The Well-Tempered Ear
This Saturday afternoon, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir presents a free online parking lot concert of “Car Carols” with an emphasis on African-American composers
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
Join the Wisconsin Chamber Choir (below) this Saturday afternoon, Dec. 12, at 2 p.m. for Car Carols, a unique holiday concert featuring live, socially-distanced performances of music by African-American composers and seasonal favorites.
Choir members will sing from their individual cars using wireless microphones (below), listening to the sound of the whole choir via their car radios. The audience is invited to join our Facebook event or listen in live on YouTube.
There is no charge to view the live-stream, but donations would be welcome.
You can find the concert on this Saturday, Dec. 12, a 2 p.m. via the following links: live on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ZonVn1cvgb8, or on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1561155960751974/
This unusual concert format was necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, but the WCC is grateful for the opportunity to continue singing together in safe ways.
Since September, the choir has been rehearsing as a Parking Lot Choir, generating local media coverage from WKOW-TV at https://wkow.com/2020/10/13/wisconsin-chamber-choir-making-adjustments-to-prepare-for-performance/ and Madison Magazine, whose story was headlined “Forget tailgates, parking lots are for choir practice: https://www.channel3000.com/forget-tailgates-parking-lots-are-for-choir-practice/
This past September and October, smaller groups from the WCC assembled on Saturday mornings at the Warner Park Pavilion to rehearse in widely spaced formations.
They wore specially designed singers masks, and occasionally harmonized with nearby sandhill cranes that seemed unsure what to make of the a cappella music floating through their habitat.
Recordings by five distinct small ensembles — minus the cranes — will be aired during the Dec. 12 Car Carols broadcast, in addition to live singing by the Parking Lot choristers.
The Car Carols repertoire highlights music by African-American composers spanning nearly a century. Idiomatic pieces in the style of spirituals and contemporary gospel alternate with “non-idiomatic” motets and anthems by Nathaniel Dett (below top), William Dawson, Undine Smith Moore (below middle) and Carlos Simon (below bottom, with an oral self-portrait in the YouTube video at the bottom).
The remainder of the Parking Lot Choir selections consists of carol arrangements by WCC favorites — the late Stephen Paulus (below) and Peter Blotch — and feature virtual harp and violin accompaniment.
Live and virtual performers will also unite to sing Craig Hella Johnson’s moving arrangement of the songs I Love You and What a Wonderful World.
Interspersed between the live Car Carols will be a wide variety of pre-recorded selections, including the world premiere of WCC member Linda Palmer’s arrangement of Sussex Carol, plus music by Johannes Brahms, John Rutter, 17th-century female composer Chiara Cozzolani (below), and Tleycantimo choquilia, a carol from colonial-era Mexico, sung in Spanish and Nahuatl.
Founded in 1998, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir has established a reputation for excellence in the performance of oratorios by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Brahms; a cappella works from various centuries; and world-premieres.
Artistic director Robert Gehrenbeck (below), who heads the choral program at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, has been hailed by critics for his vibrant and emotionally compelling interpretations of a wide variety of choral masterworks. WCC members have acknowledged Gehrenbeck for his intrepid conducting in freezing temperatures during Parking Lot Choir rehearsals.
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Looks like there will be no live concerts for the rest of the 2020-21 season and maybe until early 2022
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By Jacob Stockinger
Some important things for classical music fans to know happened over the weekend, even as Dane County continues to break records for new cases of coronavirus.
Three high federal health officials, including director of the CDC Dr. Robert Redfield and his colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, have testified that it is highly unlikely that vaccines for the coronavirus will be widely available to the public until May 2021 at the earliest and may well be delayed until early 2022 or later.
President Donald Trump says they are wrong, but the public health officials are standing by their estimates.
Adding to the concern is that the rate of people who say they will not get the hurried vaccine continues to rise from 35 percent to 50 percent or more.
In addition, there are reports of logistical problems because the vaccines will be difficult to distribute as they require cold temperatures.
This amounts to bad news for a long list of local arts presenters.
The net effect is that mass gatherings – such as concerts – will not be safe to attend for the rest of this season and perhaps until the beginning of 2022.
That means that many groups that have planned on reopening by January or February are likely to cancel or postpone events for the remainder of this season, and perhaps also for next fall – just as they planned for doing this concert season.
Instead there will probably be more virtual and online events substituted for in-person events — if anything at all is offered.
Among the major groups who have announced earlier reopening and be affected by the new deadlines are: the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below top); the Madison Opera; the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below bottom, in a photo by Mike Gorski); the Wisconsin Union Theater; the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music; the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO); and the Middleton Community Orchestra.
We can all hope that live music starts happening sooner. But The Ear suspects that alternative plans are already being drawn up and will be announced shortly.
What do you think about the estimates of the delays in vaccine accessibility and acceptance?
What do you think music groups will do – or should do in –in the wake of the public health crisis?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: What music best expresses the “bomb-cyclone” and Arctic blasts?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Weather-wise, the past couple of weeks have been unforgettable and, in many ways, unbearable.
First, around Christmas, we had one bitterly cold Arctic blast.
Then after New Year’s Day came the massive “bomb-cyclone” that brought snow and ice, high winds and flooding, to the East Coast all the way from Florida to Maine.
Next came another Arctic blast – that put most of the country into the deep freeze with sub-zero temperatures that broke records over a century old.
(How, The Ear wonders, does the Arctic blast differ from the Polar Vortex of a few years ago? And who invents such colorful names that certainly seem new.)
Such extreme wintry weather has brought misery, hardship and even death to wherever it struck.
With luck, the coming week will see a return to more normal temperatures and more normal winter weather.
Still, the past few weeks got The Ear to wondering: What music best expresses such extreme kind of winter weather?
The highly virtuosic and aptly named “Winter Wind” Etude in A minor, Op. 25, No. 11, by Frederic Chopin came to mind. Its swirling notes suggest the howling wind and bitter cold while the minor-key melody has a certain dirge-like or funereal quality to it.
You can hear it played by Evgeny Kissin in the YouTube video at the bottom.
But The Ear is sure that many readers could suggest other musical depictions of extreme winter weather.
So please leave the name of the composer, the title of the work and, if possible, a link to a YouTube video performance at the bottom.
The Ear wants to hear.
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