The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: After 54 years at the UW-Madison, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) will move this fall to the new McFarland Performing Arts Center.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Starting this fall, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO, below) will have a new home for classes, rehearsals and performances.
The news of moving to the McFarland Performing Arts Center (below) is very good for WYSO. But The Ear feels sad to see the University of Wisconsin-Madison and WYSO parting ways after a partnership of 54 years.
It feels like the UW, a distinguished public institution, is backing away from the Wisconsin Idea of public service to the citizens who fund the university. It is embodied in the saying that “the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state.” (Editor’s note: For more about the Wisconsin Idea and its Progressive Era history, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Idea)
It feels, in short, like a setback to community engagement by the UW-Madison and its Mead Witter School of Music, where WYSO once had offices and used Mills Concert Hall.
Be that as it may, here is a WYSO email newsletter’s account of what led up to the decision and move.
“The news from University of Wisconsin-Madison started trickling in a little at a time.
“First, Mills Hall (below), where WYSO had rehearsed almost every Saturday since the Humanities Building opened, was scheduled for transformation from a concert hall into a lecture hall. (You can see WYSO performing in Mills Hall in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“Then the UW began to reconsider whether pre-college programs should actually share space with university departments.
“And there was the growth of WYSO itself — from one full orchestra to three, plus two string orchestras, a chamber music program (below top), a full array of ensembles, and the community-impact Music Makers (below bottom).
“Meanwhile, 12 minutes away, the town of McFarland opened an amazing 841-seat, state-of-the-art performing arts center (below).
“And incredibly, the adjacent middle school and high school campus (below) had enough parking and enough rehearsal space to accommodate the entire WYSO program with room to grow — all of the student musicians, all of the orchestras, and all rehearsing at the same time.
“In a unique move of creative place-making, McFarland’s School Superintendent Andrew Briddell reached out to WYSO and suggested all of the above opportunities, plus collaboration with the McFarland schools, staff and community, and the ability to build on the creative history of the town itself.
“Passionate about music and education, Andrew Briddell, earned a double major in music and English from Indiana University, a Master’s degree in bassoon from Temple University, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the UW-Madison.
“”A talented bassoon player, Briddell (below) played with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and was music director of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Birmingham.
“What a perfect match for this collaboration!
“It was an invitation too good to pass up. So starting in the fall of 2020, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras will be in residence at the new McFarland Performing Arts Center.”
To read more details about WYSO’s new home, including design and acoustics, go to: https://www.wysomusic.org/the-wyso-weekly-tune-up-april-17-2020-wysos-new-home/
What do you think about the new move WYSO?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music education: Here is a shout-out for Susan Cook, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, who defended music education and music performance as part of the Wisconsin Idea that is now under attack by state Republicans.
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By Jacob Stockinger
If you attended the recent concert by the winners of the UW-Madison School of Music Concerto Competition, you heard something extraordinary besides terrific music by Johann Strauss, Francois Borne, Ernest Chausson, Charles Gounod, Sergei Rachmaninoff and UW-Madison graduate student in composition Adam Betz from the four soloists, two conductors and the UW Symphony Orchestra.
At the beginning of the concert Susan Cook (below), who is a respected musicologist and the relatively new director of the School of Music, stood before the large house and defended music education and music performance as part of the Wisconsin Idea.
That long-celebrated idea that was formulated in the Progressive Era – that the publicly funded university exists to serve all the citizens of the state –- is under attack from anti-intellectual, budget-cutting Republicans who are being led by presidential wannabe Gov. Scott Walker.
Clearly, Walker and the conservative Republicans are once again picking on public workers — this time university professors — as overpaid and underworked scapegoats.
In addition, they are insisting that the university has to do more to foster economic development with the implication that the arts and humanities are not doing their fair share compared to the sciences, the professions and engineering. Why not turn the UW-Madison into a trade school or vocational school?
So they seem determined to dismantle the great University of Wisconsin or reduce it to a second-rate institution. And they are annoyed and disapproving that UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank is playing politics right back at them by marshalling alumni and faculty, staff and students, to fight back against the record $300 million budget cut.
Too bad the state legislators don’t rank as high among state legislatures as the UW-Madison does among public universities. They should be taking lessons – not giving them.
Anyway, Susan Cook (below) eloquently defended music education and music performance. She pointed out the diversity of the students in the School of Music. She pointed out the national distinctions that the school and its faculty have earned. And she pointed out how many of the school’s teachers and performers tour the state, and even the country and world, to share their art and knowledge. Surely all of that fulfills the ideals of the Wisconsin Idea.
In addition, the growing body of research studies show that music education plays a vital role in all education and in successful careers in other fields. But one doubts whether the Republicans will consider that as central to economic development -– even though businesses lament the lack of a prepared workforce.
Cook got loud and sustained applause for her remarks.
She deserved it.
Cook stood up and, as the Quakers say, spoke truth to power.
So The Ear sends a big shout-out to Susan Cook and hopes that all music fans will second her views and protest and resist what the governor and state legislature want to do to gut the UW-Madison.
Brava, Susan Cook!
The Ear says leave a Comment and show both the politicians and the School of Music that you stand with Cook and want to preserve the quality of the UW-Madison, in the arts and humanities as well as in the sciences and technology, to be maintained.
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