The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Here is a love story, Steinway-style, that benefits UW-Madison students
1 Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
Take a Steinway vintage Model M baby grand piano from 1927.
Add in the love of music as well as the love between a husband-father and wife, and then between a mother and daughter (below, on the left is mother Julia Monteros Wooster and on the right is daughter Mariah Wooster-Lehman).
Finish it off with some rebuilding and repairing, and the desire to make a generous gift to a university under siege from budget cuts dictated by an anti-intellectual governor, Scott Walker, and the Republican state legislature.
What you end up with is a love story, Steinway-style, that took place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. (And this piano is already in use in a practice room, 1268, of the George L. Mosse Humanities Building.)
It doesn’t need much introduction. The photos and the words, simple but eloquent and moving, written by the daughter, do the work.
The only thing to add is that The Ear recalls reading a new story that owning pianos in the home has become less popular nationwide. A lot of pianos even get junked or thrown out in the garbage, let alone neglected until they fall into disrepair and can’t be used any more.
So maybe there are more such pianos, with or without the love story, out there to benefit students and staff at the UW-Madison.
If so, leave a message in the COMMENTS section or call (608) 263-5615.
Here is a link to the story:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/love-story-steinway-piano/
Enjoy!
Tags: anti-intellectual, anti-intellectualism, Arts, baby, baby grand, budget, Classical music, cuts, daughter, father, gift, governor, grand, husband, Legislature, Love, love story, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mother, Music, Piano, repair, Republican, Republican Party, Scott Walker, state legislature, Steinway, story, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music, vintage, wife, Wisconsin
Classical music: A big shout-out and thank you goes to Mead Witter Foundation for supporting music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But did the entire School of Music have to be renamed?
9 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
Well, it has happened again.
The great University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was recently once again named one of the best public schools in the country and the world, shows more and more signs of being privatized.
As of July 1, the official name of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music is now the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
That’s an ungainly mouthful to say and write.
But The Ear doesn’t blame the School of Music and its directors for having to take such steps.
To The Ear, the renaming means that the state legislators and the state government have once again been negligent in preserving and bettering this great institution that generations of ordinary Wisconsin citizens supported through taxes, and then benefitted from through “The Wisconsin Idea” that the university serves the public that supports it.
Underfunding goes along with the Republicans’ anti-education and anti-intellectual agenda of imposing steep budget cuts, undermining tenure, alienating faculty who then leave and implementing other measures that hurt this great state university.
So, The Ear objects to the move, much as he did with the selling of the Law School; with the renaming of the Elvehjem Museum of Art to the Chazen Museum of Art; and with the Wisconsin Union Theater, which was renamed Shannon Hall (below top).
Plus, there is the new music building and performance center (below bottom), which sees a groundbreaking in late October, named — not renamed — for the Hamel family.
Such naming and renaming by big private money blurs the distinction between a donation or a gift and a purchase. Call it branding, naming, PR, advertising, whatever – The Ear doesn’t like it. What is public should remain public.
Do the egos of the wealthy really know no bounds, especially during these days when the political talk is of wealth inequality and income distribution?
So The Ear says a deep and hearty thank you to the Mead Witter Foundation of Wisconsin Rapids for its help.
But he sure wishes its corporate ego had been satisfied with a hall or a building being named after it, and with perhaps a big bronze bas-relief plaque containing a history about its fortune in the paper industry and an appreciation of its generous philanthropy.
But to rename an entire school that has more than a century of history behind it?
Sorry. That’s over the top.
It is overkill and seems downright tacky.
To The Ear it will always be the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, just as it has for the past century-plus.
If you want more background and details, here are three official UW links, with the most recent ones coming first
https://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/a-new-name-for-the-school-of-music/
What do readers and the tax-paying public think and say?
Do you agree or disagree with The Ear?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Arts, Chamber music, Classical music, government, income, inequality, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Mead Witter, Mead Witter Foundation, Music, Orchestra, philanthropy, Piano, state legislature, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, wealth, Wisconsin
Classical music education: The University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Music ranks in the nation’s Top 30 overall and in the Top 10 for music education. Plus, WYSO’s Youth Orchestra and Concerto Competition winners perform Beethoven, Schubert, Walter Piston and Alexander Arutiunian on this Saturday afternoon.
5 Comments
ALERT: Just a reminder that this Saturday afternoon, the top-ranked Youth Orchestra (below) of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) will perform under conductor James Smith at 1:30 p.m. in Mills Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in the Mosse Humanities Building, 455 North Park Street.
