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Here is a collaborative obituary for music critic, radio host, performer and gay pioneer Jess Anderson, who died in January at 85

March 7, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

In late January of this year, Jess Anderson (below) — a longtime friend, devoted musician and respected music critic – died at 85.

The Ear promised then that when more was known or written, it would be posted on this blog.

That time has come.

Jess was a polymath, a Renaissance Man, as the comments below attest to time and again.

For the past several years, he suffered from advancing dementia and moved from his home of 56 years to an assisted living facility. He had contracted COVID-19, but died from a severe fall from which he never regained consciousness.

Jess did not write his own obituary and he had no family member to do it. So a close friend – Ed Wegert (below) – invited several of the people who knew Jess and worked with him, to co-author a collaborative obituary. We are all grateful to Ed for the effort the obituary took and for his caring for Jess in his final years.

In addition, the obituary has some wonderful, not-to-be-overlooked photos of Jess young and old, at home, with friends, sitting at the piano and at his custom-built harpsichord.

It appears in the March issue of Our Lives, a free statewide LGBTQ magazine that is distributed through grocery stores and other retail outlets as well as free subscriptions. Here is a link to the magazine’s home webpage for details about it: https://ourliveswisconsin.com.

That Jess was an exceptional and multi-talented person is obvious even from the distinguished names of the accomplished people who contributed to the obituary:

They include:

Chester Biscardi (below), who is an acclaimed prize-winning composer, UW-Madison graduate, composer and teacher of composition at Sarah Lawrence College.

John Harbison (below), the MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who teaches at MIT and co-directs the nearby Token Creek Chamber Music Festival in the summer.

Rose Mary Harbison (below), who attended the UW-Madison with Jess and became a professional performing and teaching violinist who co-directs the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival.

Steve Miller (below), a close friend who became a bookmaker and is now a professor at the University of Alabama.

The Ear, who knew Jess over many decades, was also invited to contribute.

Here is a link to the joint obituary in Our Lives magazine, a free LGBTQ periodical that you can find in local grocery store and other retail outlets: https://ourliveswisconsin.com/article/remembering-jess-anderson/?fbclid=IwAR027dzv2YqRUNlYF1cF6JyXnEcQxAwcprPYbtBQCs3rYt0Nu847W_xbjpk

Feel free to leave your own thoughts about and memories of Jess in the comment section.

It also seems a fitting tribute to play the final chorus from The St. John Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach. You can hear it in the YouTube video below. It is, if memory serves me well, the same piece of sublime music that Jess played when he signed off from hosting his Sunday morning early music show for many years on WORT-FM 89.9.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: This Wednesday night, four teenage soloists compete in this year’s Final Forte competition with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Attend it live for FREE, or watch and hear it live on PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio

February 23, 2020
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

This Wednesday night, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. in Overture Hall, the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below in a photo by Peter Rodgers), PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio will present the 14th annual “Wisconsin Young Artists Compete: The Final Forte.”

The concert of four teenage concerto competition winners features the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) led by Associate Conductor Kyle Knox (below).

The concert is FREE and open to the public. But audience members must register in advance, and arrive by 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, prior to the beginning of the live broadcast. Reservations are required. Call (608) 257-3734 or go online to register at https://madisonsymphony.org/finalforte

Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and close at 6:45 p.m. due to the live broadcast. The event runs until 8:30 p.m. No tickets will be issued at the door. Seating is general admission in select areas of the concert hall.

The four finalists (below, in a photo by James Gill who did all the contestant photos) were chosen from 10 semi-finalists in November.

They are:

Jessica Jiang (far left), who will perform the first movement from Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. (You can hear the Prokofiev movement, played by Martha Argerich, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Jonah Kartman (far right), who will perform the first movement from Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No 3.

Emily Hauer (third from left) who will perform the first movement from Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor.

Pianist Michael Wu (second from left) who will perform Liszt’s “Totentanz” (Dance of Death).

Videos to introduce each finalist are now available for viewing online.

