The Well-Tempered Ear
Online playlists return to Wisconsin Public Radio
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By Jacob Stockinger
Good news!
News that deserve a big shout-out!
Online playlists for classical music programming have returned to Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).
The user-friendly move comes after more than a year of absent playlists and, fortuitously, as WPR is conducting a spring membership drive seeking financial support from the public.
There is one major drawback: You still can’t check on pieces and performances in real time — that is, on the same day or even the same moment as you are listening. Now you have to wait until the next day to see the posting.
That is an unfortunate change from the past. And one hopes it will be fixed soon. Maybe WPR will even let listeners know if and when real-time postings will return.
The current one-day delay seems especially odd, given that the pieces played overnight on WPR — from Minnesota Public Radio, I believe — are posted right as they begin to air.
But at least now we don’t have to wait weeks or months to find out information about something you have probably already forgotten about.
The new format seems less straightforward and less user-friendly than the old one, which put the information right in front of you when you went to the home website and clicked on playlists for News and Music Network.
But now you just go to the date bar and choose the day you are looking for. Once you find the piece, you will notice the name of the show on which it aired such as “Morning Classics” or “The Midday.” You also find the time with the composer, title and performer.
If you also click on “More,” you will see additional details such as the record label and catalogue number. Here a link to try it out:
The return of the playlists is especially useful now that WPR is programming so many neglected composers and so much unfamiliar music — something the current pledge drive seems to be explaining and emphasizing.
So let’s offer hearty congratulations and sincere thanks to WPR and its engineers for the move.
What do you think of the return of WPR playlists?
Have you used the new playlists?
What do you think about their usefulness and online display?
Should WPR playlists be posted in real time?
The Ear wants to hear.
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A jazz-pop composer is the new director of the UW School of Music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Dan Cavanagh (below) from Texas has been named the next director of the UW-Madison School of Music, effective July 1, 2023.
Cavanagh’s appointment concludes a national search led by Associate Dean Susan Zaeske of the College of Letters and Science; music professors Mimmi Fulmer, Christopher Taylor, Scott Teeple, Conor Nelson and Daniel Grabois; and School of Music Assistant Director Wendy Johnson.
The Ear can’t be the only person wondering what a jazz and pop musician — a performer, arranger and composer — means for the school that has always selected its leaders from classical music and music education as the top administrators.
But there is no doubt about Cavanagh’s impressive credentials.
Here is the official press release from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
“I am thrilled that Dan will bring to the directorship of the Mead Witter School of Music a cutting-edge vision of research and curricular excellence combined with the wherewithal to get things done thanks to his many years of experience as a music and liberal arts administrator,” Dean Zaeske said.
Cavanagh is a composer and pianist who has garnered numerous awards in both areas. As a composer he has written or arranged for Latin Grammy-winning AfroBop Alliance, the legendary Patti LaBelle, and a wide range of classical and jazz performers across North America and Europe. He has released five critically acclaimed jazz CDs as a leader.
His music can be heard on many other recordings both classical and jazz and he continues to be commissioned and programmed around the world. Cavanagh has also performed extensively in North America and internationally. He has been a finalist in the EuropaFest Jazz Contest in Bucharest, and in the Jacksonville Jazz Festival Piano Competition.
“I am very excited to join UW–Madison as the next Pamela O. Hamel/Music Board of Advisors Professor and Director of the Mead Witter School of Music,” Cavanagh said. “The school’s national reputation is bolstered by its amazing faculty, talented students, and accomplished staff.”
Cavanagh is currently the interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington. Prior to serving as interim Dean, Cavanagh held various academic leadership roles, including program director, music department chair, and associate dean. He has also served in high-profile shared governance roles in the University of Texas System, including as Chair of the Faculty Advisory Council representing over 21,000 faculty members across the 14 institutions in the system.
