The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The eclectic fusion group Mr. Chair plays music by Stravinsky, Satie and others on Monday night in Spring Green
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement from the Rural Musicians Forum:
Mr. Chair looks like a jazz quartet, sounds sometimes like a rock band, but in actuality is a contemporary classical music group in the guise of a modern band.
Classically trained musicians who are well versed in jazz, the players in Mr. Chair create a new sound using both acoustic and electric instruments.(You can hear Mr. Chair perform the original composition “Freed” in the the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The Rural Musicians Forum audience will have the chance to enjoy the soundscapes of this fascinating eclectic fusion group on this coming Monday night, Aug. 19, at 7:30 p.m. at Taliesin’s Hillside Theater (below) in Spring Green.
Members of Mr. Chair (below) are Professor Mark Hetzler, trombone and electronics; Jason Kutz, piano and keyboards; Ben Ferris, acoustic and electric bass; and Mike Koszewski, drums and percussion. All have close ties to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, where they also perform as an ensemble.
Mr. Chair’s compositions are long-form journeys, telling stories through sound by using and exploring the three pillars of music: melody, harmony and rhythm. Think cinematic, orchestral, surreal, romantic, emotional and gripping, and always equal parts dissonant and consonant. Their influences are far-reaching from classical, blues and rock to soul, funk, jazz and beyond.
For this concert, Mr. Chair will perform re-imagined excerpts from Igor Stravinsky’s Neo-Classical ballet masterpiece Pulcinella as well as music by Erik Satie and selections from their debut album, NEBULEBULA, which will be released on Thursday, Sept. 5, on vinyl, CD and digital streaming platforms.
The genre-bending quartet will perform in the beautiful Hillside Theater designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as part of his Taliesin compound. It is located at 6604 State Highway 23, about five miles south of Spring Green.
Admission is by free will offering, with a suggested donation of $15.
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Classical music: The New Milwaukee Consort performs Renaissance and early Baroque love songs this Monday night in Spring Green
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Rural Musicians Forum will present the New Milwaukee Consort in a program of Baroque love songs on this coming Monday, Aug. 5, at 7:30 p.m. at the Unity Chapel in Spring Green.
This group of professionals and experts in early music includes soprano Kristin Knutson (below top), who competed in the 2015 Handel Aria Competition in Madison (in the YouTube video at the bottom); cellist and viol player Charlie Rasmussen (below middle); and lutenist Tim Sterner Miller (below bottom). They will perform on period instruments, bringing audiences back in time to the courts and chambers of Italy, England and France.
The New Milwaukee Consort is dedicated to the music of the European Renaissance and Baroque eras, crafting intimate performances around stories in words and music that resonate across the centuries.
They particularly relish bringing lesser-known sounds of the 17th century to modern audiences, from the work of women composers such as Barbara Strozzi (below) to music from handwritten manuscripts documenting the early development of the cello and ongoing experiments on the lute.
This concert features music from the chamber cantatas of the Venetian singer and composer Strozzi to celebrate her 400th birthday as well as works by her compatriots Claudio Monteverdi and Taruinio Merula; Elizabethan songs by lutenist and composer John Dowland (below); and “airs de cour” (Court music) by French court composer Etienne Moulinie.
Interwoven with these vocal works are pieces for the lute by Dowland and his contemporary Nicholas Vallet; for the viola da gamba by Tobia Hume and Marin Marais (below); and for the cello by Giulio Ruvo, Francesco Supriani and Giuseppe Jacchini.
This is an opportunity to enjoy some of the most precious pieces of Renaissance and Baroque era in the beautiful Unity Chapel (below) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Chapel is located at 6597 County Highway T in Spring Green.
Admission is by free will offering, with a suggested donation of $15.
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Classical music: Two Madison pianists perform four-hand American music Monday night at a concert for the Rural Musicians Forum at Taliesin in Spring Green
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By Jacob Stockinger
For the first time ever, the Rural Musicians Forum will present music for piano 4-hands, where two pianists play simultaneously on one piano.
On this coming Monday, July 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hillside Theater at architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, Madison-based pianists Satoko Hayami (below top) and Jason Kutz (below bottom) will showcase four-hand piano music by American composers, spanning from 1864 to 2019.
The concert by the two graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music will present a variety of composers and works created for this ensemble: pre-ragtime composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s virtuosic arrangement of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture; excerpts from Samuel Barber’s Souvenirs, a ballet suite (heard played tag-team style in the YouTube video below); a lush arrangement of themes from the Wizard of Oz by William Hirtz; and the riveting Gazebo Dances by John Corigliano, a four-movement work that, in his own words, suggests “the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside, where public band concerts are given on summer evenings.”
