Pro Arte Quartet | The Well-Tempered Ear

Is the math-music link real?

February 27, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

The blog post before the last one was about solving the “beautiful mathematics” in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Here is a link: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2024/02/18/solving-the-beautiful-math-in-bach/

But does a link between math and music really exist?

And if such a link does exist, how strong is it?

Can one discipline be used to teach the other?

Many readers have no doubt heard of how devoted Albert Einstein (below) was to his violin, even playing string quartets at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He said he thought about physics in musical terms and found his greatest joy in music. He also played duets with physicist Max Planck, who was an accomplished pianist as were Werner Heisenberg and Edward Teller.

Dr. Francis Collins, the well-known geneticist and former head of the National Institutes for Health, is known for playing the guitar. As the 2020 winner of the Templeton Prize for scientific and spiritual curiosity, Collins accompanies superstar soprano Renée Fleming in the Stephen Foster song “Hard Times, Come Again No More” in the YouTube video at the button.)

Locally, the late pioneering University of Wisconsin-Madison geneticist Jim Crow (below) played the viola, even sitting in with the Pro Arte Quartet.

The Ear also knows of many middle schoolers, high schoolers and UW students, especially undergraduates, who pursue dual majors in music and math, science or medicine — often to pursue a more practical and better paying career than being a professional musician.

Personal anecdotes can be dramatic and convincing.

But anecdotes and evidence are not the same thing.

Here is a more formal study:

https://www.iflscience.com/is-there-really-a-link-between-math-skills-and-musical-skills-73069

What do you think?

Are math and music linked?

Do you know of other famous examples?

What has been your own experience with math and music?

If you are a music, math or science teacher, have you noticed such a link among your students?

What do students themselves — for example, those in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) — say about such a math-music link?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Here are the nominees, winners and trends of the 2023 classical music Grammys

February 10, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

Chances are good you have already heard about Beyoncé and Lizzo, about Bonnie Raitt and Harry Styles, and how they won their Grammy awards last Sunday night.

But it is not by chance that you have to scroll way, way, way down the list of Grammy nominees and winners to find the ones for classical music. (It comes a third from the end, just before the list of short-form and long-form videos.)

No doubt it is in part a question of respect. Classical is not even listed with other “Musical Genres” on the Grammys’ home website while you will find: Pop; Rock; R&B; Country; Rap; Latin; Global; Gospel and Contemporary Christian; New Age; Jazz; and Alternative.

It seems like the most important thing to say about classical music is that pop star Beyoncé (below above) surpassed the record for individual Grammys previously held for decades by the late Hungarian-born conductor Sir George Solti (below bottom). He had won 31, she has won 32. But it seems like an unfair comparison since The Ear suspects many more categories are open to Beyoncé and her pop music than were open to Solti and classical music.

But even more than respect, it is a question of popularity and money.

We mustn’t forget that the Grammys are above all an industry event designed to reward those who make the commercial recording industry flourish.

Still, there are trends to take note of.

You’ll notice that quite a few of the nominees and winners have performed had their music performed in Madison. They include composers Caroline Shaw and Kevin Puts; the Imani Winds and Valerie Coleman; the Attacca Quartet; singer Will Liverman; Third Coast Percussion; Hilary Hahn; and producer Judith Sherman (below, in 2016)), who has overseen recent recordings by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet and won many such Grammys.

Also, just as in Madison this has also been a big year for performers and composers of color — Black, Indigenous, Latin and Asian — as well as women composers and performers. Florence Price, Valerie Coleman and Jessie Montgomery (below and in the YouTube video at the end of her composition “Strum”), who is now composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was just named Composer of the Year by Musical America; and Valerie Coleman.

Local presenters and performers can be proud of reflecting the same priorities. They include: the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music; the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO); the Madison Symphony Orchestra; the Madison Opera; the Wisconsin Union Theater; the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra; the Willy Street Chamber Players; the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society; Edgewood College; and Wisconsin Public Radio and WORT-FM among others.

See for yourself which ones you caught and which ones you missed.

Here is a list of the classical music winners of the 65th annual Grammy awards. It is provided by the insightful Australian arts and culture journal Limelight Magazine:

https://limelightmagazine.com.au/news/grammy-awards/

And here is the complete list of the Grammy nominees along with the winners, so you can compare them all, find out details and judge for yourself. The Ear thinks many of the nominees are often just as worthwhile to check out and listen to as the winners:

https://www.grammy.com/awards/65th-annual-grammy-awards-2022

What do you think of the Grammy nominees and winners?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Check out the 2022 classical music Grammys for trends and suggested listening

April 9, 2022
4 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

No doubt you have already heard about the 64th annual Grammy Awards, which were awarded last Sunday night.