From 2015-2020, he served as the Co-Chair of Region VI for the Society of Composers and currently serves on the executive board of a2ru (the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities). Cavanagh serves on the board of directors for Downtown Arlington Management Corporation (Arlington, TX), chairs Downtown Arlington’s Cultural Arts District Partners group and serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Dallas Winds, a five-time Grammy nominated professional Wind Symphony.
Cavanagh succeeds Director Susan C. Cook, who will be on sabbatical during the 2023-24 academic year after serving 10 years as director of the School of Music.
“I look forward to engaging with the Board of Advisors, colleagues across the University, and individuals throughout the community to continue growing the impact, reach and excellence the School of Music creates every day, and to advance the ideals of the Wisconsin Idea through the creative work and scholarship we will produce together,” Cavanagh said.
Do you have any questions or comments you want to share?
The Ear wants too hear.
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Wisconsin Public Radio needs timely online playlists and other fixes
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By Jacob Stockinger
March 8 was International Women’s Day.
To its credit, Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) celebrated the event all-day long by airing music composed and performed by women.
The Ear heard some very memorable and noteworthy pieces that were new to him.
But when he went to the WPR website and looked for online listings to find out specifics about the composers, the pieces, the performers and the record labels, he found — nothing.
Today is March 15.
And one week later The Ear still finds nothing — no playlist for the March 8 broadcasts.
In fact, there are no online listings going back more than a month — to February 5.
You will find just a longstanding apology with a promise to fix it and some boilerplate warning about federal regulations that really have nothing to do with such a prolonged delay.
Take a look for yourself: https://www.wpr.org/classical-music-lists
That is disappointing and frustrating. Some might even say unacceptable.
The digital technology fixes that have been promised and, one assumes, already paid for can’t be THAT difficult to implement. WPR used to post the playlist information as soon as the piece started airing. (And, curiously, the non-WPR overnight service still offers that.)
Why not again? Technological updates are supposed to make things work better, not worse.
Fixing the playlist is especially important right now because WPR and its outstanding hosts have taken on the admirable mission of exploring music of women composers and performers; of composers and performers of color; and of neglected composers and works.
But without a playlist to consult, that mission remains unfinished. How else is the unfamiliar supposed to become more familiar?
That is not the only troubling thing at WPR.
The station did a superb job during the pandemic with home broadcasting.
But ever since then, there seems to be more dead air, miscues, interruptions and repeated programs than ever before.
Yet you also hear many more promotions and pleas for public financial support in between quarterly membership drives than ever before.
WPR would be wise to attract and serve its supporters and listeners by focusing on completing the fixes, whether it requires hardware, software or staff training.
And correcting the disservice of not posting daily playlists online seems an excellent place to start. After all, The Ear was told that the problem of incompatible software “would be rectified soon.”
That was over a year ago.
And if it can’t be corrected?
Hope they kept the receipt.
Do you miss WPR’s daily online playlists?
Have you noticed other problems at WPR?
What about WPR would you like to praise? To criticize?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Remember Marika with Bach Around the Clock 2023. The FREE five-day, in-person and online birthday celebration begins today
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NOTE: You can see and hear the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Final Forte concert with four youth concerto finalists at 7 tonight on PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio. For complete information, including other airings, go to these websites: https://madisonsymphony.org/education-community/education-programs/young-artist-competitions/the-final-forte/ and https://pbswisconsin.org/the-final-forte/
By Jacob Stockinger
The seventh annual Madison-based Bach Around the Clock festival — a celebration of the March 31 birthday of composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1756, below) —- will start today and run through Sunday both in-person and online.
All events and streaming are free and open to the public.
As usual, it will feature professional and amateur performers of all ages and levels of proficiency in all kinds of repertoire and arrangements, including Bach on the Marimba.
It begins today, Wednesday, March 8, at noon with a Bach motet sung in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Ave.
The live portion, which will also be live-streamed, will end on Saturday, March 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with continuous performances at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below) at 1833 Regent Street on the near west side.
