The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Trevor Stephenson announces the new season of the Madison Bach Musicians on YouTube. It features smaller concerts and familiar comfort music
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By Jacob Stockinger
At a time when so many concerts are being canceled, it is especially welcome when a local ensemble announces plans for the 2020-21 season.
To announce the 17th season of the Madison Bach Musicians — a period-instrument group that uses historically informed performance practices — the founder and artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below), who also plays the harpsichord, fortepiano and piano, has made and posted a 13-1/2 minute YouTube video.
The season will also be posted on the MBM website in early June, and will also be announced with more details about times and ticket prices via email and postal mailings.
In the video, Stephenson plays the harpsichord. He opens the video with the familiar Aria from the “Goldberg” Variations and closes with two contrasting Gavottes from the English Suite in G minor.
As usual, Stephenson offers insights in the programs that feature some very well-known and appealing works that are sure to attract audiences anxious to once again experience the comfort of hearing familiar music performed live.
One thing Stephenson does not say is that there seems to be fewer ambitious programs and fewer imported guest artists. It’s only a guess, but The Ear suspects that that is because it is less expensive to stage smaller concerts and it also allows for easier cancellation, should that be required by a continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
If the speculation proves true, such an adaptive move is smart and makes great sense artistically, financially and socially given the coronavirus public health crisis.
After all, this past spring the MBM had to cancel a much anticipated, expensive and very ambitious production, with many out-of-town guests artists, of the “Vespers of 1610” by Claudio Monteverdi. Nonetheless, MBM tried to pay as much as it could afford to the musicians, who are unsalaried “gig” workers who usually don’t qualify for unemployment payments.
“Hope and Joy” is a timely, welcome and much-needed theme of the new season.
The new season starts on Saturday night, Oct. 3, at Grace Episcopal Church downtown on the Capitol Square, and then Sunday afternoon, Oct. 4, at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton.
The program is Haydn and Mozart: songs composed in English and German by Haydn plus songs by Mozart; the great violin sonata in E minor by Mozart; and two keyboard trios, one in C major by Haydn and one in G major by Mozart.
Only four players will be required. They include: Stephenson on the fortepiano; concertmaster Kangwon Kim on baroque violin; James Waldo on a Classical-era cello; and soprano Morgan Balfour (below), who won the 2019 Handel Aria Competition in Madison.
On Saturday night, Dec. 12, in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, near Camp Randall Stadium, MBM will perform its 10th annual holiday concert of seasonal music.
The program includes several selections from the “Christmas Oratorio” by Johann Sebastian Bach; a Vivaldi concerto for bassoon with UW-Madison professor Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill) as soloist; and the popular “Christmas Concerto” by Arcangelo Corelli.
On Saturday night, April 24, at Grace Episcopal Church and Sunday afternoon, April 25, at Holy Wisdom Monastery, the MBM will perform a concert of German Baroque masterworks with the internationally renowned baroque violinist Marc Destrubé (below).
The program features Handel and Bach but also composers who are not often played today but who were well known to and respected by Bach and his contemporaries.
Specifically, there will be a suite by Christoph Graupner (below top) and a work by Carl Heinrich Graun (below bottom).
There will also be a concerto grosso by George Frideric Handel and two very well-known concertos by Bach – the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and the Concerto for Two Violins.
Here is the complete video:
What do you think of the Madison Bach Musicians’ new season?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will start this summer’s six Concerts on the Square in late July and move them to Tuesdays at 6 p.m. Plus, other changes for the WCO are in the works
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcements from the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra:
Greetings to the family of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO, below in photo by Mike Gorski)!
For 37 summers, Concerts on the Square (below) has brought us together as a community to enjoy world-class music with our friends, family and neighbors.
To try and ensure these performances continue despite uncertain times, the WCO is delaying the start of Concerts on the Square to July 28, 2020 — starting at our new time, Tuesdays at 6 p.m.
The opening concert will feature 2020 Gilmore Young Artist Maxim Lando (below, in a photo by Matt Dine) – who recently gave a solo recital on the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos – performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1
It’s our hope that by delaying the concerts by five weeks, larger community gatherings will be safe and permitted, and we can continue to entertain the thousands of patrons who join us at each Concerts on the Square performance.
We plan to retain the same number of key performances. Visit www.wconconcerts.org for an up-to-date schedule, the names of guest artists and the programs.
Concerts on the Square is something we all look forward to each year, which is why our goal is to preserve it this summer. We will all be eager to get outside and enjoy the WCO tradition, but we need to be smart and safe about it.
The series will return to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays next year.
