The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: It’s final and official — the University of Wisconsin Pro Arte Quartet will tour to Belgium this week.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Madison, Wis. -– After much worrying, nail-biting and hectic phone calls, the final and official word is in: The Pro Arte Quartet tour to Belgium is on!
And not a minute too soon, since the tour concerts start at the end of this week and the musicians leave for Belgium on Tuesday.
Here is an update from Sarah Schaffer (below), who manages the Pro Arte String Quartet for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music:
The University of Wisconsin Pro Arte Quartet will be returning to its roots this week with a concert tour of Belgium, where the group was first formed in 1912. Current musicians in the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) include violinist David Perry, violinist Suzanne Beia, violist Sally Chisholm and cellist Parry Karp. (The current Pro Arte Quartet can be heard at the bottom in a YouTube video playing the Prelude for String Quartet by Ernest Bloch at one of its centennial concerts.)
The trip is occurring thanks largely to efforts by Wisconsin’s Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin who helped the UW-Madison ensemble-in-residence overcome government restrictions that prohibit traveling across international borders with anything containing elephant ivory and other endangered flora and fauna.
The Brussels concert series — the capstone of the Pro Arte’s centennial year as the world’s oldest continuously performing string quartet — returns the ensemble to its roots for the first time since World War II.
The concert series highlight will be the European premiere of the quartet’s latest commission, the String Quartet No. 3 by contemporary Belgian composer Benoît Mernier (below, in a photo by Lise Mernier). The composition had its world premiere March 1, at Mills Concert Hall in the George Mosse Humanities Building on the UW-Madison campus.
The Quatuor Pro Arte of Brussels, first formed in 1911-1912, was performing at the Wisconsin Union Theater on the UW campus on May 10, 1940, when Belgium was overrun and occupied by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi forces, turning three of its original four musicians into war orphans. By October of that year, the group had officially become the UW Pro Arte Quartet, making it the first artist ensemble-in-residence at any university in the world.
The current tour to Belgium, which occurs May 20-28, almost didn’t happen thanks to renewed efforts by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service’s International Affairs division, which since February has been actively enforcing a 1976 law prohibiting the importation of any items or materials containing elephant ivory, tortoise-shell, Brazilian rosewood and other materials.
Three of Pro Arte’s four musicians have ivory on the tips of their bows. The fourth, Sally Chisholm, has an antique viola heavily inlaid with either ivory or bone on the face of the instrument.
Chisholm’s viola was manufactured in Cremona, Italy, in 1680. It is her primary instrument and has a unique voice that has become central to the Pro Arte’s sound. “Violas have not been standardized, and to find a replacement instrument for the trip would have been difficult and have changed the sound of the entire group,” said Chisholm (below).
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service does issue permits enabling musicians with instruments containing prohibited products to travel with them, but it was unlikely that the permits would have been issued in time for the Pro Arte’s May 20 departure.
The UW-Madison Chancellor’s office worked with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (below), who helped facilitate more rapid processing of the permits, which arrived just prior to the ensemble’s departure.
The trip to Belgium will feature a variety of concerts in Brussels and elsewhere.
The Pro Arte will kick off the week-long tour on Thursday, May 22, with a performance in Studio 1 of the Flagey Building (below top with its handsome concert hall studio at below bottom), home to Belgium’s broadcast industry.
The program includes compositions by the “Dissonant” Quartet in C Major, K. 465, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (below top), the Quartet in D Major by Belgian composer César Franck (below bottom), “The Wind in the Willows” by American composer Randall Thompson and the “Elegy” for solo viola by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who wrote it for a member of the Pro Arte Quartet. Studio 1 has historic significance for the Pro Arte. An earlier iteration of the quartet recorded a complete cycle of the 16 Quartets by Ludwig van Beethoven there in 1938.
On Friday, May 23, the Pro Arte will perform in the Arthur de Greef Auditorium of the Royal Library of Belgium (below top) in Brussels with a program featuring works by String Quartet No. 1 by Bela Bartok (below middle) and Quartet in D Major, Op. 20, No, 4 by Franz Joseph Haydn (below bottom).