But chances are you haven’t heard much about the classical music Grammys.

That’s just not where the money and publicity are for major record companies and for the music industry in general, compared to other, much more profitable genres such as hip-hop, rock and pop.

But the classical Grammy nominations and winners can be a good source about what composers, performers and music you might want to check out via streaming or by buying a CD.

You can also get a good idea of trends in classical music.

Contemporary or new music is big again this year, dominating the old standard classics.

Just like local, regional, national and international performers, both individuals and groups, the Grammys show an emphasis on female composers and performers, and a similar emphasis on rediscovering composers and performers of color from both the past and the present.

You might also notice that the New Orleans-born, Juilliard-trained jazz pianist and singer Jon Batiste (below) — who plays on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and directs the house band Stay Human and who seems a one-man Mardi Gras — was nominated for a record 11 Grammys and won five in other categories, seems to be the new Wynton Marsalis. Like Marsalis, with whom Batiste worked, Batiste seems perfectly at home in classical music as well as jazz, soul, blues and pop. And his original classical work Movement 11 was nominated for a Grammy this year.

Social activism, in short, has finally brought diversity and inclusion into the Grammys in a way that seems permanent.

Below are the nominations and winners of the 2022 classical music Grammys. Winners are boldfaced. I have also offered a few examples of those musicians who have performed in Madison and for what venue, although there are many more connections than indicated.

If you want to see the nominations and winners in other categories, here is a link:

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/03/1090342877/2022-grammys-full-list-winners-nominees

75. Best Engineered Album, Classical

Archetypes — Jonathan Lackey, Bill Maylone and Dan Nichols, engineers; Bill Maylone, mastering engineer (Sérgio Assad, Clarice Assad and Third Coast Percussion)
Beethoven: Cello Sonatas – Hope Amid Tears — Richard King, engineer (Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 — Mark Donahue, engineer; Mark Donahue, mastering engineer (Manfred Honeck, Mendelssohn Choir Of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)
Chanticleer Sings Christmas — Leslie Ann Jones, engineer (Chanticleer)
Mahler: Symphony No. 8, ‘Symphony Of A Thousand’ — Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay, engineers; Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay, mastering engineers (Gustavo Dudamel, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Luke McEndarfer, Robert Istad, Grant Gershon, Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, Los Angeles Master Chorale, National Children’s Chorus, Pacific Chorale and Los Angeles Philharmonic)

76. Producer Of The Year, Classical

Blanton Alspaugh
Steven Epstein
David Frost
Elaine Martone
Judith Sherman (below, who also recorded the UW-Madison Pro Arte Quartet’s centennial commissions)

CLASSICAL

77. Best Orchestral Performance

“Adams: My Father Knew Charles Ives; Harmonielehre” — Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor (Nashville Symphony Orchestra)
“Beethoven: Symphony No. 9” — Manfred Honeck, conductor (Mendelssohn Choir Of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)
“Muhly: Throughline” — Nico Muhly, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)
“Florence Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3″ — Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Philadelphia Orchestra (below)
“Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra; Scriabin: The Poem Of Ecstasy” — Thomas Dausgaard, conductor (Seattle Symphony Orchestra)

78. Best Opera Recording

“Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle” — Susanna Mälkki, conductor; Mika Kares and Szilvia Vörös; Robert Suff, producer (Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra)
“Glass: Akhnaten” — Karen Kamensek, conductor; J’Nai Bridges, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Zachary James and Dísella Lárusdóttir; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)
“Janáček: Cunning Little Vixen” — Simon Rattle, conductor; Sophia Burgos, Lucy Crowe, Gerald Finley, Peter Hoare, Anna Lapkovskaja, Paulina Malefane, Jan Martinik & Hanno Müller-Brachmann; Andrew Cornall, producer (London Symphony Orchestra; London Symphony Chorus and LSO Discovery Voices)
“Little: Soldier Songs” — Corrado Rovaris, conductor; Johnathan McCullough; James Darrah and John Toia, producers (The Opera Philadelphia Orchestra)
“Poulenc: Dialogues Des Carmélites” — Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Karen Cargill, Isabel Leonard, Karita Mattila, Erin Morley and Adrianne Pieczonka; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)

