The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Bach Around the Clock 2019 is looking for performers of all kinds to play on March 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
Do you like the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (below, followed by photos of performances from past years)?
Then attention individuals and groups!
Amateurs and professionals!
Students and teachers!
Young people and old!
Instrumentalists and singers!
Bach Around the Clock – the annual one-day festival to mark the birthday of composer Johann Sebastian Bach – is looking for performers for the 12 hours of celebration.
This year, the event takes place on Saturday, March 2.
Here is an official announcement with complete details about participating in and supporting the event:
Would YOU like to perform at Bach Around the Clock (BATC)?
Plan to join in the celebration of the 334th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
Musicians — amateur and professional — are invited to perform their favorite piece by Bach.
To request a performance spot, go to the BATC website and click on “Contact Us” to find our online sign-up request form.
Tell us who you are, whether it’s you alone or in a group, what you would like to perform, what instrument(s) and the approximate amount of time you would like for your performance. We will get back in touch with you with complete details.
Here is a link: https://bachclock.com/
Performances will take place on Saturday, March 2, at St. Andrew’s Church, 1833 Regent St., Madison, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. It will be live-streamed on local radio stations and websites.
P.S. You can help keep this festival free and open to all! Bach Around the Clock welcomes donations to help meet the costs of offering this free community event. To make a secure online contribution, click below:
Bach Around the Clock is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
The Ear, who finds the event instructive and enjoyable, wants to add that although he loves and appreciates performances of Bach’s works as they were originally intended, he especially enjoys unusual arrangements that show the plasticity and genius of Bach’s music. He loves bluegrass Bach, roots Bach, jazz Bach, fell Bach and more.
From past years, he remembers hearing Two-Part Inventions written for keyboard played by a bassoon and flute duo. (You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.) Similarly, he found it entrancing when one of the suites for solo cello was played on a saxophone and another on an electric bass guitar.
The Ear loves such unexpected variety – and is sure that Johann Sebastian himself, who often borrowed from and transcribed his own works, would approve.
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Classical music: Superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma turns 60. NPR offers a capsule biography and generous sound samples from throughout his varied career.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Have cello. Will play.
Any style. Any place.
Last Wednesday, superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma, turned 60.
The unquestionable quality, astounding diversity and enviable longevity of his career will come as no surprise to Madison audiences.
After all, Ma (below, in a photo by Jason Bell for Sony Classical) has performed here many times, mostly at the Wisconsin Union Theater – he reopened the renovated Shannon Hall — but also at the Overture Center.
Ma has performed solo here. But he also has played with his longtime chamber music partner pianist Emanuel Ax and with the acclaimed Silk Road Ensemble and the bluegrass or roots music by violinist-composer Mark O’Conner.
And Ma has commissioned many works – including some by composers Osvaldo Golijov and John Adams – that have entered the mainstream repertoire. His influence on contemporary music will be felt for a very long time.
The Ear has met Ma in person a couple of times and found him to be as congenial and humorous as he is talented and original.
An iconic figure on TV and radio, Ma is a master of using the mass media although he never seems a crass self-promoter.
He is a veritable American cultural institution who also enjoys going on PBS for “Sesame Street” and “Live From Lincoln Center” as well as doing a cameo appearance playing unaccompanied Bach in the drama “The West Wing.” (You can hear him play the same piece in a YouTube video at the bottom that has more than 12 million hits.)
Perhaps you have also heard him live, maybe even more than once.
One thing is important but is overlooked by the NPR piece: The ever-reliable Ma is outstandingly successful at the box office. He is probably the most bankable and commercially successful American classical musician on the scene today. Ma’s career bodes well for the future of classical music that otherwise worries so many observers and participants.
You surely will appreciate the eminently readable and listenable post that Tim Huizenga wrote for the “Deceptive Cadence” blog on NPR or National Public Radio.
Here is a link:
http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2015/10/07/446364616/the-diverse-world-of-yo-yo-ma
Do you have a birthday greeting for or memory of cellist Yo-Yo Ma?
Leave it in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Arts, Avery Fisher Hall, Bach, Baroque, bluegrass, Boston, box office, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Compact Disc, concerto, Emanuel Ax, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Adams, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Live From Lincoln Center, Madison, mass media, media, Music, New York City, NPR, Orchestra, Osvaldo Golijov, PBS, Piano, public radio, Radio, roots music, Sesame Street, Silk Road Ensemble, Television, The West Wing, TV, United States, Violin, Wisconsin, Yo-Yo Ma, YouTube
“Grace Presents” opens its new season this Saturday at noon with a FREE one-hour concert by the local percussion group Clocks in Motion, which has just released its first recording.
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By Jacob Stockinger
“Grace Presents,” which just got a new program director Andrea Mauch (below), continues to develop as one of the most innovating and welcome FREE music events in Madison.
The once-a-month series, which is sponsored by and hosted at Grace Episcopal Church (below), 116 West Washington Ave., in downtown Madison on the Capitol Square, offers classical music but also folk, bluegrass, roots and jazz. The quaint historic church has great acoustics and decorating inside.
For the opening concert the performers at the unusual percussion group “Clocks in Motion,” which grew out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where the group is now an “affiliate ensemble in residence” for the percussion program. (You can hear them perform in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Clocks in Motion has also just released its first recording, “Escape Velocity,” which is an impressive CD that includes a work by Madison composer John Jeffrey Gibbons (below, in a photo by Milt Leidman).
The hour-long concert on Saturday -– to run from noon to about 1 p.m. –- will feature rarely heard instruments and unusual compositions that will use contemporary music to highlight the power and diversity of percussion music.