On Saturday, May 24, the Pro Arte travels to Dolhain Limburg, birthplace of the quartet’s founding violinist Alphonse Onnou for a reception, dinner and performance at Kursaal Dolhain. The evening program will include previously listed compositions by Mozart, Franck and Haydn plus “Waltz from Five Novelettes” by Alexander Glazunov (below).
The Mernier European premiere at the Royal Brussels Conservatory (its exterior is below top, the grand concert hall is below bottom) follows on Monday, May 26.
The program features the Adagio and Fugue, K. 546, by Mozart, the work by Randall Thompson (below top) and the slow movement or “Adagio for Strings” (premiered in Rome in 1938 by the Pro Arte) from the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11, by American composer Samuel Barber (below bottom).
The final performance of the tour on Tuesday, May 27, will take place at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (below).
In addition to the Mernier work, the performance will include works by Mozart and Barber. In addition, the audience will view a 1975 documentary film about the Pro Arte by Pierre Bartholomée that includes interviews with composers Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinsky and others. Denise Bauer (below), the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium will be present.
Tags: Adagio for Strings, Adolf Hitler, Alexander Glazunov, Arte, Arts, Barber, Beethoven, Belgium, Brussels, Cello, Cesar Franck, Chamber music, Classical music, Darius Milhaud, Franck, Franz Joseph Haydn, German, Germany, Glazunov, Haydn, Hitler, Igor Stravinsky, Jacob Stockinger, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Milhaud, Mozart, Music, Nazi, Pro Arte, Pro Arte Quartet, Randall Thompson, Rome, Samuel Barber, Stravinsky, String quartet, Tammy Baldwin, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, World War II, YouTube
Classical music: Could a new ivory protection law derail the Pro Arte Quartet’s tour to Belgium in May? Don’t miss the Pro Arte’s FREE preview concert of the MUST-HEAR program for its “Back to Belgium” tour on Thursday night at 7:30. Plus, a terrific new one-hour documentary about the Pro Arte airs Thursday night at 9 and other times on Wisconsin Public Television.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Please note that some reviews of productions last weekend are being delayed to make room for previews of the many upcoming concerts and musical events this week.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear hears:
The Pro Arte String Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) may well be prevented from taking its long-planned centennial tour to its homeland Belgium next month because of a seemingly small but very significant government regulation designed to curtail the trade in illegal ivory.
Now, who can argue with the intent to protect elephants from being poached for their ivory tusks? But clearly there are unintended consequences that make the humane regulation look absurd and silly, if not mean-spirited, in its requirements for out-of-date documentation.
Take the Pro Arte Quartet, artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Music since 1940. It turns out that the acclaimed string quartet may not make its long-planned centennial tour to Belgium next month -– depending on what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which, with the help of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), inspects and confiscates or destroys musical instruments it deems in possible violation of the law at U.S. customs.
As for how it applies to the Pro Arte Quartet: It seems that ivory inlay on one old instrument –- a beautiful and full voiced viola -– and the ivory used in the tips of bows for one or more of the old instruments may violate the new ban and regulation.
It that seems an exaggeration consider the following stories about the difficulties that other musicians and other countries have faced in confronting the situation:
Here is a link to an overview story on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/07/300267040/musicians-take-note-your-instrument-may-be-contraband
The problem is not so much getting out of the U.S., since other countries are taking a more lenient or understanding view. The problem comes at U.S. Customs when you leave or even, and especially, return.
Here is the story about one Canadian musician is being held hostage from seeking a professional job by the ban. Be sure to view the video:
Here is the take by famed critic Norman Lebrecht on his classical music blog “Slipped Disc:
As for the Pro Arte: People are reportedly working behind the scenes to secure a solution, which ranges from getting an exemption to using either a substitute instrument or a substitute player, to cancelling the tour. Stay tuned.
