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ALERT: This Sunday, April 25, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition at the UW-Madison will perform in a winners’ concert. Included in the program are the popular and dramatic “Appassionata” Sonata, Op. 57, and the famous and innovative last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op 111. Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMF0Hd1MJwMg. Click on “Show More” and you can see the full programs and biographical profiles of the winners.
By Jacob Stockinger
The concert could hardly be more timely or the subject more relevant.
Think of the events in and near Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S.; of the Black Lives Matter movement and social protest; of the political fight for D.C. statehood and voting rights – all provide a perfect context for an impressive student project that will debut online TONIGHT, Saturday, April 24, at 7 p.m.
The one-hour free concert “Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown and Tan” originated at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. It seems an ideal way for listeners to turn to music and art for social and political commentary, and to understand the racial subtexts of art.
Soprano Quanda Dawnyell Johnson (below) created, chose and performs the cycle of songs by Black composers with other Black students at the UW-Madison.
Click on “Show More” to see the complete program and more information.
Here is the artist’s statement:
“Within the content of this concert are 17 art songs that depict the reality of the souls of a diasporic people. Most of the lyricists and all of the composers are of African descent. In large part they come from the U.S. but also extend to Great Britain, Guadeloupe by way of France, and Sierra Leone.
“They speak to the veracity of Black life and Black feeling. A diasporic African reality in a Classical mode that challenges while it embraces a Western European vernacular. It is using “culture” as an agent of resistance.
“I refer to verisimilitude in the plural. While syntactically incorrect, as it relates to the multiple veils of reality Black people must negotiate, it is very correct.
“To be packaged in Blackness, or should I say “non-whiteness” is to ever live in a world of spiraling modalities and twirling realities. To paraphrase the great artist, Romare Bearden, in “calling and recalling” — we turn and return, then turn again to find the place that is our self.
“I welcome you to… Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown, and Tan”
Here, by sections, is the complete program and a list of performers:
I. Nascence
Clear Water — Nadine Shanti
A Child’s Grace — Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Night — Florence Price (below)
Big Lady Moon — Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
II. Awareness
Lovely, Dark, and Lonely — Harry T. Burleigh
Grief –William Grant Still (below)
Prayer — Leslie Adams
Interlude, The Creole Love Call — Duke Ellington
III. The Sophomore
Mae’s Rent Party, We Met By Chance –Jeraldine Saunders Herbison
The Barrier — Charles Brown
IV. Maturity
Three Dream Portraits: Minstrel Man, Dream Variation; I, Too — Margaret Bonds (below)
Dreams — Lawren Brianna Ware
Song Without Words — Charles Brown
Legacy
L’autre jour à l’ombrage (The Other Day in the Shade) — Joseph Boulogne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges, below)
The Verisimilitudes Team
Quanda Dawnyell Johnson — Soprano and Project Creator
The Madison Summer Choir (below) will present its ninth annual concert, “Art: The Timeless Resistance – The Voice of the Oppressed,” on this coming Wednesday night, June 28, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall of the UW-Madison’s Mosse Humanities Building, 455 N. Park St.
The suggested ticket donation is $15.
The concert brings together a variety of works that have served as an outlet for suffering peoples, works that gave them a voice where they otherwise had none.
The concert will begin with Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, a traditional Spiritual arranged by Jay Althouse.
This is followed by Miriam’s Song of Triumph, composed by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) very near the end of his short life to a German text (Mirjams Siegesgesang) by Austrian poet Franz Grillparzer. The text and music describe the Exodus and the celebration of Miriam and the Israelites after fleeing Egypt. (You can hear the work in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The first half ends with two shorter works again in English, There Will be Rest, a setting of a poem by Sara Teasdale by Frank Ticheli (below top), of the University of Southern California, and How Can I Keep from Singing? by Baptist minister and American literature professor Robert Lowry (1826-1899, below bottom), as arranged in 2010 by Taylor Davis.
The choir will be accompanied by oboist Malia Huntsman and concertmaster Elspeth Stalter-Clouse.
The second half of the program is devoted to the Mass in C (1807) by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), and will be performed with full orchestra.
