take place on the King Street corner of the Capitol Square. They run from 7 to 9 p.m. on six consecutive Wednesdays (rain dates are Thursdays). But of course people gather hours earlier to socialize and picnic.
Although pop,rock, folk and film music is often featured, tonight’s program is mostly classical – composers are Leonard Bernstein, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Otto Nicolai — and performing will be this year’s winner of the WCO teenage concerto competition. She is violinist Emily Hauer (below) and she hails from Appleton, Wisconsin, where she has studied at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music.
Here is a link to all you need to know about tonight, from the programs and a performer’s detailed biography to vendor menus, the way to volunteer and the ground rules for concert etiquette:
https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/concerts-on-the-square-1-2/
You can see and hear a sampler of Concerts on the Square in the YouTube video at the bottom.
For future planning, here is a link to all six concerts with similar information:
https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performance-listing/category/concerts-on-the-square
Should you want to know more about WCO maestro Andrew Sewell (below), music director since 2000 — and who has also just been named the music director of the San Luis Obispo Symphony in California — here are some profiles and interviews that make for good reading while you wait for the music to start.
Here is an excellent profile done by Sandy Tabachnik in 2014 for Isthmus:
http://isthmus.com/music/andrew-sewell-the-malleable-maestro-of-the-wisconsin-chamber-orchestra/
And here is some background about the New Zealand-born Sewell, who became an American citizen 10 years ago, along with links to other news stories about his latest appointment:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/tag/sewell/
And from the “Only Strings” blog of Paul Baker, who hosts a show of the same name on WSUM 91.7 FM, the student-run radio station at the UW-Madison, here is an interview with ever-gracious Sewell:
https://onlystringswsum.wordpress.com/author/pbaker/page/3/
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Classical music: For this coming Giving Tuesday, The Ear takes note that symphony orchestras are not alone in now being more like charities than businesses
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Tuesday, Nov. 29, is Giving Tuesday.
It follows such hyped-up promotional and for-profit business days as Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.
But this year Giving Tuesday seems more important than ever.
It’s no secret that the conservative political forces now in ascendancy do not favor government subsidies of the arts. And one has no idea about what the taste in the arts is for the incoming administration.
Plus, economic competition among proliferating music groups has only tightened the screws even further on many organizations.
Of course, lots of music organizations – small, medium and big – need your help.
The Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Union Theater and increasingly the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music all seek out and solicit donations with more and more frequency.
And it is no secret that The Ear especially favors supporting music education organizations for young people such as the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (below, at the group’s 50th anniversary concert last winter). They not only train future musicians but also build future audiences for classical music.
But in whatever direction your philanthropy and generosity extend, here is some relevant news.
It is a story from The New York Times about how symphony orchestras are now less like businesses and more like charities.
Symphony orchestras aren’t alone, so the account seems especially timely with Giving Tuesday looming.
Here is a link:
If you have some thoughts, please leave them in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Arts, Black Friday, Cello, Chamber music, charity, Classical music, conservative, Cyber-Monday, donation, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Music, Music education, New York Times, opera, Orchestra, philanthropy, Small Business Saturday, symphony, taste, The New York Times, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, WYSO
Classical music: A big shout-out and thank you goes to Mead Witter Foundation for supporting music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But did the entire School of Music have to be renamed?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Well, it has happened again.
The great University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was recently once again named one of the best public schools in the country and the world, shows more and more signs of being privatized.
As of July 1, the official name of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music is now the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
That’s an ungainly mouthful to say and write.
But The Ear doesn’t blame the School of Music and its directors for having to take such steps.
To The Ear, the renaming means that the state legislators and the state government have once again been negligent in preserving and bettering this great institution that generations of ordinary Wisconsin citizens supported through taxes, and then benefitted from through “The Wisconsin Idea” that the university serves the public that supports it.
Underfunding goes along with the Republicans’ anti-education and anti-intellectual agenda of imposing steep budget cuts, undermining tenure, alienating faculty who then leave and implementing other measures that hurt this great state university.
So, The Ear objects to the move, much as he did with the selling of the Law School; with the renaming of the Elvehjem Museum of Art to the Chazen Museum of Art; and with the Wisconsin Union Theater, which was renamed Shannon Hall (below top).