But while you stay tuned you have two chances tonight to hear the Pro Arte:
Thursday night at 9 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Television’s main channel is the extremely we’ll done one-hour documentary about the Pro Arte and its Centennial celebration will air. It features great photos and historic footage, but it also features the quartet playing a studio concert of music by Darius Milhaud, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ernest Bloch, Samuel Barber (the famous “Adagio for Strings” that was originally a string quartet movement and that received its world premiere in Rome from the Pro Arte) and contemporary composer John Harbison. (Other airings are also scheduled. Here is a link:
http://www.wptschedule.org/episodes/45015629/The-Pro-Arte-Quartet-A-Century-of-Music/
But you can record that on a DVD or some other device. And here are other times on The Wisconsin Channel (21.2). The airdates are: April 18 at 8 p.m.; April 19 at 2 a.m.; and April 19 at 5 p.m. In addition, WPT will be offering this documentary program via web-streamibng at the same time as the broadcast, so people can see it globally. The link to the program page, on which the streaming link is also housed, is http://wptschedule.org/episodes/45015629/The-Pro-Arte-Quartet-A-Century-of-Music/
Here is the real treat: At 7:30 p.m. on this Thursday night in Mills Hall, the Pro Arte Quartet -– playing its own instruments — will perform a FREE MUST-HEAR concert of the same program that was requested by the Belgian hosts for whom they will play. Consider it a warm-up or run-through.
The program features one the Ear’s top all-time favorite string quartets: the so-called “Dissonant” Quartet, K. 465 (1785) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which was so advanced in its harmonies that early publishers actually changed some of the opening notes that Mozart wrote to make the work conform to the practices of the day. (The opening that gives it its nickname can be heard in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The program also includes the Quartet No. 1 (1909) by the pioneering modernist Bela Bartok (below top), and the Quartet in E Minor, Op. 44, No. 2, (1837) by the early Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn.
In its blend of the Classical, the Romantic and the Modern repertoire, the program seems quintessentially Pro Arte. And it should be a pure joy to hear.
Members of the current Pro Arte Quartet (below in a photo by Rick Langer and with links to biographies) are:Parry Karp, cello; Suzanne Beia, second violin; Sally Chisholm, viola; and David Perry, first violin.
If didn’t already know it, here is a capsule history of the quartet:
The Pro Arte Quartet was founded in 1911-12 by students at the Brussels Conservatory. Violinist Alphonse Onnou was the leader, and the other founding members included Laurent Halleux (violin), Germain Prévost (viola), and Fernand Auguste Lemaire (cello). The quartet made its debut in Brussels in 1913 and soon became known as an exponent of modern music.
The Pro Arte played their American debut in 1926, performing at the inauguration of the Hall of Music in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. They returned for 30 tours to the United States, as well as a tour of Canada, often under the auspices of the noted patron of chamber music, Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.
Their first visit to Madison was in 1938, where, two years later, the musicians were stranded by Hitler’s invasion of Belgium and the outbreak of World War II. Following their concert on campus, the University of Wisconsin chancellor offered a permanent home to the quartet.
It was the first such residency ever in a major American university, and became the model on which many other similar arrangements were developed at other institutions.
Onnou died in 1940, but the quartet continued until 1947 as quartet-in-residence at Wisconsin University, led first by Antonio Brosa and from 1944 by Rudolf Kolisch.
The Pro Arte became the faculty string quartet at UW-Madison in the late 1950s, an appointment that continues to the present day -– making the ensemble more than 100 years old, the oldest on-going string quartet ever in history.
Tags: Adagio for Strings, Antonio Brosa, Arts, Bartok, Béla Bartók, Belgium, Canada, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Darius Milhaud, Dissonant Quartet, documentary, elephant, Felix Mendelssohn, ivory, Jacob Stockinger, John Harbison, Madison, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Music, Norman Lebrecht, Pro Arte, Pro Arte Quartet, Rome, Rudolf Kolisch, String quartet, Transportation Security Administration, United States Customs Service, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, Wisconsin Public Television, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: This coming Sunday is busy with lots of live concerts from Con Vivo, Sound Ensemble Wisconsin and Edgewood College as well as Wisconsin Public Radio and the Pro Arte Quartet. Plus, on Saturday afternoon the Percussion Ensemble of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) performs its annual EXTRAVAGANZA concert.
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ALERT: On Saturday at 1 p.m. in Mills Hall, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras’ (WYSO) Percussion Ensemble will perform the 13th annual Percussion ‘EXTRAVAGANZA’ in the UW Humanities Building. Directed by Vicki Peterson Jenks, the WYSO Percussion Ensemble is comprised of 12 talented young percussionists and one bassist from Madison, Middleton, Verona, Viroqua, Mount Horeb, DeForest, and Barneveld. (See the impressive individual profiles in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
WYSO will donate part of proceeds to support the American Red Cross Badger Chapter.