Here is the complete schedule of the series of FREE concerts that draw an average of 20,000 people to the downtown Capitol Square for each concert:
Concerts on the Square #1 – Tuesday, July 28, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #2 – Tuesday, Aug. 4, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #3 – Tuesday, Aug. 11, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #4 – Tuesday, Aug. 18, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #5 – Tuesday, Aug. 25, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #6 – Tuesday, Sept. 1, 6 p.m.
The WCO moved the series to Tuesday for scheduling needs and to avoid interrupting other local performances in late summer.
To keep up-to-date with performance schedules, community members can sign up for email updates on the WCO website or follow the orchestra on Facebook and Instagram.
“The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is alive and well – and there is nothing more we want than to perform for our community during these uncertain times,” says Joe Loehnis (below), CEO of the WCO. “At the same time, we want to be responsible and mindful of community safety. In that light, we believe the best thing to do is to push the start of Concerts on the Square into late July.”
OTHER NEWS
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is also using this time to move the organization forward for its fans.
In the coming weeks the orchestra is rolling out a new logo and new website, as well as launching the Friends of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra membership program.
#Coucherto: WCO MUSICIANS PERFORM ONLINE
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is home to talented and creative musicians, so it’s no surprise they are reaching for their instruments during the stay-at-home order.
Sharing solo performances from their homes as part of the WCO’s #coucherto series, orchestra members are delivering music – and messages – for everyone to enjoy while stuck on their sofas.
“Our musicians are the backbone – the lifeblood – of the WCO, and we couldn’t just sit back and not perform,” Loehnis said. “I firmly believe music makes everything better and if we can provide a bright spot for our community right now we’re going to jump at the opportunity.”
The #coucherto series is available on the WCO’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and website pages. Additionally, the WCO will share previously recorded concerts during the order.
MUSICIAN RELIEF FUND IS LIVE
With live performances delayed, the WCO remains committed to helping its musicians.
Through its newly created Musicians Relief Fund, the orchestra has raised more than $10,000 to help pay its musicians during this time. The WCO is working on several fronts to ensure its artists receive financial support.
“Our musicians aren’t just wonderful artists, they’re wonderful people. They’re our friends. They have families. And it’s vital as an organization we support them at all times,” says maestro Andrew Sewell (below, in a photo by Alex Cruz), who is in his 20th year as WCO’s music director. “The music will go on. But first and foremost, we need to do everything we can to help our musicians.”
To donate, visit wcoconcerts.org/donate.
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Classical music: Local groups stream videos to entertain home-bound listeners, and perhaps to promote their next seasons. Plus, the Madison Symphony Orchestra cancels and postpones its May concerts
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By Jacob Stockinger
Cancellations and postponements aren’t the only effects that the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic are having on the local classical music scene.
Many local ensembles – much like such national and international organizations as the Metropolitan Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra — are also starting to offer free streamed performances, some of them archival and some of them are specially performed.
Bach Around the Clock even held a virtual festival this year that featured many different original recorded performances spread out over many days and continues.
Why are they doing so?
Certainly to help entertain the public while they weather the boredom and loneliness of social distancing and sheltering in place at home. Music can comfort.
Perhaps they are also doing so as a smart marketing move to stay in the public’s consciousness despite cancellations and to indirectly promote their upcoming seasons.
Here are some examples:
The Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is offering a link to a YouTube performance — by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra below) — of the Dvorak Requiem, which the MSO orchestra and chorus were supposed to perform this weekend but had to cancel.
The video also has a message from music director John DeMain; texts and translations from the Czech; a special pre-concert talk and program notes for the Requiem by J. Michael Allsen; and a link to the MSO’s 2020-21 season.
Here is a link: https://madisonsymphony.org/experience-dvorak-requiem-virtually/
In other MSO news: The concerts with pianist Yefim Bronfman playing the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Brahms on May 1, 2 and 3 and the open rehearsal on April 30 are now canceled, and the May 5 organ performance has been postponed.
For those who hold tickets for May concerts, the MSO will be announcing options for donation, exchange and refunds sometime this weekend or next week.
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO), which recently streamed its December concert in the UW’s Hamel Center, has started a special “Coucherto” series – it’s a pun on concerto and couch – of special at-home concerts by individual musicians in the WCO for those listeners who are staying at home.
The project uses social media including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo and at the WCO’s home website. Also included is an invitation by music director Andrew Sewell.
The WCO’s next season hasn’t been announced yet, but should be soon.
Here is a link: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/about/coucherto/
For its part, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, which is facing uncertainty about its June concert series, which focuses on Beethoven’s piano trios – is offering selected chamber music performances from its past seasons that are on BDDS’ YouTube channel.
It too has comments and the program lineup for its season this summer.
Here is a link: https://bachdancing.org/watch-listen/video/
Have you seen any of these videos?
What do you think of them?
Dp you think they work as marketing strategies?