79. Best Choral Performance

“It’s A Long Way” — Matthew Guard, conductor (Jonas Budris, Carrie Cheron, Fiona Gillespie, Nathan Hodgson, Helen Karloski, Enrico Lagasca, Megan Roth, Alissa Ruth Suver and Dana Whiteside; Skylark Vocal Ensemble)
“Mahler: Symphony No. 8, ‘Symphony Of A Thousand'” — Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Grant Gershon, Robert Istad, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz and Luke McEndarfer, chorus masters (Leah Crocetto, Mihoko Fujimura, Ryan McKinny, Erin Morley, Tamara Mumford, Simon O’Neill, Morris Robinson and Tamara Wilson; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, Los Angeles Master Chorale, National Children’s Chorus and Pacific Chorale)
“Rising w/The Crossing” — Donald Nally, conductor (International Contemporary Ensemble and Quicksilver; The Crossing)
“Schnittke: Choir Concerto; Three Sacred Hymns; Pärt: Seven Magnificat-Antiphons” — Kaspars Putniņš, conductor; Heli Jürgenson, chorus master (Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir)
“Sheehan: Liturgy Of Saint John Chrysostom” — Benedict Sheehan, conductor (Michael Hawes, Timothy Parsons and Jason Thoms; The Saint Tikhon Choir)
“The Singing Guitar” — Craig Hella Johnson, conductor (Estelí Gomez; Austin Guitar Quartet, Douglas Harvey, Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and Texas Guitar Quartet; Conspirare)

80. Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

“Adams, John Luther: Lines Made By Walking” — JACK Quartet
“Akiho: Seven Pillars” — Sandbox Percussion
“Archetypes” —Sérgio Assad, Clarice Assad and Third Coast Percussion
“Beethoven: Cello Sonatas – Hope Amid Tears” — Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax (who have frequently performed individually and together at the Wisconsin Union Theater)
“Bruits” — Imani Winds

81. Best Classical Instrumental Solo

“Alone Together” — Jennifer Koh (below, who has performed with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra)
“An American Mosaic” — Simone Dinnerstein
“Bach: Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas” — Augustin Hadelich (a favorite of the Madison Symphony Orchestra)
“Beethoven and Brahms: Violin Concertos” — Gil Shaham; Eric Jacobsen, conductor (The Knights)
“Mak Bach” — Mak Grgić
“Of Power” — Curtis Stewart

82. Best Classical Solo Vocal Album

Confessions — Laura Strickling; Joy Schreier, pianist
Dreams Of A New Day – Songs By Black Composers — Will Liverman (who has sung with the Madison Opera); Paul Sánchez, pianist (below at in the YouTube video at the bottom)
Mythologies — Sangeeta Kaur and Hila Plitmann (Virginie D’Avezac De Castera, Lili Haydn, Wouter Kellerman, Nadeem Majdalany, Eru Matsumoto and Emilio D. Miler)
Schubert: Winterreise — Joyce DiDonato; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, pianist
Unexpected Shadows — Jamie Barton; Jake Heggie, pianist (Matt Haimovitz)

83. Best Classical Compendium

American Originals – A New World, A New Canon — AGAVE and Reginald L. Mobley; Geoffrey Silver, producer
Berg: Violin Concerto; Seven Early Songs and Three Pieces For Orchestra — Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Jack Vad, producer
Cerrone: The Arching Path — Timo Andres and Ian Rosenbaum; Mike Tierney, producer
Plays — Chick Corea; Chick Corea and Birnie Kirsh, producers
Women Warriors – The Voices Of Change — Amy Andersson, conductor; Amy Andersson, Mark Mattson and Lolita Ritmanis, producers (below)

84. Best Contemporary Classical Composition

“Akiho: Seven Pillars” — Andy Akiho, composer (Sandbox Percussion)
“Andriessen: The Only One” — Louis Andriessen, composer (Esa-Pekka Salonen, Nora Fischer and Los Angeles Philharmonic)
“Assad, Clarice and Sérgio, Connors, Dillon, Martin & Skidmore: Archetypes” — Clarice Assad, Sérgio Assad, Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore, composers (Sérgio Assad, Clarice Assad and Third Coast Percussion)
“Batiste: Movement 11′” — Jon Batiste, composer (Jon Batiste)
“Shaw: Narrow Sea” — Caroline Shaw, composer (Dawn Upshaw, Gilbert Kalish and Sō Percussion)

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The Wisconsin Union Theater closes its 2020-21 season with only one online concert this weekend. Sō Percussion on Saturday night has been CANCELED. The Wisconsin Sound all-Beethoven concert with the Pro Arte Quartet will take place at noon on Sunday.

