The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and Salon Piano Series cancel and postpone concerts and master classes
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By Jacob Stockinger
The coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll. The Ear has received notification of the following cancellations and postponements.
WISCONSIN BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) has cancelled its April 18 concert, due to the COVID-19 virus threat. Its next concert is re-scheduled for the fall, on Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church at 1833 Regent Street.
SALON PIANO SERIES
Concerts by the Grammy-nominated, New York jazz pianist Bill Charlap (below) on April 25 and April 26 plus his master class on April 25 are all cancelled and indefinitely postponed.
New dates for Charlap’s concerts and master class are yet to be determined. They will be announced via email, on the Salon Piano Series website, and on the Salon Piano Series social media. The necessary decision is made out of concern for the public’s health and well-being.
In the event that it is not feasible to reschedule the concerts, or you have a conflict and cannot attend the rescheduled event, you can get a credit for a future Salon Piano Series performance or be issued a refund.
Everyone who bought a ticket will have one week after the announcement of the new concert date in order to request a refund.
If you have a ticket for the concert, please see additional information at the end.
| The Salon Piano Series — which takes place at Farley’s House of Pianos — also says that the concert by Drew Petersen (below), which was to have taken place this spring is rescheduled for Aug. 15 at 7:30 p.m. and the master class is rescheduled for Aug. 16 at a time to be determined.
To purchase tickets, go to: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4275242) If you have a ticket and cannot attend the rescheduled event, Salon Piano Series asks that you help support the arts by not requesting a refund. For those who request a refund, the deadline for refunds has been extended through Thursday, April 9, as a courtesy. For more information about the concert, visit salonpianoseries.org. |
| If you would like a refund, please follow the instructions below and allow several business days for refunds to be processed.
Paper Tickets If you have a paper ticket, please take a photo of your ticket and email the photo to cristofori@salonpianoseries.org explaining that you would like a refund. Online Tickets If the ticket is not part of a season ticket, call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-(800) 838-3006. If your ticket is part of a season ticket, contact Salon Piano Series at (608) 271-2626. Refunds for season ticket holders will be issued through Salon Piano Series by check, not through Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets Ordered by Phone If you purchased a ticket by phone, contact Salon Piano Series at (608) 271-2626 to request a refund. |
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Classical music: Next season the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will expand to two performances of its winter Masterworks concerts by adding a Saturday night concert in Brookfield, near Milwaukee
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By Jacob Stockinger
Next season will mark the 20th anniversary of Andrew Sewell (below top) coming to Madison to serve as the music director and principal conductor of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below bottom).
It is hard to imagine a better Bravo! or anniversary gift for the maestro – who has said he wants the WCO to become a chamber orchestra, as its name implies, for the entire state of Wisconsin — than what will in fact take place: the WCO will expand its winter Masterworks concerts to two performances by adding a Saturday night performance at 7:30 p.m. in the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts (below) in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee. (Sewell is also the music director of the San Luis Obispo Symphony in California.)
Madison performances of Masterworks will continue to take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
You can find out more about the Masterworks programs for next season by going to the WCO home website:
https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performance-listing/category/masterworks
There you will find the usual eclectic mix of new guest artists and new or neglected composers and repertoire that has marked Sewell’s tenure and brought him critical acclaim.
Pianist Orion Weiss will perform the popular Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 – “Elvira Madigan” – by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; violinists Giora Schmidt and Eric Silberger will perform concertos by Dmitri Kabalevsky and Niccolo Paganini, respectively; harpist Yolanda Kondonassis will perform a concerto by Argentinian Alberto Ginastera; and Andrew Balio (below), principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, will return to Madison where he grew up and perform a 1948 trumpet concerto by Italian composer Andre Tomasi.
Early music and new music to be featured includes works by: Donald Fraser (an acclaimed English conductor, composer and arranger, below) who now lives in Illinois, and often comes to Madison); Joseph Martin Kraus, known as the “Swedish Mozart”; Norwegian composer Johann Svensen; and three English composers (always favorites of Sewell who was born and educated in New Zealand) who are John Marsh, James Macmillan and York Bowen. (In the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear the English Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Woods — a native Madisonian who will return next season to conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra — recording the Scherzo movement from Donald Fraser’s “Sinfonietta,” the same work that the WCO will perform.)
Works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn and Sergei Prokofiev also figure prominently, including Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” in honor of the composer’s 250th birthday in 2020.
Also on the website, you will find the upcoming season of Wednesday night Concerts on the Square for this summer (June 26-July 31) plus the dates and themes – although no guest artists or works — for 2020 (June 24-July 29).
Go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances
You can also find information for next season about the WCO performing George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah,” Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” with the Madison Ballet; the Young Artist Concerto Competition; the free Family Series; and the community Super Strings program for elementary students.
To receive a brochure with information about all these events and about how to get tickets — an “early bird” discount on subscription tickets runs through May 31– call (608) 257-0638 or go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org
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Classical music: It’s Mother’s Day 2018. The Ear remembers his mom with a Rachmaninoff prelude
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Mother’s Day 2018.
To celebrate The Ear’s late mom, here is a piece of music with a story to tell with it.
The Ear remembers it well.
He was 13, maybe 14, and living on Long Island, New York.
It was in the afternoon, after school.
His mom was talking to a stranger long-distance on the phone. The conversation, something about preparing wild rice, was with a person in Minnesota.
The Ear was at the piano practicing and playing the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor by the young Sergei Rachmaninoff (below) – the “Bells of Moscow” – which you can hear Evgeny Kissin play in the YouTube video at the bottom.
It was music that The Ear first heard live when a babysitter played it for him. And he immediately fell in love with it.
It was hard to play, a Romantic piece with big loud chords (below is part of the score) and fast passage work. Perfect for a teenager.
Rachmaninoff’s Prelude Op. 3 No. 2, The Recapitulation of the theme, in four staves (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It was The Ear’s first big piece, the right vehicle for an ambitious young piano student who was anxious to use the piano to make an impression.
Anyway, the person on the other end of the phone heard the piano playing and asked if they could listen a while longer.
Mom said, Sure!
Then she placed the phone near the piano — and beamed with pride at me while gesturing for me to continue playing.
Mom didn’t know a lot of classical music. But she knew her son loved it and she did everything she could to encourage that love.
She also liked this particular Rachmaninoff prelude because it was accessible and dramatic, easy to understand and to appreciate, and most of all because her son liked it and played it.
That’s how moms are.
The other person on the line listened until the end of the prelude, then offered praise and thanks, said good-bye, and hung up.
Mom told that story over many years and always with great pride.
For a long time after, it seemed that particular prelude fell out of fashion – probably because it was too popular and too melodramatic. Even Rachmaninoff grew to despise it and referred to the work disdainfully as “It,” which he often had to play as an encore.
But lately, as often happens to overexposed pieces that fall into neglect, it finally seems to be making something of a comeback.
Several years ago, Garrick Ohlsson played it as an encore after a concerto he performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. These days, The Ear has heard the young up-and-coming, prize-winning young Georgian-British pianist Luka Okros play it on YouTube and Instagram.
Anyway, here it is, offered with fond memories of a proud mom.
Is there a piece of classical music you identify with your mom? Maybe Antonin Dvorak’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” which you can hear on Wisconsin Public Radio‘s “Sunday Brunch” program at about 12:30p.m. today?
Maybe an opera aria or song?
Leave a comment, with a link to a YouTube performance if possible, and let us know.
The Ear wants to hear.
Happy Mother’s Day, all!
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