Jessica Jiang: https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-jessica-jiang-qto5ir/

Emily Hauer: https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-emily-hauer-8ihe8s/

Jonah Kartman: https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-jonah-kartman-xsr1z6/

Michael Wu): https://pbswisconsin.org/wpt-video/wpt-music-arts/final-forte-michael-wu-frbf66/

Rebroadcast dates on the Wisconsin Channel (WPT-2) will be Friday, March 6 at 8 p.m. and 11p.m.; Saturday, March 7, at 3 p.m.; and Thursday, March 12, at 3 a.m.

ABOUT THE FINALISTS

Jessica Jiang (below) is a junior at Madison Memorial High School. She took up the piano at the age of four and currently studies with Bill Lutes, Emeritus Professor at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. Jessica received the Steenbock Youth Music Award in the 2018 Bolz Young Artist Competition and took second place in Division III of the National Steinway and Sons Piano Competition in 2019.

Emily Hauer (below) is a home-schooled senior from Appleton. She began violin lessons at the age of two and currently studies with Ilana Setapen, associate concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Emily won the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra Young Artist Concerto Competition in 2017 and is currently in her fourth year as the concertmaster of the Fox Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Jonah Kartman (below) is a home-schooled senior from Glendale. He has been playing the violin for 13 years, and currently studies with I-Hao Lee at DePaul University’s School of Music. Jonah was a finalist in the 2019 Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s Audrey G. Baird Stars of Tomorrow competition, and a two-time winner and scholarship recipient in the Civic Music Association of Milwaukee Competition.

Michael Wu (below) is a senior at Sun Prairie High School. He began piano lessons at age five, and currently studies with Bill Lutes, Emeritus Professor at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. Michael received the Steenbock Youth Music Award in the 2017 Bolz Young Artist Competition and took first place in Division III of the National Steinway and Sons Piano Competition in 2018.

ABOUT THE FINAL FORTE

This competition has captured an enormous following and numerous honors, including an Emmy nomination, First Place in the “Special Interest” category from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association in 2007, and the fifth most-watched program in the February 2007 Nielsen ratings. The 2008 broadcasts reached more than 60,000 viewers and listeners in the Madison market alone and the 2009 broadcasts reached an estimated 200,000 statewide.

The Final Forte is funded by major support from Diane Ballweg, Stephen Morton, W. Jerome Frautschi, A. Paul Jones Charitable Trust, Julie and Larry Midtbo, Fred and Mary Mohs, and Elizabeth Olson, with additional support from Bell Laboratories, James Dahlberg and Elsebet Lund, Kato Perlman, Cyrena and Lee Pondrom, Sentry Insurance Foundation, Darcy Kind and Marc Vitale, Dr. A. Beyer-Mears, Nick and Judith Topitzes, the Focus Fund for Young Performers, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra expands its Masterworks series this Friday night in Madison and Saturday night in Brookfield with piano soloist Orion Weiss and music by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Donald Fraser

January 21, 2020
3 Comments

CORRECTION: The Ear received the following correction to the story about the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and apologizes for the error:

“There was a change to our rollout in Brookfield. We are only repeating the fifth Masterworks concert on Saturday, May 9. at 7:30 p.m. at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts. We are NOT repeating this Friday’s concert in Brookfield.

“We will perform a Family Series concert of “Beethoven Lives Next Door” on Sunday, March 29, at 3 p.m. at the same Brookfield venue.”

By Jacob Stockinger

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below, in a photo by Mike Gorski) is about to take a Great Leap Forward.

This weekend will see the WCO — now in its 60th year of existence and its 20th season under music director Andrew Sewell (below bottom, in a photo by Alex Cruz) – take a major step in its evolution as a statewide music ensemble. It is a development comparable to when John DeMain took the Madison Symphony Orchestra from single performances to “triples.”

That is because, for the first time ever, the WCO is going to “doubles.” It will perform Masterworks concerts in Madison on Friday nights at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center. Then the WCO will repeat the same concert on the following Saturday night in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts.

For a full story with lots of background and quotes about future plans for the WCO, you can’t do better than read the story by Michael Muckian that appeared last week in Isthmus:

Here is a link: https://isthmus.com/music/wisconsin-chamber-orchestra-turns-60/

The opening program has a couple of points of special interest.