April 30, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

Two online concerts this weekend were supposed to close the 2020-21 season at the Wisconsin Union Theater.

On Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., the usual subscriber season was supposed to wind up with an online concert by the Sō Percussion Ensemble with the contemporary Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Caroline Shaw.

That concert has been CANCELED. No reason is listed.

On this Sunday, May 2, at noon CDT, however, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s acclaimed string quartet, the Pro Arte Quartet (below top), will by joined by pianist and UW-Madison graduate Thomas Kasdorf (below bottom) in an all-Beethoven concert.

This will be the last concert of the WUT’s innovative Wisconsin Sounds – they feature local performers– this season.

Here are more details:

PROGRAM and PERFORMERS

The “Beethoven in C Minor” program will feature two works:

String Trio in C minor, Op. 9, No. 3 (1797-98). Performers are Sally Chisholm, viola; Parry Karp, cello; and David Perry, violin.

Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3 (1793-4). Performers are: Suzanne Beia, violin; Parry Karp, cello; and Thomas Kasdorf, piano. You can hear the opening movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.

The Pro Arte Quartet’s performance of early works by the young Beethoven (below) is part of the Wisconsin Sound Series, which showcases and supports local musicians and artists during the coronavirus pandemic.

Learn more about the series.

To learn more about the Pro Arte Quartet, go to the group’s Website or page on Facebook

TICKETS

Tickets cost $15 and are available at the Wisconsin Union Theater box office. You can purchase tickets and also see more information about the program and performers here: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/pro-arte-quartet/

For ticket buyers who purchase a ticket less than two hours before the event start time, the link to view the concert will be in the confirmation email you will receive immediately following your purchase. This link will be accessible for seven days following the initial broadcast.

For all other purchases, all emails will come from https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/theater-tickets/

If you do not receive your email to your inbox, please check your junk or spam folder in case it was filtered there. If you have questions or problems, the box offices phone number is (608) 265-ARTS (2787).

Posted in Classical music
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The UW Symphony strings and Pro Arte Quartet team up Thursday night for a free online MUST-HEAR concert of Shostakovich, Elgar and Caroline Shaw. TONIGHT you can hear free piano and percussion recitals

April 21, 2021
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All times are Central Daylight Time.

ALERTS: Tonight from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall of the Hamel Music Center, the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music will present a departmental piano recital with undergraduate and master’s students. There is no listing of performers and pieces yet. One assumes they will be announced during the live-stream. Here is the link to take you to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7muCH_gupA

Then from 7:30 to 9 p.m., the UW Chamber Percussion Ensemble will live-stream a concert from the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall. Here is the YouTube link. If you click on Show More, you will find the details of the program and composers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWv285nZutI

By Jacob Stockinger

This Thursday night, April 22, you can hear two of the musical groups that The Ear found most impressive and consistently excellent during the Pandemic Year.

At 7:30 p.m., the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra’s string section (below) and the Pro Arte Quartet will team up to perform a free 90-minute, live-streamed concert online.

It is one of the last major concerts of this school year and will be conducted by the outstanding music director and conductor of the orchestra, Professor Oriol Sans (below).

For The Ear, it is a MUST-HEAR concert.

Here is a link to the YouTube site where you can see and hear it: https://youtu.be/TN2PftBJ4yg. If you click on Show More, you can see the members of the orchestra’s strings along with a list of the graduating seniors.

All the works on the innovative program are closely informed by the string quartet.

The program includes the darkly dramatic five-movement Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a, based on the famous and popular String Quartet No. 8, by Dmitri Shostakovich; the orchestral version of the entrancing and quietly hypnotic “Entr’acte” — heard in the YouTube video at the bottom — that was originally written for string quartet by the Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary American composer Caroline Shaw (below, in a photo by Kait Moreno); and the Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and String Orchestra by Sir Edward Elgar.

The UW-Madison’s acclaimed Pro Arte Quartet (below) is the soloist and will join forces with the orchestra for the Elgar work. Quartet members are: David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violins; Sally Chisholm, viola; and Parry Karp, cello.