Then on this Sunday, March 12, the virtual online festival will premier.
For more details — including a full schedule with times, venues, pieces, performers and other links — go to:
The Ear thinks of the entire festival as a life celebration and memorial not just for Bach but also for his avid local advocate, violist Marika Fisher Hoyt (below).
Hoyt — who was also a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Bach Musicians, the Ancora String Quartet, Just Bach and Sonata à Quattro — died Feb. 21 from cancer. She was one of the kindest and most caring persons, one of the hard-working and most energetic, talented musicians, that The Ear has ever known and worked with.
After Wisconsin Public Radio abandoned BATC in 2013, Fischer Hoyt rescued it in 2017, raised money and support, and expanded its offerings and performers as well as took it into a virtual online format as well as remaining an in-person event.
You can find many tributes online. You can also plug in her name on this blog’s search engine to get some idea of her overwhelming and inspiring contributions to the area’s cultural life. In 2017, The Ear named her Musician of the Year:
Classical music: For reviving and securing Bach Around the Clock, The Ear names Marika Fischer Hoyt as “Musician of the Year” for 2017
But the best tribute of all will be to listen to Bach’s extraordinarily inventive and beautiful music — her abiding passion and the gift she never stopped wanting to give to others — with Marika in mind.
You can also find videos from past BATC’s. But she once told me that the piece she loved most is the St. John Passion. So a YouTube video of the final chorus from that oratorio is posted at the bottom.
Have you attended or heard BATC before?
What did you especially like and would you recommend the event to others?
Did you know Marika Fischer Hoyt?
What would you like other people to know about Marika?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Vivaldi turns 345 today. His irresistable music deserves more live performances
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today The Ear wishes Happy Birthday to composer Antonio Vivaldi (below), who was born on this day — March 4 — in 1678 in Venice. (He became famous but died in poverty at age 63 on July 28, 1741, also in Venice.)
The Ear likes Vivaldi and his music deserves many more live performances. Even local early music and modern music groups seems reluctant to program much Vivaldi besides “The Four Seasons,” despite the popularity of his other works. Vivaldi not only composed a lot but he did so for many instruments — strings, brass, winds — and in other genres than concertos including sonatas, choral works and operas.
Listen to Vivaldi in the morning. Who can resist him? The Italian style with its energetic rhythm, songful lyricism and major-key cheerfulness are caffeine for the ears.
There are so many fine groups and soloists who perform Vivaldi. Yet so much of his prolific output remains relatively unknown or unheard.
That’s too bad. Johann Sebastian Bach recognized a good thing when he heard it, so he “borrowed” and transcribed many of Vivaldi’s works. One imagines the Italian taste for transparency and tunes appealed to Bach and helped him leaven the often dense, even pedantic Germanic counterpoint and smothering religiosity. Vivaldi provided a model influence for Bach’s eclectic fusion of styles.
Here is a link to an extended Wikipedia biography of the “Red Priest” (below) — Vivaldi’s nickname, used during his teaching at an all-girls school in Venice and derived from his bright red hair. It holds some surprises including the political controversy that surrounded Vivaldi in his day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Vivaldi
A lot of modern musicians and music historians seem to hold Vivaldi’s popularity and listener-friendly music against him. Opinions seem divided over who made the snide remark — Igor Stravinsky, Luigi Dallapiccola or both — that Vivaldi rewrote the same concerto 500 times.
Here is an informative takedown of that putdown:
https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2018/10/did-stravinsky-say-vivaldi-wrote-same.html
In the YouTube video at the bottom is a favorite Vivaldi movement of mine. It helped give me a lifelong unforgettable moment as an accompaniment to viewing NASA’s recently taken moon footage at 37,000 feet in a plane on my way to Hawaii. It is the slow movement of the lute concerto played on the guitar by Julian Bream — and it was perfect for expressing weightlessness and space flight.