Additionally, the audience will hear the world premiere arrangement of Music in 3/4 for Four by Kutz, excerpts from his solo piano suite, Music in 3/4.
Admission is by free will offering, with a suggested donation of $15.
Taliesin’s Hillside Theater (below) is located at 6604 State Highway 23, about five miles south of Spring Green.
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Classical music: Flutist and activist Iva Ugrcic is Musician of the Year for 2018
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By Jacob Stockinger
The classical music scene in Madison is so rich that it is always a challenge to name a Musician of the Year.
There are just so many deserving candidates. One obvious example is conductor John DeMain, who is completing his 25th year of outstanding stewardship in directing the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Madison Opera.
But part of the intent behind such an honor is not just to recognize well-known figures. It is to encourage a broader awareness of those people who do a lot for local classical music but who often fly under the radar for many people.
That is why The Ear is naming flutist and activist Iva Ugrcic (below) as the Musician of the Year for 2018.
As both a performer and entrepreneur, Ugrcic is always very busy broadening her varied career. Being both a player and an activist, she is making a difference, musically and socially, that deserves to be recognized and supported.
Serbian by birth and educated in Belgrade and Paris, she came to Madison where she completed her doctorate in flute performance and also took business courses at the UW-Madison Business School.
She is a first-rate performer who has won a national prize for performing. While at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, she won both the concerto competition (below) and the Irving Shain competition for wind instruments in duets. (You can hear her amazing technique in the YouTube video at the bottom. In it Ugrcic performs “Voice” for solo flute by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu.)
She now plays with the Black Marigold Wind Quintet and Sound Out Loud, both of which are based in Madison and both of which devote themselves to contemporary composers and new music.
This year, Urgcic also soloed with the Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by John W. Barker), performing to critical acclaim a relatively unknown concerto by 19th-century composer Carl Reinecke.
This year, Urgcic also took over as artistic director of the Rural Musicians Forum, which brings classical music, jazz, world music and ethnic music, played by outstanding performers to the Spring Green area, often at the Taliesin compound of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
But perhaps her most long-lasting contribution is her founding and now directing the LunART Festival that, in the same year of the Me Too movement, sought to present an all-women event that featured composers, performers, visual artists and writers.
Such was its inaugural success in 2018 that it won a national prize from the National Flute Association and a second festival will take place from June 9 through June 9, 2019.
2019 will also see the release of her second solo recording devoted to the music of the contemporary Romanian composer Doina Rotaru, even while she is working on a recording of “Beer Music” by contemporary American composer Brian DuFord.
And all that is just the beginning for such a promising talent. We will be hearing much more from her and about her in years to come.
To see her impressive biography, as well as updated activities, video and audio clips, photographs and other information, go to: https://www.ivaugrcic.com/bio
Here is one more thing that speaks to The Ear. It feels important, even necessary, to recognize the positive contributions of an immigrant at a time when the current “America First” administration under President Donald Trump seems so paranoid and negative, so xenophobic and afraid of foreigners.
The U.S government should be less intent on condemning or stigmatizing immigrants, whether legal or undocumented, and should put more emphasis on their contributions and on the long and distinguished history they have in the United States.
Iva Urgcic is yet another example of the talent we Americans stand to lose if we do not accept and encourage the gifts that immigrants bring in so many ways — from the arts, medicine, education and technology to everyday life and work.
Please join The Ear is expressing gratitude and congratulations to Iva Urgcic.
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Classical music: The amateur Middleton Community Orchestra opens its new season this Wednesday night with local flutist Iva Urgcic as soloist in a program of Reinecke, Glazunov and Haydn
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By Jacob Stockinger
The mostly amateur, highly acclaimed and very popular Middleton Community Orchestra (below) will open its new season this Wednesday night, Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m.
As usual, the concert will take place in the comfortable Middleton Performing Arts Center (below) that is adjacent to Middleton High School at 210 Bristol Street. Parking is plentiful and free.
Tickets are $15 general admission, but students and children are admitted free. The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and the auditorium opens at 7 p.m. Advance tickets can be purchased at Willy St. Coop West. Student tickets are available only at the door.
The season includes the “Autumn” section from “The Seasons: by the Russian composer Alexander Glazunov; the Symphony No. 100 by Franz Joseph Haydn; and the rarely heard Flute Concerto in D Major, Op. 283, by Carl Reinecke (1824-1910). (You can hear James Galway playing the first movement of the Reinecke Concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is the Wikipedia entry for Reinecke (below, in a photograph from 1890): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Reinecke
The conductor of this concert is Steve Kurr (below), the MCO’s resident conductor:
The flute soloist is the distinguished and very busy Iva Urgcic (below), who this past year also co-founded the award-winning LunART Festival, a series of new music from all-women composers with all-women performers and poets; and who took over this year as director of the Rural Musicians Forum in Spring Green. She did her graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music where she was a winner in the annual concerto competition.