And here is a link to more information about the program and to more extensive program notes: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-madison-symphony-orchestra-8/

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From Beethoven to today: The next five days at the UW-Madison are busy with FREE online concerts of new music, string music, brass music and more

April 8, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

From now through Monday, April 13, there are many FREE online concerts – virtual or pre-recorded – at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.

The schedule includes three different concerts on Saturday, April 10, alone. (All times are central and many concerts will be available for longer than a day.)

The variety of music is terrific and features all kinds of instruments and genres of music.

Here is a link to all of them, which will appear on YouTube. If your click on “Show More,” you will see more information about the performers and the programs. You can also set a convenient Reminder Timer to help you remember to listen: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZZ2F66Bu2yAfccvsugEtsA

You can read all of them by yourself. But the Ear wants to single out several of special interest.

NEW MUSIC: TONIGHT

If you are a fan of new music, there are two concerts you should consider listenIing to.

TONIGHT, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. and then at 8:30 p.m. are two concerts of new music.

The first concert is by the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble.

Titled “Colors” (below is the poster) the concert features music by Debussy, Lang, San Martin, UW-Madison professor Laura Schwendinger and Edgard Varese.

The performance are by faculty performers violist Sally Chisholm, flutist Conor Nelson and pianist Christopher Taylor, as well as alumni and students Eric Tran, Eric Delgado, Heidi Keener, Ben Therrell and Ben Yats.

Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Gxe7yTWpI

Then at 8:30 p.m., a studio recital by composition students (below) at the UW-Madison will take place. No names of performers or pieces are listed. But here is the link that is given: https://youtu.be/WmTBoLD9IQc

BEETHOVEN QUARTET CYCLE 7: FRIDAY NIGHT

At 7:30 p.m. is the seventh installment of the cycle, which is part of the Pro Arte Quartet’s yearlong retrospective of Beethoven’s string quartets to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Members are David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violins; Sally Chisholm, viola; and Parry Karp, cello.

The program has two late quartets: the famous last one, Op. 135, in F major (1826) with the :”Muss es sein” (Must It Be?) motif, which can be heard in the YouTube video at the bottom of the final movement played by the Cypress String Quartet; and the famous “Grosse Fuge” quartet and ending in B-flat Major, Opp. 130 and 133 (1825-6).

The Ear — who particularly likes Beethoven’s return to clarity and classicism in his final quartet — has listened to all the installments and they have all been superb. There’s no reason to expect anything different with this installment.

UW professor of musicology Charles Dill will give short introductory talks before each quartet. You can find extended program notes about the quartet and the program here: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/pro-arte-quartet-beethoven-string-quartet-cycle-program-7/

And here is the link to the live-streamed concert from the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall in the Hamel Music Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIW_5NVgGaA

UNIVERSITY OPERA SINGS SONGS OF RACIAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

This spring, University Opera follows up its groundbreaking video production on the life and times of composer Marc Blitzstein with another video.

What’s Past is Prologue: The Unfinished American Conversation, a program of staged and filmed songs and song cycles with social and racial justice themes, will be released on the Mead Witter School of Music YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/7Up_OXD6K2U this Saturday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m., with an encore stream this Sunday, April 11, at 2 p.m. David Ronis, Director of University Opera, is the director, and Thomas Kasdorf is the musical director, who accompanies the singers on piano.

For more background, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/university-opera-presents-whats-past-is-prologue-the-unfinished-american-conversation/

For the performance, go to: https://youtu.be/7Up_OXD6K2U

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Here is a collaborative obituary for music critic, radio host, performer and gay pioneer Jess Anderson, who died in January at 85

March 7, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

In late January of this year, Jess Anderson (below) — a longtime friend, devoted musician and respected music critic – died at 85.

The Ear promised then that when more was known or written, it would be posted on this blog.

That time has come.

Jess was a polymath, a Renaissance Man, as the comments below attest to time and again.

For the past several years, he suffered from advancing dementia and moved from his home of 56 years to an assisted living facility. He had contracted COVID-19, but died from a severe fall from which he never regained consciousness.

Jess did not write his own obituary and he had no family member to do it. So a close friend – Ed Wegert (below) – invited several of the people who knew Jess and worked with him, to co-author a collaborative obituary. We are all grateful to Ed for the effort the obituary took and for his caring for Jess in his final years.