Clocks in Motion’s fresh and innovative approach to contemporary classical performance will provide an exciting concert experience for the Madison community.
The program this Saturday includes:
The new mallet quintet, “Gravity”, by Marc Mellits, was commissioned in part by Clocks in Motion in 2013. This piece features Mellits’ pop-minimalistic style with driving rhythms and lush harmonies. The sectional work builds in intensity, resulting in a climactic and satisfying ending.
In “Music for Pieces of Wood” minimalist pioneer Steve Reich liberates the listener from the downbeat with interlocking rhythm and shifting musical gestures. Five performers using warm-toned paduk instruments become one mesmerizing voice.
“Drumming Part 1”, also by Reich, is a driving minimalist piece in which four musicians play four pairs of tuned bongos. The work was highly influenced by the rhythms found in western Africa, but Reich (below) also employs original compositional techniques, such as rhythmic phasing and pattern construction.
“Four Miniatures” is an original composition by Clocks in Motion member Dave Alcorn (below). It explores the sonic possibilities of handheld percussion. Comprised of four mini-quartets for triangles, tambourines, Uchiwa Daiko and woodblocks/reco-reco, this attractive piece proves that even the smallest instruments can make one move in their seat.
“Third Construction”, by John Cage (below), features a wildly diverse instrumentation. Clocks in Motion will use tin cans, maracas, claves, cowbells, Indo-Chinese rattles, quijadas, cricket callers, a conch shell, ratchets, and various drums in this singular and innovative 1941 work.
Here is more form a press release:
“Hailed as “nothing short of remarkable” by ClevelandClassical.com, Clocks in Motion is a group that performs new music, builds its own instruments, and breaks down the boundaries of the traditional concert program.
“With a fearless and uncompromising ear to programming challenging and adventurous contemporary percussion ensemble repertoire, Clocks in Motion consistently performs groundbreaking concerts involving performance art, theater, and computer technology.
“Featuring world premieres alongside rarely performed classic works, this ensemble strives to create a new canon of percussion repertoire.
“Clocks in Motion works passionately to educate the young audiences of the future through master classes, residencies, presentations and school assemblies.
“The individual members of Clocks in Motion’s unique skill sets and specialties contain an impressive mix of musical styles including, rock, jazz, contemporary classical music, orchestral percussion, marching percussion, and world music styles.
“Clocks in Motion has served as resident performers and educators at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Casper College, the University of Michigan, Baldwin-Wallace University, VIBES Fine and Performing Arts, Traverse City West High School, Traverse City East Middle School, Rhapsody Arts Center, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
“Formed in 2011, Clocks in Motion began as an extension of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Graduate Percussion Group, and now serves as the ensemble-in-residence with the UW-Madison percussion studio.
Members of Clocks in Motion are Dave Alcorn, Jennifer Hedstrom, Sean Kleve, Michael Koszewski and James McKenzie.
Tags: Arts, Baldwin-Wallace University, bluegrass, Casper College, Chamber music, Classical music, Clock, Clocks in Motion, Contemporary classical music, folk, Folk music, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, John Cage, Madison, Marc Mellits, New Music, Overture Center, percussion, Percussion instrument, Performing arts, roots music, Steve Reich, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Live music continues its comeback from the pandemic. Today is Make Music Madison with free concerts citywide of many kinds of music. Here are guides with details
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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
Live music continues to make its comeback from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The past week saw live outdoor concerts by Con Vivo, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and the Middleton Community Orchestra.
Today – Monday, June 21 –is Make Music Madison 2021.
It is part of an annual worldwide phenomenon that started in France in 1982. It has since spread globally and is now celebrated in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries.
Yet in the U.S., Wisconsin is one of only five states that celebrate Make Music Day statewide. The other states are Connecticut, Hawaii, New Mexico and Vermont. In there U.S., more than 100 cities will take part in presenting free outdoor concerts. Globally, the audience will be in the millions.
The day is intended to be a way to celebrate the annual Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Technically, the solstice occurred in Wisconsin last night, on Father’s Day, at 10:32 p.m. CDT.
But The Ear is a forgiving kind. This will be the first full day of summer, so the spirit of the celebration lives on despite the calendar.
You can see – the composer Igor Stravinsky advised listening with your eyes open – and hear 38 different kinds of music. The choices include blues, bluegrass, Celtic, roots music, gospel, rock, jazz, classical, folk, African music, Asian music, world music, children’s music (see the YouTube video at the bottom) and much more. It will be performed by students and teachers, amateurs and professionals, individuals and groups.
Here is a link to a press release about the overall event: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/make-music-day-2021-announces-updated-schedule-of-events-301304107.html
And here is a link to the global home website — with more background information and a live-stream video of a gong tribute to the who died of COVID — about the festival: https://www.makemusicday.org
The local events will take place from 5 a.m. to midnight. All are open to the public without admission, and safety protocols will be observed.
Here is a guide to local events that allow you to search particulars of the celebration by area of the city, genre of music, performers, venues and times. If you are a classical fan, in The Ear’s experience you might want to pay special attention to Metcalfe’s market in the Hilldale mall.
Here is a link to the home webpage of Make Music Madison: https://www.makemusicmadison.org
Here is a link to the event calendar with maps and schedules as well as alternative plans in case of rain and various menus for searching: https://www.makemusicmadison.org/listings/
Happy listening!
In the Comment section, please leave your observations and suggestions or advice about the quality and success of the festival and the specific events you attended.
The Ear wants to hear.
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