Plus, there is the new music building and performance center (below bottom), which sees a groundbreaking in late October, named — not renamed — for the Hamel family.
Such naming and renaming by big private money blurs the distinction between a donation or a gift and a purchase. Call it branding, naming, PR, advertising, whatever – The Ear doesn’t like it. What is public should remain public.
Do the egos of the wealthy really know no bounds, especially during these days when the political talk is of wealth inequality and income distribution?
So The Ear says a deep and hearty thank you to the Mead Witter Foundation of Wisconsin Rapids for its help.
But he sure wishes its corporate ego had been satisfied with a hall or a building being named after it, and with perhaps a big bronze bas-relief plaque containing a history about its fortune in the paper industry and an appreciation of its generous philanthropy.
But to rename an entire school that has more than a century of history behind it?
Sorry. That’s over the top.
It is overkill and seems downright tacky.
To The Ear it will always be the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, just as it has for the past century-plus.
If you want more background and details, here are three official UW links, with the most recent ones coming first
https://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/a-new-name-for-the-school-of-music/
What do readers and the tax-paying public think and say?
Do you agree or disagree with The Ear?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Arts, Chamber music, Classical music, government, income, inequality, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Mead Witter, Mead Witter Foundation, Music, Orchestra, philanthropy, Piano, state legislature, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, wealth, Wisconsin
Classical music: Let us now praise Kato Perlman and other donors and sponsors whose generosity supports classical music at the UW-Madison and elsewhere
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By Jacob Stockinger
In yesterday’s blog about afternoon concerts this weekend, The Ear mentioned the FREE concert by the Perlman Piano Trio this Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall.
The all-masterpiece program is an appealing one: The late Piano Trio in E-flat Major, K. 542, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44, by Robert Schumann; and the Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 101, by Johannes Brahms.
Members of the graduate student ensemble (below, from left, in a photo by Katherine Esposito) are: violinist Adam Dorn; pianist SeungWha Baek; and cellist Micah Cheng.
Additional members for the Schumann Piano Quintet are violinist Keisuke Yamamoto and violist Luke Carmichael Valmadrid.
But the concert by the Perlman Trio is also an occasion to recognize an important donor to the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
Her name is Kato (Katherine) Perlman. The Ear knows her as a congenial, amiable and modest person.
Perlman’s generosity has made possible this scholarship trio for distinguished graduate students. Its membership usually changes every school year.
Perlman (below), a retired chemist, has also contributed to other events and programs at the UW-Madison and to other music events around town.
Now, Perlman is not alone. There are many important donors and patrons and underwriters of musical events in Madison.
One of the most distinguished and largest recent gifts was the late Karen Bishop, whose gift of $500,000 made possible hiring a new director of University Opera outside the punitive budget cuts by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature.
Another is Irving Shain(below), the retired chemistry professor and Chancellor of the UW-Madison, who decades ago started the ongoing Beethoven Sonata Competition and who also underwrites the wind and piano duet competition.
Kato Perlman has an interesting, compelling and moving personal history, and the upcoming concert in Saturday is a good occasion to share it.
Here it is:
http://www.supportuw.org/stories/feature/perlman-gifts-span-campus/
These are challenging times for classical music. Those of us who appreciate it should be especially grateful to Perlman and other sponsors and donors for allowing it to exist for our pleasure and enlightenment.
So The Ear says:
Thank you, Kato.
Thank you, Irv.
Thank you, Karen Bishop and family.
And thank you to all donors and sponsors – individuals, groups, corporations and businesses — including those whose philanthropy supports the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the Madison Early Music Festival, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and so many of the wonderful music groups in the areas.
You were never needed more.
In their honor, here in a YouTube video is a song of dedication, “Widmung,” composed by Robert Schumann and sung by baritone Thomas Quasthoff:
Tags: Arts, baritone, Beethoven, Cello, Chamber music, chemistry, Classical music, Competition, dedication, donor, duet, Early music, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mozart, Music, opera, Orchestra, philanthropy, Piano, Piano Quintet, Piano Trio, quintet, Republican, Robert Schumann, Scott Walker, Sonata, song, sponsors, support, Thomas Quasthoff, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wind, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
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