In addition, the obituary has some wonderful, not-to-be-overlooked photos of Jess young and old, at home, with friends, sitting at the piano and at his custom-built harpsichord.

It appears in the March issue of Our Lives, a free statewide LGBTQ magazine that is distributed through grocery stores and other retail outlets as well as free subscriptions. Here is a link to the magazine’s home webpage for details about it: https://ourliveswisconsin.com.

That Jess was an exceptional and multi-talented person is obvious even from the distinguished names of the accomplished people who contributed to the obituary:

They include:

Chester Biscardi (below), who is an acclaimed prize-winning composer, UW-Madison graduate, composer and teacher of composition at Sarah Lawrence College.

John Harbison (below), the MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who teaches at MIT and co-directs the nearby Token Creek Chamber Music Festival in the summer.

Rose Mary Harbison (below), who attended the UW-Madison with Jess and became a professional performing and teaching violinist who co-directs the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival.

Steve Miller (below), a close friend who became a bookmaker and is now a professor at the University of Alabama.

The Ear, who knew Jess over many decades, was also invited to contribute.

Here is a link to the joint obituary in Our Lives magazine, a free LGBTQ periodical that you can find in local grocery store and other retail outlets: https://ourliveswisconsin.com/article/remembering-jess-anderson/?fbclid=IwAR027dzv2YqRUNlYF1cF6JyXnEcQxAwcprPYbtBQCs3rYt0Nu847W_xbjpk

Feel free to leave your own thoughts about and memories of Jess in the comment section.

It also seems a fitting tribute to play the final chorus from The St. John Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach. You can hear it in the YouTube video below. It is, if memory serves me well, the same piece of sublime music that Jess played when he signed off from hosting his Sunday morning early music show for many years on WORT-FM 89.9.

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Here are the Top 10 online concerts to stream in March, according to critics for the New York Times

March 2, 2021
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ALERT: The online live-streamed concert by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet — scheduled for this Friday night, March 5 — in the all-Beethoven cycle of string quartets has been canceled and postponed until next year. The Friday, April 9 installment of the Beethoven cycle will be held as Installment 7 instead of 8.

By Jacob Stockinger

Classical music critics of The New York Times have once again picked their Top 10 online concerts for the month of March.

The Ear has found such lists helpful for watching and hearing, but also informative to read, if you don’t actually “attend” the concert.

If you have read these lists before, you will see that this one is typical.

It offers lots of links with background about the works and performers; concert times (Eastern); and how long the online version is accessible.

Many of the performers will not be familiar to you but others – such as pianist Mitsuko Uchida (below, in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for the Times), who will perform an all-Schubert recital, will be very familiar.

But the critics once again emphasize new music and even several world premieres – including one by Richard Danielpour — and a path-breaking but only recently recorded live performance of the 1920 opera “Die Tote Stadt” (The Dead City) by long-neglected composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (below), who is best known for his Hollywood movie scores but who also wrote compelling classical concert hall music. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear soprano Renée Fleming sing “Marietta’s Song.’)

But some works that are more familiar by more standard composers – including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Ravel and Copland – are also included.

The Times critics have also successfully tried to shine a spotlight on Black composers and Black performers, such as the clarinetist and music educator Anthony McGill (below top), who will perform a clarinet quintet by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (below) and music in the setting of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

No purists, the critics also suggest famous oboe and clarinet works in transcriptions for the saxophone by composer-saxophonist Steven Banks (below).

Also featured is a mixed media performance of words and music coordinated by the award-winning Nigerian-American novelist, essayist and photographer Teju Cole (below), whose writings and photos are irresistible to The Ear.

Here is a link to the story in the Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/arts/music/classical-music-streaming-concerts.html

Are there other online concerts in March – local, regional, national or international – that you recommend in addition to the events listed in the Times?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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The UW Pro Arte Quartet performs the sixth installment of its must-hear Beethoven cycle in a FREE virtual online concert this Friday night. Here are the schedule and links for the rest of the cycle

February 4, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

This Friday night, Feb. 5, the University of Wisconsin Mead Witter School of Music’s Pro Arte Quartet (PAQ, below) will perform a FREE live virtual and online all-Beethoven concert.

The program is the sixth installment of the PAQ’s Beethoven string quartet cycle, which is part of the Pro Arte Quartet’s yearlong retrospective of Beethoven’s quartets to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer (below).