That was long ago.
These days for period-instrument performances, I tend to favor The English Concert under Trevor Pinnock , The Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood, and the Academy of Ancient Music Berlin — although there are others terrific ensembles including the modern instrument groups I Musici and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
For period string soloists — try the double concertos — look to Simon Standage, Monica Huggett, Andrew Manze and Rachel Podger. For modern instrumentalists, check out Victoria Mullova and especially the Israeli violinist Shlomo Mintz, who uses his own ordering and groupings of concertos. I also like the period cellist Christophe Coin and the modern cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras.
Do you have an opinion about Vivaldi — a like or dislike of his music?
Do you have a favorite Vivaldi work?
Do you have favorite performers of Vivaldi?
The Ear wants to hear.
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See and hear The Cliburn piano competition for FREE via streaming. It runs through June 18
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By Jacob Stockinger
The 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition got under way this past Thursday, June 2, and will run through Saturday, June 18, when the winners will be announced.
2022 marks the 60th anniversary year of the competition, which the American pianist Van Cliburn founded at Texas Christian University after his 1958 Cold War victory in the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow,.
You can follow it all online. The complete impressive competition is being broadcast on medici.tv and on YouTube.
But The Ear has used the competition’s own streaming website and finds the videos, sound quality, contestant biographies and background information very professional and helpful. So far, it has been a thoroughly satisfying, enjoyable and engaging experience. I highly recommendation it for students, amateur pianists and all music lovers.
For The Ear, one of the most impressive performances from yesterday was given by the 21-year-old Chinese pianist Yangrui Cai (below), heard in the YouTube video at the bottom. Such beautiful and subtly virtuosic but shaded Liszt and Brahms is not often heard.
Here is a link to the home page (below): https://cliburn.org
From there you can hear live performances, past performances and many facts , including the complete schedule, about The Cliburn, as it is now called. All times are Central Daylight.
Starting at 10 a.m. today — Saturday, June 4 — will see the final 10 performances (3 in the morning and night, four in the afternoon) of the preliminary round, which has featured 30 pianists in 40-minute solo recitals. Except for a specially commissioned “Fanfare Toccata” by Sir Stephen Hough, who is also on the jury, the choice of programs is entirely up to the individual contestants.
The road to the Cliburn is not easy.
It started with 388 applicants. That was trimmed down to 72 by preliminary judges. Out of 72, 30 were chosen by jurors to compete.
After today, it will be on to the quarter-finals with 18 contestants in 40-minute recitals with no repetition from the preliminary round; then the semi-final round with 12 contestants in a combination of 60-minute solo recital along with a Mozart piano concerto accompanied by the Fort Worth Symphony conducted by the Nicholas McGegan, who is famous for his interpretations of Baroque and Classical era music; and the final concerto round with each contestant play two concertos with Fort Worth Symphony under famed conductor Marin Alsop, who is also the head juror.
The Ear will be posting his own thoughts as he experiences the extensive competition, maybe after each round or even each day.
But The Ear also wants to hear from you.
Do you have thoughts about the various contestants?
Who are your favorites and why?
Thoughts about the programs and repertoire being played?
Other thoughts about the competition in general?
The Ear Wants to hear.
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Too bad the Wisconsin Union Theater didn’t book a great pianist for next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
“We are living in a Golden Age of pianists,” famed concert pianist, Juilliard teacher and frequent Madison performer Emanuel Ax (below) has said.
He should know. But you would never guess that from the recently announced next season at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below).
The WUT has not booked a solo pianist for the 2022-23 season.
Here is a link to the lineup for the next season:
https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/
Is The Ear the only one who has noticed and is disappointed?
Who else feels bad about it?