The choir was founded by UW-Madison graduate and artistic director Ben Luedcke (below) – who now teaches at Monmouth College — after the UW Summer Choir was eliminated due to budget constraints.
The Madison Summer Choir is an auditioned choir of 60 to 70 voices that performs a cappella works, piano-accompanied works and choral-orchestral works in a short season at the beginning of summer.
This student and community singing opportunity and tradition continue thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our singers and our audience to fund our complete existence in six weeks.
The Well-Tempered Ear 
Songs by Black composers trace their cultural realities in a free online UW performance TONIGHT of “Verisimilitudes.” Plus, the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition perform Sunday.
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
ALERT: This Sunday, April 25, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition at the UW-Madison will perform in a winners’ concert. Included in the program are the popular and dramatic “Appassionata” Sonata, Op. 57, and the famous and innovative last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op 111. Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMF0Hd1MJwMg. Click on “Show More” and you can see the full programs and biographical profiles of the winners.
By Jacob Stockinger
The concert could hardly be more timely or the subject more relevant.
Think of the events in and near Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S.; of the Black Lives Matter movement and social protest; of the political fight for D.C. statehood and voting rights – all provide a perfect context for an impressive student project that will debut online TONIGHT, Saturday, April 24, at 7 p.m.
The one-hour free concert “Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown and Tan” originated at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. It seems an ideal way for listeners to turn to music and art for social and political commentary, and to understand the racial subtexts of art.
Soprano Quanda Dawnyell Johnson (below) created, chose and performs the cycle of songs by Black composers with other Black students at the UW-Madison.
Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/-g5hjeuSumw
Click on “Show More” to see the complete program and more information.
Here is the artist’s statement:
“Within the content of this concert are 17 art songs that depict the reality of the souls of a diasporic people. Most of the lyricists and all of the composers are of African descent. In large part they come from the U.S. but also extend to Great Britain, Guadeloupe by way of France, and Sierra Leone.
“They speak to the veracity of Black life and Black feeling. A diasporic African reality in a Classical mode that challenges while it embraces a Western European vernacular. It is using “culture” as an agent of resistance.
“I refer to verisimilitude in the plural. While syntactically incorrect, as it relates to the multiple veils of reality Black people must negotiate, it is very correct.
“To be packaged in Blackness, or should I say “non-whiteness” is to ever live in a world of spiraling modalities and twirling realities. To paraphrase the great artist, Romare Bearden, in “calling and recalling” — we turn and return, then turn again to find the place that is our self.
“I welcome you to… Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown, and Tan”
Here, by sections, is the complete program and a list of performers:
I. Nascence
Clear Water — Nadine Shanti
A Child’s Grace — Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Night — Florence Price (below)
Big Lady Moon — Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
II. Awareness
Lovely, Dark, and Lonely — Harry T. Burleigh
Grief –William Grant Still (below)
Prayer — Leslie Adams
Interlude, The Creole Love Call — Duke Ellington
III. The Sophomore
Mae’s Rent Party, We Met By Chance –Jeraldine Saunders Herbison
The Barrier — Charles Brown
IV. Maturity
Three Dream Portraits: Minstrel Man, Dream Variation; I, Too — Margaret Bonds (below)
Dreams — Lawren Brianna Ware
Song Without Words — Charles Brown
Legacy
L’autre jour à l’ombrage (The Other Day in the Shade) — Joseph Boulogne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges, below)
The Verisimilitudes Team
Quanda Dawnyell Johnson — Soprano and Project Creator
Lawren Brianna Ware – -Pianist and Music Director
Rini Tarafder — Stage Manager
Akiwele Burayidi – Dancer
Jackson Neal – Dancer
Nathaniel Schmidt – Trumpet
Matthew Rodriguez – Clarinet
Craig Peaslee – Guitar
Aden Stier –Bass
Henry Ptacek – Drums
Dave Alcorn — Videographer
Here is a link to the complete program notes with lyrics and composer bios. And a preview audio sample is in the YouTube video at the bottom: https://simplebooklet.com/verisimilitudesprogramnotes#page=1
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