The Well-Tempered Ear
UW-Madison School of Music kills off the venerable campus-community Choral Union
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By Jacob Stockinger
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music will end the long-lived campus-community Choral Union (below at the top, with soloists and the UW Symphony Orchestra at the bottom) starting this fall. You can hear an excerpt from Handel’s “Elijah” performed in the old Mills Hall in the YouTube video at the bottom.
The news, dated June 1, was posted quietly and anonymously on the school’s website. As The Ear understands it, members of the Choral Union were not contacted directly. They just had to find it. Plus, the summer seems a suspicious and inauspicious time for the announcement. Student, faculty and community members are on vacation. In addition, the new director Dan Cavanagh (below) will take over the office from Susan C. Cook in a little over two weeks, on July 1. No word on how he stands about the move.
Here is the music school’s website posting: https://music.wisc.edu/choral-ensembles/
It doesn’t come as a complete surprise to The Ear, since performances were reduced from two semesters to one semester shortly after Mariana Farah (below) became the new Director of Choral Activities in 2021 after the retirement of Beverly Taylor, who continues to serve as the choral director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
Student, alumni and community protests are already coming in expressing the resolve to reverse the decision.
Little wonder since the Choral Union was founded in 1893 and is one of the oldest on-going organizations on campus. It is hard to think of a better embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea. That concept is that the public university is to serve the taxpaying public that funds it — and these days community engagement is still supposed to be a high priority.
The Choral Union also seems like an exemplary educational program that gets soloists, the choir of students and the public, and the symphony to work together on a major project that also raises money for the music school.
Over many years, the Choral Union performances have also provided much of the most memorable music-making The Ear has ever heard at the university — or in the city. Works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Verdi, Faure and Benjamin Britten, among others, come to mind.
Here is the exact text, which is vague about any reasons for the cancellation of the 130-year-old Choral Union:
Choral Union Update (June 1, 2023)
“Starting Fall 2023, the Mead Witter School of Music will no longer offer Choral Union. This change will allow the School of Music to devote resources to our core mission of serving UW–Madison students as well as to focus our public programming around new goals.
“The School of Music and its choral program deeply value and appreciate the partnerships we have formed over the years with the Madison-area choral community. And we recognize that ending the Choral Union may be disappointing to some.
“We hope that community members who participated in the Choral Union will continue to partake of the many opportunities available to engage with the School of Music such as choral concerts and the multitude of performances, lectures, and workshops we offer every year.”
The negative reactions and feedback have already started. Here is one example:
The oldest organization at the UW-Madison has been canceled with an unsigned email and no public input?
This can’t be right.
The Choral Union is a beloved institution.
We won’t let it go like this. We need to know what the issues are and solve them.
Let the discussion begin.
–Janet Murphy, alto member of the Choral Union, 2008-present
Spread the word. Should you or others wish to express an opinion of support or opposition, here are some email addresses and phone numbers:
General office:music@music.wisc.edu; 608.263.1900
School director Susan C. Cook: director@music.wisc.edu; 608.263.1900
Director of Choral Activities: mariana.farah@wisc.edu; 608.263.1900
What do you think of the UW killing off the Choral Union?
What would you like to know about the decision?
Would you like the UW School of Music to reverse its decision?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Can American film director Ron Howard make a sensitive and accurate biopic of Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang? Or is it a cultural appropriation that deserves to be condemned?
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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.
By Jacob Stockinger
The self-appointed PC diversity police have struck again.
This is getting silly and tiresome, insulting and embarrassing.
Some advocates of cultural diversity are crying foul over the latest project of the American and Academy Award-winning Hollywood film director Ron Howard: making a biopic of the superstar Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang (below).
The script will be drawn from the pianist’s bestselling memoir “Journey of a Thousand Miles” — which has also been recast as an inspirational children’s book — and the director and scriptwriters will consult with Lang Lang.
It seems to The Ear a natural collaboration, as well as a surefire box office hit, between two high-achieving entertainers. Check out their bios:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Lang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Howard
But some people are criticizing the project in the belief that because Ron Howard (below) is white and Western, he cannot do justice to someone who is Chinese or to Asian culture.
Here is an essay, found on the website of Classic FM, by one objector. She is Chinese film director Lulu Wang (below), who says she has no interest in doing the project herself: https://www.classicfm.com/artists/lang-lang/pianist-biopic-ron-howard-faces-criticism-lulu-wang/
Talk about misplaced alarm over “cultural appropriation.”
Don’t you think that Lang Lang will have a lot to say about how he is depicted?
Do you wonder if Wang thinks cultural appropriation works in reverse?
Should we dismiss Lang Lang’s interpretations of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Bartok simply because he is non-Western and Chinese rather than German, French or Russian?
Of course not. They should be taken on their own merits, just as the interpretations of any other Asian classical musician, and artists in general including Ai Weiwei, should be.
But however unfairly, cultural appropriation just doesn’t seem to work in reverse.
Mind you, The Ear thinks that cultural appropriation is a valid concept and can indeed sometimes be useful in discussing cross-cultural influences.
But it sure seems that the concept is being applied in an overly broad and even misdirected or ridiculous way, kind of the way that the idea of “micro-aggressions” can be so generously applied that it loses its ability to be truthful and useful.
Take the example of the heterosexual Taiwanese movie director Ang Lee. He certainly proved himself able to depict American culture in “The Ice Storm” and the gay world in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Let’s be clear. The Ear is a piano fan.
But if he objects to the project, it is because he doesn’t like Lang Lang’s flamboyant playing, his Liberace-like performance manners and showmanship, and his exaggerated facial expressions.
Yet there is no denying the human appeal of his story. He rose from a young and suicidal piano student (below) who was emotionally abused by his ambitious father – shades of the lives of young Mozart and Beethoven and probably many other prodigies – to become the best known, most frequently booked and highest paid classical pianist in the world.
Yet not for nothing did some critics baptize him with the nickname Bang Bang.
Still, the Curtis Institute graduate does all he can to foster music education, especially among the young and the poor.
And there is simply no denying his virtuosity. (See Lang Lang playing Liszt’s Paganini etude “La Campanella” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
So there is plenty to object to about Lang Lang the Piano Star besides the ethnicity of Ron Howard, who also did a biopic of opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti, in telling his story.
What do you think?
Is it culturally all right for Ron Howard to direct a film about Lang Lang?
Do you look forward to the movie and seeing it?
What do you think of Lang Lang as a pianist and a celebrity?
The Ear wants to hear.
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