The concert features special guest artist Steve Houghton. A Kenosha, Wis., native, Houghton is an internationally renowned jazz drummer, percussionist, clinician, author and educator who is currently a professor at Indiana University’s prestigious Jacobs School of Music. Also joining the WYSO Percussion Ensemble in guest appearances will be two WYSO alumni, composer and pianist Jon D. Nelson and bassist Sam Olson – both Sun Prairie natives – the UW World Percussion Ensemble, UW-Madison Professor of Saxophone Les Thimming, and WYSO student flugelhorn player Noah Mennenga.
Tickets for the 2014 WYSO Percussion EXTRAVGANZA! are $10 for adults, $5 for youth (18 and under) and can be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the start of the concert. For more information, contact the WYSO office at (608) 263-3320. Parking is available at State Street Campus Ramp, Helen C. White Hall, and Grainger Hall parking facilities. You can also visit:
By Jacob Stockinger
What a close friend and colleague calls “train wrecks” — that is, competing or conflicting events and concerts — just keep on happening.
It is true that choices become more difficult, and more mutually exclusive, as the classical music scene continues to expand in the Madison area.
Take this Sunday, which is normally a pretty quiet day — but NOT this week.
Of course, from 12:30 to 2 p.m., the Pro Arte Quartet (below) will give the second premiere performance of Belgian composer Benoit Mernier’s String Quartet No. 3 on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen.” It will air live from the FREE concert in Brittingham Gallery No. 3 of the Chazen Museum of Art on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
But check out these other events:
CON VIVO
At 2:30 p.m., the ensemble Con Vivo (“Music with Life) continues its 12th season of chamber music with a concert entitled “Germanic Gems” at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Avenue, across from Camp Randall.
Tickets can be purchased at the door for $18 for adults, $15 for seniors and students.
The program includes the First Suite for Solo Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach; a duet for violin and viola by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and the “Fairy Tales” Trio for clarinet, viola and piano by Robert Schumann. The program will also feature the outstanding church organ with duets for violin and organ by Joseph Rheinberger, a solo work for organ by 17th-century composer Johann Reincken, and “Ein Alterblatt” (An Old Page), a romantic piece for violin, viola, cello and organ by Ferdinand Manns.
To round out the afternoon’s offering, Con Vivo will perform a quintet for clarinet, two violas, cello and piano by a mystery composer who will be reveled at the concert!
Audience members are invited to join musicians after the concert for a free reception to discuss this chamber music literature and to hear about their Carnegie Hall debut this past December.
Con Vivo is a professional chamber music ensemble comprised of Madison area musicians assembled from the ranks of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and various other performing groups familiar to Madison audiences.
EDGEWOOD CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Also at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra will perform in the St. Joseph Chapel, 1000 Edgewood College Drive, on Madison’s near west side.
Admission is $5 for the public; free with Edgewood College ID.
The orchestra will perform under the direction of music conductor Blake Walter (below). The program of masterworks includes the Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven; the Orchestral Suite No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach; and the Overture to “Abduction from the Seraglio” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Included in the program is a special performance of the Piano Concerto in D Major by Franz Joseph Haydn. It will be performed by the recent Madison Memorial High School alumna Johanna Novich-Leonard (below), winner of the Edgewood College Student Concerto Competition.
SOUND ENSEMBLE WISCONSIN
At 6 p.m., Sound Ensemble Wisconsin (SEW) will be collaborating with Chef Dan Bonanno and poet Katrin Talbot (below in a photo with violinist Mary Theodore on the far right holding a violin bow) for a “delicious” event at A Pig in a Fur Coat restaurant, located at 940 Williamson Street, Madison, WI, 53703. Phone is (608) 316-3300.
Tickets are currently on sale at www.sewmusic.org and are $105 per person or $100 by check (with guests’ names) to: Sound Ensemble Wisconsin, 716 Edgewood Avenue, Madison, WI 53711. Performing musicians (below) are SEW members and incude violinists Mary Theodore and Mary Perkinson, violist Chris Dozoryst, and cellist Maggie Townsend.
More information and tickets are available at www.sewmusic.org.