The program includes: The Suite from “The Incredible Flutist” by Walter Piston; and the first and second movements of the Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished” by Franz Schubert.
Also included are the winners of the WYSO Concerto Competition. Trumpeter Noah Mennenga will perform the Trumpet Concert by Alexander Arutiunian. Pianist Theodore Lau will play the third movement of the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, O;. 37, by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for young people 3-18. For more information, call (608) 263-3320 or visit http://wyso.music.wisc.edu/dianne-endres-ballweg-winterfest-concert-series/
By Jacob Stockinger
Spring Break starts tomorrow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
So The Ear wants students and faculty to leave on a positive note and then return with renewed energy and dedication, knowing that the UW-Madison School of Music still ranks relatively high (No. 24) among the nation’s top 30 public and private schools for overall programs and even higher (No. 10) for music education in an informal blog survey.
To be sure, the UW-Madison School of Music is facing a lot of complex challenges.
Those challenges range from finding enough scholarship money to compete in recruiting outstanding students to finding enough money to recruit and retain outstanding faculty.
And some of the challenges look to be made worse through budget cuts and policy changes proposed by the Republican-dominated legislature and Republican Gov. Scott Walker (below), though we will have to wait to see the final outcomes.
But the politicians sure are sending out signals that they want to treat the world-class university more like a trade school than a star player in the liberal arts, the arts and the humanities. They just don’t see those fields as adding much to economic development.
As if economic development is the bottom line for everything of personal and social value.
And as if the so-called STEM subjects -– science, technology, engineering and math – are the only relevant academic fields for the public to support.
Besides, study after study shows the relevance of music education to success in other fields. (Below are the UW Symphony Orchestra and UW Choral Union.)
So before anyone starts fooling around and making major changes and cuts, it is good to be reminded of what a precious educational, cultural and economic resource the UW-Madison remains, as a world-class learning institution.
But it won’t take much negligence or wrong-headed tinkering for the UW to drop out of the ranking.
So here they are to read and then think about how to best protect the great university that the state of Wisconsin has.
First comes the overall ranking (No. 24) among private and public Schools of Music, which, if The Ear recalls correctly, has dropped over the past decade:
And then comes the ranking (No. 10) in the specific area of music education in a less prestigious blog poll done by an individual:
http://musicschoolcentral.com/top-10-colleges-music-education-majors-us/
Thoughts, anyone?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Alexander Arutiunian, Arts, Beethoven, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, concerto, conductor, Franz Schubert, Jacob Stockinger, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Music, Music education, opera, Orchestra, Piano, Piano concerto, Schubert, Scott Walker, state legislature, Trumpet, trumpet concerto, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, WYSO
Classical music education: The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music unveils plans for its impressive new music center with performance hall and rehearsal space.
4 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
Gradually the old sign will turn into a new building.
In case you missed it – and it was easy to do with all the live events going on this weekend – the University of Wisconsin School of Music announced the long-awaited plans for its new music center with a concert hall and rehearsal space. The Ear is very pleased that acoustics are given a top priority.
Compromises have been made due to funding delays and shortfalls. But even with the scaled-down design, the $22-million building still sounds as if it will be an impressive building, and an impressive addition to the UW-Madison School of Music program.
Here is an architect’s rendering, a drawing of what the building at the corner of Lake Street and University Avenue, next to the new wing of the Chazen Museum of Art, will look like.
It should help maintain or even foster the already high standards of the UW-Madison School of Music, which is nonetheless facing major challenges in student recruitment and staffing. But one wonders: What will music students think about the glass-walled room that will allow passers-by to peer in while they are practicing?
For the full story, including what happens when more money is collected, here is a link to the official announcement.
http://www.news.wisc.edu/23154
And here is a link to a story in The Wisconsin State Journal
Be sure to tell The Ear — and everyone else, including UW-Madison officials and the cheapskate State of Wisconsin Legislature and Governor Scott Walker –- what you think.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: $22-million, architecture, Arts, Chamber music, Chazen Museum of Art, Classical music, governor, Jacob Stockinger, List of concert halls, Madison, Music, Music education, New York City, Orchestra, recital, rehearsal, Scott Walker, state, state legislature, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin State Journal
Recent Comments
 | welltemperedear on A jazz-pop composer is the new… |
 | David Spies on A jazz-pop composer is the new… |
| welltemperedear on A jazz-pop composer is the new… |
 | Kathy O on A jazz-pop composer is the new… |
 | Ann Boyer on A jazz-pop composer is the new… |
The Well-Tempered Ear 