After all, this is the same presenting organization that brought to Madison such legendary pianists as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Jan Paderewski, Percy Grainger, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Dame Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Egon Petri, Robert Casadesus, William Kapell, Claudio Arrau, Alexander Brailowsky, Gary Graffman, Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Byron Janis, Misha Dichter, Peter Serkin, André Watts, Lili Kraus and Garrick Ohlsson
It is the same hall (below) in which The Ear has heard Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Valentina Lisitsa, Andras Schiff, Joyce Yang, Yefim Bronfman, Jeremy Denk, Ingrid Fliter, Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, Simone Dinnerstein, Wu Han and so many other great and memorable names including, of course, Emanuel Ax.
What a history!
As you can see and as The Ear likes to say, the Wisconsin Union Theater is “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.” For over 100 years, it is where the great ones play.
One irony is that many of those former bookings of pianists took place when the University of Wisconsin School of Music had many more pianists on the faculty and provided a major alternative venue for piano recitals.
Another irony is that so many young people take piano lessons (below) and are apt to want to attend, probably with their parents, to hear a live professional concert piano recital. You would think the WUT would also see the advantages of having such community outreach links to the public and to music education, especially since the WUT has hosted Open Piano Day for the public. (See the YouTube video of a Channel 3000 story in February 2020 at the bottom.)
From what The Ear reads, there are lots of up-and-coming pianists, many affordable names of various winners of national and international competitions. They should be affordable as well as worthy of being introduced to the Madison public.
But that seems a mission now largely left to the Salon Piano Series.
Plus, so many of the new pianists are young Asians who have never appeared here, which should be another draw for the socially responsible and diversity-minded WUT.
But that is another story for another day.
What do you think of the WUT not presenting a solo pianist next season?
Maybe there will be a pianist booked for the 2023-24 season.
What pianists would you like see booked by the WUT student programming committee?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Should the 1812 Overture be played this Fourth of July?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear recently noticed that the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra has once again scheduled the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky (below) as part of the finale of its Fourth of July concert on the evening of July 6, 2022.
The performance is part of this summer’s FREE Concerts on the Square (COS) by the WCO that run on six consecutive Wednesday nights from June 29 through Aug. 3. Concerts start at 7 p.m. on the King Street corner of the Capitol Square in downtown Madison, and will be conducted by Andrew Sewell.
For more information about the series and individual performers and programs, go to: https://wcoconcerts.org/concerts-tickets/concerts-on-the-square
An asterisk says programs are subject to change.
Which got The Ear to thinking: Should Tchaikovsky’s perennial favorite, the flashy and loud 1812 Overture, be played again this year?
It is a tradition that was started on Independence Day in 1974 by Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops, according to reputable sources.
But this year might be a very different case because of a quandary that might cause organizers, including PBS’ “A Capitol Fourth,” to rethink the program.
It is a choice that will confront many musical groups across the U.S., given the current unprovoked brutality and and war crimes being committed by Russia against Ukraine.
After all, many music groups, including the Metropolitan Opera, have already banned Russian performers who support Russian President Vladimir Putin and his unjustified war in Ukraine (below).
So here’s the question: Is it appropriate to play a favorite work celebrating a Russian military victory while Ukraine, the United States and Western allies, including NATO, are desperately trying to defeat Russian forces?
As you may recall, the overture was inspired by Russia’s victory over the invading forces of Napoleon who was attempting go conquer Russia. Like Hitler and the Nazis, Napoleon failed and the Russians prevailed. That is why, in the work, you hear the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” overcome by the chimes and cannons of the Russian victory hymn. (There was no Russian national anthem until 1815.)
Here is a link to more background in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_Overture
Will the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra or other orchestras as well as radio and TV stations around the U.S. find a substitute piece? Perhaps it could be the Ukrainian national anthem that is performed (as in the BBC Proms concert in the YouTube video at the bottom and as many other orchestras around the world, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra and John DeMain, have done).
What else could the WCO and other groups play — especially since Sousa marches are already usually featured on The Fourth?
Do you have a suggestion?