Here is an excellent story written by Gayle Worland of The Wisconsin State Journal:
And here is the SEW press release:
“What does food sound like? What does music taste like?
“Participants enjoy a lovely evening out as they explore their senses as the pathway to their souls through the performing arts of food and music, accompanied by poetry. “SEWing Taste and Sound, Bite by Byte” is a collaboration between Sound Ensemble Wisconsin, Chef Dan Bonanno of Madison’s celebrated Pig in a Fur Coat, and SEW’s 2013-14 Artist-in-Residence, who is Madison poet and violist Katrin Talbot.
“The event centers around the aesthetic similarities of food and music, both of which Mary Theodore, SEW’s director and violinist, considers performing arts. SEW has based the evening on a movement from a Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 18 No. 5, Andante Cantabile, that is a theme and variations.
“Each variation, or byte of music, will inspire Chef Bonnano and be paired with one course, or bite, of food — and performed and served as such to create a seven-course meal, including a beverage pairing for each course.
“For example, the third variation, which might remind one of a bubbling brook with a contrast of smooth, running water and sunlight glistening through the trees as well as a touch of sweetness, has inspired Chef Bonanno to create a smooth, creamy risotto with fresh blueberries and sweetbreads.
“Katrin Talbot will also read poems composed for each variation.
“At the end of the meal, SEW musicians will perform the quartet movement from beginning to end with the aim of offering participants a new experience of the music, a new journey of taste and sound.
“As a large part of SEW’s mission is to bring more people to classical music, SEW makes an effort to demonstrate that music can be found in many things that we experience every day.
“SEW achieves this by collaborating with other artists, institutions, etc. through innovative programming and authentic events. Also, as SEW’s founding principle is that music is a vital part of humanity and should serve everyone, the ensemble strives to both offer engaging and unique programming to regular participants (their term for “audience”), as well as to offer music to those who might not have access to it otherwise.
“As part of the March 2 program, SEW will be performing during dinner hour at a food pantry and offering two free tickets to the Sunday event. As a side note, SEW also played at a correctional facility as a precursor to their last event.”
Tags: A Pig in a Fur Coat, American Red Cross, Arts, Beethoven, Belgium, Carnegie Hall, Chamber music, Chazen Museum of Art, chef, Classical music, composer, Dan Bonanno, Edgewood College, flugelhorn, food, Franz Joseph Haydn, Indiana University, Jacob Stockinger, Jacobs School of Music, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Rheinberger, Katrin Talbot, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Wisconsin, Music, Music education, New Music, Orchestra, percussion, Percussion Ensemble, Piano, Poetry, Pro Arte, Pro Arte Quartet, Saxophone, Sound Ensemble Wisconsin, String quartet, Suite, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, theme and variations, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, WYSO, YouTube
Classical music: The University of Wisconsin’s Pro Arte String Quartet opens its new and very busy season this week with two FREE concerts of music by Mozart, Milhaud, Fritz Kreisler and Brahms plus a taping for Wisconsin Public Television.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Pro Arte String Quartet (below in a photo by Rick Langer) – which became the world’s first artists-in-residence in the world when they agreed to stay at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1940 — kicks off its new season with two FREE concerts this week and much more this fall.
On Sunday, the Pro Arte Quartet returns to “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen” from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in a live broadcast over Wisconsin Public Radio.
The Pro Arte – which celebrated its historically unprecedented centennial two seasons ago — will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Prussia” String Quartet in D Major, K 575, Darius Milhaud’s Quartet No. 7 and the rarely heard Quartet in A Minor by the Viennese violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler who is best known for his miniature works, transcriptions and pastiches.
Then at 7:30 p.m. on next Thursday, Oct. 3 in Mills Hall, the Pro Arte will perform a FREE and MUST-HEAR concert in Mills Hall. It will perform the same Mozart and Kreisler quartets as above, but the Milhaud will be replaced by the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 51, No. 1, by Johannes Brahms.
Also, stay tuned for word about an airing date for the program that the Pro Arte is recording this coming Monday night for Wisconsin Public Television.
The by-invitation-only TV concert has a program that features a prelude by Ernest Bloch (at bottom in a YouTube video) and the famous “Adagio for Strings” quartet movement – later transcribed for string orchestra at the request of famed conductor Arturo Toscanini (below top) — by Samuel Barber (below bottom).