Have you discovered sites for streaming classical music that you recommend to others?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The amateur Middleton Community Orchestra performs a non-traditional “holiday” concert of Mahler and Kodaly this Wednesday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
During the holiday season, many — maybe even most — classical music groups program music that goes with the theme of the holidays from Christmas and Hanukkah to Kwanzaa and the New Year.
But some groups wisely give listeners a respite from holiday fare.
That happened one week ago when the University of Wisconsin-Madison Choral Union and the UW Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Beverly Taylor, performed a memorable program that featured the brassy “Te Deum” by Zoltan Kodaly and especially the calming Requiem by Maurice Duruflé.
Something similar will happen again this Wednesday night, Dec. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the comfortable Middleton Performing Arts Center, attached to Middleton High School, 2100 Bristol St.
That is when the mostly amateur but critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by Brian Ruppert) will perform its “holiday” concert that is holiday-ish more as a matter of timing than of content or theme, since you won’t hear any carols or sing-alongs or the usual or traditional holiday fare. The Ear thinks it’s a smart approach and a welcome break.
The non-holiday “holiday” program includes “Songs of a Wayfarer” by Gustav Mahler, sung by UW-Madison baritone Paul Rowe (below).
Also on the program is “Le Boeuf sur le Toit” (The Steer on the Roof) by Darius Milhaud with violinist soloist Naha Greenholtz (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson), who is the concertmaster of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
Matthew Coley (below top), a member of the acclaimed Madison-based percussion group “Clocks in Motion,” will perform two pieces of Hungarian music that use the rarely heard cimbalom (below bottom): the “Czardas” by Vittorio Monti and the “Hary Janos Suite” by Kodaly. (You can hear Monti’s familiar “Czardas” in a version for violin and piano in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Kyle Knox (below), who is the new music director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras and the new associate conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and who is also the husband of Naha Greenholtz, will once again be the guest conductor.
Admission is $15 for the general public with students and young people getting in for free. Tickets can be bought at the Willy Street Co-op West and at the door. The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and doors to the hall open at 7 p.m.
As usual, there will be a meet-and-greet reception (below) – complete with Christmas cookies, you can be sure – at the end of the concert.
For more information about future MCO concerts, reviews of past concerts and details about how to join the orchestra or support it, go to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org/home
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
NPR names relevant classical albums in a musical Diary of the Plague Year of the pandemic, racial protests, wildfires and hurricanes
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By Jacob Stockinger
For an unusual and difficult year, NPR (National Public Radio) and critic Tom Huizenga have found a new and unusual way to recommend this past year’s top classical music recordings.
On the “Deceptive Cadence” blog for NPR, Huizenga kept a personal month-by-month diary of “music and mayhem.”
For last February, for example, this ancient image of The Dance of Death inspired contemporary composer Thomas Adès to compose his own “Totentanz” or Dance of Death. (You can hear an excerpt from the work in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Some of the thematically-related music is modern or contemporary, some of it is from the Baroque or Classical era.
In June, as protests against the death of George Floyd (below top) flared up and spread worldwide, NPR names a recording of the “Negro Folk Symphony” by African-American composers William Dawson and Ulysses Kay (below bottom), thereby helping to rediscover Black composers whose works have been overlooked and neglected in the concert hall and the recording studio.
Devastating wildfires on the West Coast, Presidential impeachment and hurricanes on the Gulf Coast also found their way into the choices of music to listen to.
It is an unusual approach, but The Ear thinks it works.
See and hear for yourself by going to the sonic diary and listening to the samples provided.
Here is a link to the NPR album diary: https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2020/12/21/947149286/music-and-mayhem-a-diary-of-classical-albums-for-a-troubled-2020
But many roads, if not all, lead to Rome, as they say.
What is also interesting is that a number of the NPR choices overlap with ones listed by music critics of The New York Times as the 25 best classical albums of 2020.
Some choices also are found on the list of the nominations for the Grammy Awards that will be given out at the end of January.
In other words, the NPR diary can also serve as yet another holiday gift guide if you have gift cards or money to buy some new and notable CDs, and are looking for recommendations.
Here is a link to the Times’ choices, which you can also find with commentary and a local angle, in yesterday’s blog post: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/arts/music/best-classical-music.html
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-new-york-times-names-the-top-25-classical-recordings-of-2020-and-includes-sample-tracks/
And here is a list to the Grammy nominations: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/11/28/for-holiday-shopping-and-gift-giving-here-are-the-classical-music-nominations-for-the-63rd-grammy-awards-in-2021/
What do you think of the NPR musical diary of the plague year?
Do you find it informative? Accurate? Interesting? Useful?
Would you have different choices of music to express the traumatic events of the past year?
The Ear wants to hear.
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