Members (below, from left, in a photo by Rick Lang) are violinists David Perry; violist Suzanne Beia; and cellist Parry Karp.

The live-streamed concert begins at 7:30 CST with a short lecture by UW-Madison professor of musicology Charles Dill (below), who will introduce both string quartets: String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6; and String Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1.

If this concert is at all like the past ones online, listeners are in for a treat. The playing is always first-rate, but – unlike what has been the case with even professional online and virtual performers – the sound and visual technology matches that quality. To The Ear, these are must-hear performances, wherever you are in the world.

Because of copyright issues, each concert will stay posted in YouTube for only 24 hours.

Here is the new schedule for the spring semester and the rest of the Beethoven cycle.

Explains cellist Parry Karp: “The schedule for this coming semester has been changed a bit because the semester started a week later and we decided to do Beethoven’s String Quintets as well.”

All virtual concerts will take place in Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall in the Hamel Music Center. But no in-person attendance will be allowed.

PROGRAM No. 6: Friday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m. String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6 (1798-1800). You can hear the last movement in the YouTube video at the bottom. String Quartet in F Major, Op 59, No. 1 (1808)

PROGRAM No. 7: Friday, March 5, 7:30 p.m. Fugue for String Quintet in D Major, Op. 137 (1817); String Quintet in C Major, Op. 29 (1801); String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 (1808)

PROGRAM No. 8: Friday, April 9, 7:30 p.m. String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 (1826); String Quartet in B-flat major, Opp. 130 and 133 (1825-6)

And here are links to those performances:

Feb. 5

https://youtu.be/wQajNmutqgU

https://fb.me/e/16Km8etgD

March 5

https://youtu.be/56inR_uR_b8

https://fb.me/e/GjwiUI2W

April 9

https://youtu.be/IIW_5NVgGaA

https://fb.me/e/624dKB9kS

Posted in Classical music
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TODAY — Sunday, Jan. 24, at noon — a video concert by the Willy Street Chamber Players will kick off the Wisconsin Union Theater’s new concert series “Wisconsin Sound”

January 24, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Wisconsin Union Theater is excited to pilot “Wisconsin Sound,” a new video concert series featuring musicians from our very own state.

The series, which includes the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet, will have five concerts, once a month between January and May and begins with celebrated, locally grown Willy Street Chamber Players (WSCP, below in a photo by Lloyd Schultz) on TODAY — Sunday, Jan. 24 — at noon CDT.

You can see the full lineup with dates and purchase single tickets for the performance or discounted subscription for all Wisconsin Sound events here. Single tickets are $15 and subscription tickets to all five concerts are $50.

The Willy Street Chamber Players began just six years ago but has already made its mark on the Madison community, garnering accolades for its fun approach to music, accessibility and dedication to community partnerships.

The group will perform Fantasiestucke (Fantasy Pieces) for Cello and Piano, Op. 73, by Robert Schumann; Fantasy No. 2 for Violin and Piano by Florence Price (below top); Kiép Nào Có Yeu Nhau (Vietnamese Love Song) for Violin and Piano by Rachel Eubanks (below bottom); and Adagio and Allegro for Cello and Piano, Op. 70, by Robert Schumann. (You can hear the Fantasy by Florence Price in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

You may have heard these dynamic performers during our Summer Serenades at Memorial Union Terrace and other Wisconsin festivals.

The pandemic has not stopped this group from bringing beautiful music to the community; it has continued to perform virtually as well as give in-person “Micro-concerts” for one to two people and safety in mind.

“We are honored they agreed to be the first artist in this pilot series. We share in Willy Street Chamber Players’ goal of creating community through music and thought they’d be a great group to kick off the new series for that very reason,” says Wisconsin Union Theater director Elizabeth Snodgrass.

“Everyone in the arts is trying so hard to stay connected and the group’s music and positivity invite that connection,” Snodgrass adds. “I hope this will reach Wisconsin patrons as well as new listeners who may not have had the chance to hear Willy Street Chamber Players or who have not been to the Wisconsin Union Theater before.”

This blog named the Willys “Musicians of the Year” for 2016. The players were called “a fantastic breath of fresh air who invest their performances of even well-known works, such as the glorious Octet by Mendelssohn, with energy and drive, zest and good humor.” You can read that story here.

Click here for more information about Wisconsin Sound, including other upcoming performances.

Posted in Classical music
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