Also as usual, there will be am informal meet-and-greet reception after the concert.
For more information about how to join or support the Middleton Community Orchestra or to see the concerts and programs for the rest of the 2018-19 season, go to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
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Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet plays in Spring Green this Monday, then tours Germany during August. It will perform the same tour program in several Wisconsin cities, including Madison, in early September
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement about another Madison group – in addition to the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra’s tour of Peru and the Scotland concerts by the Madison Youth Choirs – that is bringing its music to international audiences.
The group is the Ancora String Quartet (below, in a photo by Barry Lewis), which will leave for a tour of Germany next week. From left are: violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.
A sort of send-off concert is this Monday night in Spring Green. Here are the details:
The concert is for the Rural Musicians Forum and will take place on this coming Monday night, Aug. 13, at 7:30 p.m. at Unity Chapel, located at 6597 County Hwy T, in Spring Green.
The program features works by Joaquin Turina, Franz Joseph Haydn and Samuel Barber.
Admission is by free will offering, with a suggested donation of $15.
Soon to start its 18th season, the Ancora String Quartet has an impressive and extensive resume. The four players have well-established individual musical careers as soloists, chamber musicians and orchestral players. They perform regularly in Madison and beyond, appearing in such ensembles as the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Bach Musicians, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, and the Bach Collegium of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Here is what violist Marika Fischer Hoyt says about the upcoming tour to Germany:
“The Ancora String Quartet looks forward with eager anticipation to our first overseas tour.
“We are partnering with a fabulous mezzo-soprano, Melinda Paulsen (below), who serves on the voice faculty at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt.
“Together, we have selected a program of works by German and American composers, for mezzo-soprano and quartet, and for string quartet alone.
“The program includes: the beautiful Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner; Melancholie by Paul Hindemith, Drei Lieder (Three Songs) by Victor Ullmann; and Dover Beach by Samuel Barber, as well as the iconic Barber String Quartet with the slow movement that was re-orchestrated as the “Adagio for Strings.” (You can hear Samuel Barber’s “Dover Beach” with a mezzo-soprano in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“The quartet will be in Germany (map is below) from August 17 to August 26, performing at the Rathaus in Nieder-Olm; the Musikschule Chroma in Vellmar (north of Kassel); the Lutheran Church in Schlitz (halfway between Frankfurt and Kassel); and at Phillipsburg in Braubach, as part of the festival in St. Goar. The concert at the music school in Vellmar will be a lecture-concert for students, so we’re brushing up on our German!
“Following our performances in Germany, we will all return to Wisconsin to perform this same program Sept. 4-9 in Germantown, Whitewater, Janesville, Beloit and Madison. That includes an interview with radio host Norman Gilliland on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Midday” at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 5.
“We have secured funding from several German organizations, and received a generous grant from the Kassel County-Dane County Sister County Taskforce.
“Melinda and the members of this quartet are thrilled beyond words that this project has taken shape. We look forward to sharing with our audiences a program exploring the intersections between two cultures that are quite distinct today, but which share deep, common roots.”
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Last spring’s inaugural LunART Festival of women composers and creators in Madison wins a national prize
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By Jacob Stockinger
Some hearty applause and major congratulations are in order, especially in the #MeToo society and culture!
The inaugural LunART Festival that took place this past spring and celebrated women composers and creators just took First Prize from the National Flute Association.
Below is a photo of co-founder and co-director Iva Ugrcic holding the certificate that she received in Orlando, Florida:
And here is what she has to say, as passed along on the festival’s Facebook site, which has hundreds of congratulations and comments as well as photos:
“Over the moon for winning the 1st prize at the The National Flute Association C.R.E.A.T.E. Competition with my baby project LunART Festival”
In case you don’t recall what went into the inaugural three-day festival and what participants took part and what events resulted from it — including the combining of spoken word and music, which you can see in the YouTube video at the bottom — here is a reminder in the form of an extended festival preview:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/classical-music-the-inaugural-lunart-festival-celebrating-women-creators-and-performers-will-take-place-this-coming-thursday-through-saturday/
The festival was the brainchild of two local performers and graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
They are the flutist Iva Ugrcic, who is the new head of the Rural Musicians Forum in Spring Green, and the oboist Laura Medisky (below), who performs with the local wind quintet Black Marigold. Both musicians also play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.
The project proved savvy in how it used social media to launch it with success.
Here are some other links to keep you current with the festival as it looks forward to its second year:
Here is the festival’s home page and website:
https://www.lunartfestival.org
Here is the festival’s page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/lunartfestival/
This is the festival’s entry on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/lunartfestival
And you can also follow the LunART festival on Instagram.
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