First, this concert will mark the Madison debut of pianist Orion Weiss, a former student of Emanuel Ax who is increasingly booked for concerts and recordings.

Weiss (below in a photo by Jacob Blickenstaff) will solo in perhaps the most popular and famous of Mozart’s 27 piano concertos: No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. It is also known as the “Elvira Madigan” concerto because the beautiful slow movement was used as the soundtrack to the movie of that same name. (You can hear the slow movement at the bottom in a YouTube video that has more than 59 million views.)

You can learn more about Weiss at his website: https://www.orionweiss.com

Another unique facet of the WCO concert is the U.S. premiere of “Sinfonietta for Strings” (2018) by the award-winning British composer Donald Fraser, now an American resident who lives in Illinois and is married to Bridget Fraser, the executive director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO).

Fraser (below) – whose music is tonal and accessible — is especially well known, not only for his original compositions but also for his orchestral arrangements of chamber music by Brahms, Elgar, Marin Marais and others. His 2018 recording of “Songs for Strings” features many of those transcriptions.

For more about Fraser, go to his website: https://donaldfraser.com/index.html

The concert will conclude with the Symphony No. 4 – the “Italian” Symphony – by Felix Mendelssohn. It is a sunny, tuneful and energetic work that is the most popular and best-known symphony by Mendelssohn. It was also used in a movie as the soundtrack to the Italian bicycle race in the coming-of-age film “Breaking Away.”

Tickets are $10-$77. For more information about the program and the soloist, as well as about pre-concert dinners and how to buy single and season subscription tickets, go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/masterworks-i-5/

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: A busy Sunday at the UW is highlighted by a FREE band concert and a public reception to mark the retirement of legendary band master Mike Leckrone

April 26, 2019
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ALERT: The Madison-based Avanti Piano Trio will give two FREE public concerts this weekend. The first one is TONIGHT at 7 p.m. at Capitol Lakes Retirement Community, 333 West Main Street, off the Capitol Square; the second one is on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 302 Wisconsin Avenue. Members of the trio are violinist Wes Luke, cellist Hannah Wolkstein and pianist Joseph Ross. The program includes works by Leon Kirchner, Ernest Bloch, Claude Debussy and Johannes Brahms.

By Jacob Stockinger

As the semester and academic year come to a close, concerts usually get packed into the schedule.

This coming Sunday, April 28, is no different – except that one event is clearly the headliner.

Mike Leckrone (below, in a photo by UW Communications) – the legendary and much honored director of bands and athletic bands at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – is retiring after 50 years.

Sunday marks a last appearance. He will conduct the UW Concert Band one last time and then be honored with a public reception.

The athletes and athletic fans love him. The students and band members love him. The alumni love him.

And, yes, the School of Music loves him. After all, not many band directors do what he did when he asked the late UW-Madison violin virtuoso Vartan Manoogian to perform the popular Violin Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn with a band instead of an orchestra. But Manoogian agreed — and said he loved the experience.

Also, not many band directors could start an annual spring concert in Mills Hall with an audience of some 300 and then saw it grow decades later into a three-night extravaganza that packs the Kohl Center with some 50,000 people and gets seen statewide on Wisconsin Public Television.

One time years ago, The Ear — who was then working as a journalist for The Capital Times — interviewed Leckrone. It was a busy year when he and the Marching Band were going with the football and basketball teams to the Rose Bowl and the March Madness tournament.

Mike Leckrone was charming and humorous, open and candid. The interview was so good, so full of information and human interest, that it was picked up by the Associated Press and distributed statewide and nationally.

That’s how big Mike Leckrone’s fan base is. Other schools and bands envied him.

All honor, then, to this man of action and distinction who was also creative and innovative.

Here is more information – but, alas, no program — about the FREE band concert on Sunday at 2 p.m. in Mills Hall:

https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-concert-band-spring-concert-2/

For really detailed biographical background about Mike Leckrone and his achievements, go to:

https://news.wisc.edu/mike-leckrone-a-legendary-career/

And here is a statement by Leckrone himself about his approach to teaching and performing as well as his plans for retirement. (You can hear an interview Leckrone did with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

http://ls.wisc.edu/news/hitting-the-high-notes

Now you may think Leckrone can’t be followed.