Many people forget that the Pro Arte Quartet gave the world premiere of the famous “Adagio for Strings” — the slow movement of Barber’s String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11 — in Rome in 1936.
Also watch for news this fall of an Albany Records CD release — with a local release party — of the four commissions (two string quartets and two piano quintets)– that the Pro Arte Quartet commissioned for its centennial two seasons ago. The CD was engineered by the multiple Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman (below).
The two string quartets were composed from Walter Mays (below top) and John Harbison (below bottom), who is also the co-director of the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival.
The two piano quintets were composed by Paul Schoenfield (below top) and William Bolcom (below middle) and featured the celebrated UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor (below bottom).
Then at its FREE concert in Mills Hall at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 22, 2013, the Pro Arte will give the world premiere of its fifth centennial commission: a String Quartet by the contemporary Belgian composer Benoit Mernier (below). The Pro Arte originally started, you may recall, at the conservatory in Brussels.
And finally, next May, the Pro Arte Quartet travels to Europe – to its home city of Brussels, Belgium, as well as London and maybe Paris – to perform works from its centennial commissions.
And there is still more to come, including a book about the Pro Arte Quartet by the retired UW-Madison historian turned music critic and guest writer for Isthmus and for this blog John W. Barker (below).
Tags: Adagio for Strings, Albany Records, Arturo Toscanini, Benoit Mernier, Chazen Museum of Art, Darius Milhaud, Ernest Bloch, Fritz Kreisler, John Harbison, Judith Sherman, Madison, Paul Schoenfield, Piano, Piano Quintet, Pro Arte, Pro Arte Quartet, Samuel Barber, String quartet, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Walter Mays, WILLIAM BOLCOM, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin Public Television, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Music and the arts should get their due from University of Wisconsin parking authorities — despite the popularity of football games.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It is only the beginning of the new season and already last weekend was packed, even overloaded, with great classical music and fine performances, as I remarked last week.
There was a concert by the UW Pro Arte String Quartet; a concert by the Ancora String Quartet; two performances by the Oakwood Chamber Players; the start of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen”; and an inaugural concert in a series to be given by gifted University of Wisconsin School of Music alumni.
Because of various commitments, I could only get to one: the concert by the Pro Arte Quartet (below) on Saturday night in Mills Hall. (But here is John W. Barker’s glowing review for Isthmus of the Ancora String Quartet’s Romantic program at the First Unitarian Society: http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=37781)
But what effort it took!
The UW Business School’s Grainger Hall (below), which is supposed to be the parking lot of choice for arts events – because it is close to both Mills and Morphy Halls in the Mosse Humanities Building — had been reserved in its ENTIRETY for football parking, a situation made worse by the late kickoff time of 7 p.m. I tried to park there and found it packed, just absolutely jammed.
So was the city lot between Lake and Frances Streets, where I finally and fortunately lucked out and found one spot as someone left.
Now I realize football is popular. Go Badgers!
But many of us also like to attend other UW events.
Plus, I cannot believe that UW parking authorities can’t set aside enough parking (photo below is by Jeff Miller for UW News) to allow for good attendance at a comparatively small arts event.
But sadly, they didn’t.
And sadly there were far fewer people at the Pro Arte concert than should have been there — just look at all the empty seats, both downstairs and especially in the upper balcony and on the sides in the photos below — for a fabulous concert of late Haydn, early Schubert and late Dvorak that deserved the prolonged and enthusiastic standing ovation it received.
Was all of the absence due to parking problems? Not at all, given competing musical concerts, both classical and non-classical, as well as other events.
But I did in fact hear many people complain about the parking problem, which also almost made me late. And I also heard some pretty complicated arrangements – early arrival, tag-team driving times and walking long distances — for how people managed to circumvent the terrible parking situation in order to attend the Pro Arte concert.
So The Ear has to ask: Can’t UW Parking do its fair share to promote and help the arts on campus? After all, parking is there to serve the university — NOT the other way around.
And there is only so much any one driver can do, despite some tips from Steve Brown Apartments (below).
What do other readers have to say? Leave your voice in the Comment section.
Maybe someone at UW Parking will get the message, pay attention and solve the problem.
Or maybe NOT.
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