The Ear will be interested to see how the quandary is solved — with explanations and excuses, or with alternative music?
Meanwhile, as comedian Stephen Colbert likes to say: What do you think?
Should the “1812 Overture” be played on this Fourth of July?
Why?
Or why not?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The famed International Tchaikovsky Competition has been expelled from the World Federation of International Music Competitions
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By Jacob Stockinger
One of the granddaddies of all international music competitions — probably the best known and most prestigious — has been disowned.
The International Tchaikovsky Competition — the one that catapulted the young American pianist and first winner Van Cliburn (below, during the competition) to worldwide fame during the height of the Cold War, for which he received the only ticker tape parade in New York City ever given to a musician — has been expelled from the World Federation of International Music Competitions, which was founded in 1957 and represents 110 music competitions and programs to help young musicians build a career.
The move comes in response to recent events in Ukraine — including alleged Russian war crimes during its brutal, deadly and unprovoked invasion.
The famed Tchaikovsky Competition — which started in 1958 and is now for pianists, violinists, cellists, vocalists as well as woodwind and brass players — is held in Moscow and St. Petersburg and is financed and organized by the Russian government. It has launched the careers on many great musicians.
It is co-chaired by the discredited Russian conductor Valery Gergiev (below right, in 2014), a close friend and avid supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin (below left) and of the conflict in Ukraine.
The expulsion came about because the Tchaikovsky Competition refused to condemn the Russian invasion, as the federation requested.
Here is a link to the story that was published on the website Classical Music, an online publication of the BBC Music Magazine. It contains background on both the competition and the current state of affairs regarding Russian musicians and the Russian conflict in Ukraine. It has a lot of noteworthy links:
And here is the response from the organizers of the Russian competition, which takes place every four years. The 16th competition was held in 2019, and the 17th is still scheduled for 2023. (The announcement of the 2019 piano winners — by the Russian former piano winner Denis Matsuev, who has been boycotted because of Ukraine — is in the YouTube-Medici.TV video at the bottom.)
The response — which accuses the federation of “persecuting” Russian musicians and promises that it will be held as usual and remain open to contestants worldwide — is posted on the competition’s website:
https://tchaikovskycompetition.com/en/news/415.htm
It makes one wonder what the effects on the next Tchaikovsky competition will be.
Will potential jurors outside Russia boycott the competition?
Will non-Russian contestants — with the exception perhaps on Chinese and Belarusian performers — avoid participating?
And what will be the effect on the inaugural Rachmaninoff Competition for pianists, composers and conductors that is scheduled to take place this June in Moscow?
What do you think?
Is it the right call by the international federation?
Or the wrong call?
Why do you think so?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
How do post-pandemic concert attendance and programming in Madison compare to the rest of the U.S.?
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By Jacob Stockinger
How has concert attendance rebounded from the covid pandemic?
What kind of programming seems to help orchestras recover the most?
Earlier this week The New York Times published a well-researched story that explored those trends and questions in other major cities, including Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis in the Midwest.
It includes statistics about attendance figures rising after the pandemic and links the results to certain trends in programming, including scheduling more of the core repertoire that draws people in.
Overall it paints an optimistic and hopeful picture of recovery for symphony orchestras.
It got The Ear to thinking: How are local groups such as the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Madison Opera doing in comparison?
Lessons from other organizations might help to explain why next season’s concerts include an all-film score concert celebrating Pixar and Disney, and a live mariachi band.
Perhaps I missed it, but I can’t recall any local media doing a similar story with hard box office statistics about ticket sales and attendance numbers. But it would certainly be enlightening to see specific data and commentary about how well local groups have rebounded from the pandemic.
Here is a link to The New York Times story. You should be able to read it if you scroll down past the ad that says you need to set up a free account:
Do you have some idea or sense about attendance trends from personal experience?
How do you think orchestras and other groups, including chamber music, have fared as covid fears have eased?
The Ear wants to hear.
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