But just this past week, the UW-Madison announced that Corey Pompey (below) is Leckrone’s successor. Here is a link to the official announcement, with lots of background about Pompey:

https://news.wisc.edu/new-marching-band-director-to-take-the-baton/

What else is there to say except: Thank you, Mike!

On, Wisconsin!

As for other events at the UW on Sunday:

At 4 p.m., in Mills Hall, University Bands will perform a FREE concert. Darin Olsen, O’Shae Best and Cole Hairston will conduct. No program is listed.

At 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the Madrigal Singers (below top) will perform a FREE concert. Bruce Gladstone (below bottom, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) will conduct. No word on that program either.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra offers FREE concert tickets to furloughed federal workers

January 17, 2019
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

Restaurants, food banks, retail stores and other organizations have responded with compassion and generosity to victims of the ongoing partial shutdown of the U.S. government.

Here is an announcement of a timely move that The Ear thinks is terrific news for budget-strapped workers who have to cut back on entertainment or discretionary expenses. It should be a model for other local groups as well as statewide, regional and national arts presenters.

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below) is offering free tickets to furloughed federal workers for the Masterworks performance on Friday, Jan. 25, featuring the young cello prodigy and sensation, Miriam K. Smith.

Fresh from performances with the Cincinnati and Louisville symphonies, Smith (below) will perform the Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor by Camille Saint-Saëns. (You can hear her perform a violin and cello duet by George Frideric Handel and Johan Halvorsen in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

If you want to know more about Smith, go to her website: https://miriamksmith.com

A forgotten gem by Domenico Cimarosa, Overture to The Secret Marriage, will open the concert, and the performance concludes with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, the sunniest of his even-numbered symphonies.

The concert, under the baton of WCO music director Andrew Sewell, will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater at the Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State St.

If you are a furloughed federal employee, you can call the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra offices at (608) 257-0638, and mention your place of employment. Best available tickets are on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets are limited to two per person.

Others who want to attend this concert can find information about the soloist, the program and tickets at: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/masterworks-i-4/

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The Final Forte teenage concerto competition by the Madison Symphony Orchestra is this Wednesday night. Attend it, watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio

March 11, 2018
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By Jacob Stockinger

It doesn’t seem a typical year for The Final Forte, the final round after two preliminary rounds of the Bolz Young Artist Competition that is held each year by the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

For one, all four finalists are young women — in a year when sisterhood and achievements by women are looming large.

For another, three of the four are violinists.

The young performers are (below, from the left): Jessica Jiang, piano; Arianna Brusubardis, violin; Hannah White, violin; and Isabelle Krier, violin.

The concert is this Wednesday night and features the MSO under conductor John DeMain. It starts at 7 p.m. in Overture Hall of the Overture Center, 201 State Street.

The popular concert will be broadcast statewide LIVE, starting at 7 p.m., by Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television.

If you want to attend the concert, admission is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

But you MUST register and get tickets. You can do that online or by telephone. And you must be in your seats by 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday night.

For more information and ways to register, here is a link to a web site for the Final Forte:

https://www.madisonsymphony.org/finalforte

And here is a link to an informative YouTube preview video that gives you some background about Arianna Brusubardis and Jessica Jiang.

The remaining two preview profiles have not been posted yet, but The Ear expects they will be posted shortly and he will add them to this blog post as they become available.

May the best woman win!

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The Well-Tempered Ear

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Classical music: This Wednesday night, four teenage soloists compete in this year’s Final Forte competition with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Attend it live for FREE, or watch and hear it live on PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio

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Classical music: The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra expands its Masterworks series this Friday night in Madison and Saturday night in Brookfield with piano soloist Orion Weiss and music by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Donald Fraser

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Classical music: A busy Sunday at the UW is highlighted by a FREE band concert and a public reception to mark the retirement of legendary band master Mike Leckrone

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Classical music: Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra offers FREE concert tickets to furloughed federal workers

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Classical music: The Final Forte teenage concerto competition by the Madison Symphony Orchestra is this Wednesday night. Attend it, watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio

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