The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Recorder virtuoso Piers Adams solos in baroque and contemporary music this Friday night with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra
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By Jacob Stockinger
During his long and successful tenure with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below), music director and conductor Andrew Sewell has established a reputation for championing unusual repertoire and booking young or relatively unknown soloists as well as for offering insightful interpretations of classic masterworks.
But Sewell (below) seems to be surpassing himself with the concert he will lead this Friday night, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
For one, the concert features the British recorder virtuoso Piers Adams (below), who established his own reputation as a part of the unusual baroque quartet Red Priest, the nickname for the Antonio Vivaldi, who was indeed a priest in Venice with flaming red hair. (In the YouTube at the bottom, you can sample Adams’ virtuosity as he makes bird calls on the recorder while playing a section of “Spring” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”)
You can also go to the following websites for more information about Piers Adams:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Adams
The Ear can’t think of another time any major group in the area offered a soloist on the recorder – a baroque wooden flute-like instrument — except for the Madison Early Music Festival.
True to form, Adams will perform baroque music with the WCO – specifically, the Concerto for Recorder in C Major by Georg Philipp Telemann.
But to add to the more unusual aspects of the concert, Adams will also perform a contemporary work with the WCO – specifically, a 1994 recorder concerto by the English composer David Bedford (1937-2011, below) that was commissioned by Adams and has proven popular both on a recording and in concert.
For more information about Bedford, go to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bedford
To round out the program, Sewell has programmed two other rarely heard works: the “Brook Green” Suite by Gustav Holst, best known for “The Planets”; and the Serenade in E-Flat Major, Op. 6, by the Czech composer Josef Suk (below), a very accomplished violinist and composer who studied with Antonin Dvorak and then became his son-in-law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Suk_(composer)
For more information about the concert, including tickets ($12-$80) and notes on the performers and the program, go to:
https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/masterworks-iv-4/
Tags: #AndrewSewell, #AntoninDvorak, #AntonioVivaldi, #BaroqueFlute, #BaroqueMusic, #BirdCalls, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CapitolTheater, #ChamberOrchestra, #CommissionedMusic, #DavidBedford, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FourSeasons, #GeorgPhilippTelemann, #GuestSoloist, #GustavHolst, #JosefSuk, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MusicalInterpretation, #MusicDirector, #NewMusic, #OvertureCenter, #PiersAdams, #RecorderConcerto, #RedPriest, #SoundSample, #StringSection, #ThePlanets, #UnitedKingdom, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VeniceItaly, #WisconsinChamberOrchestra, #YouTubevideo, Andrew Sewell, Antonín Dvořák, Antonio Vivaldi, Arts, audience, Baroque, baroque flute, Baroque music, bird, bird calls, birds, blog, Book, British, brook, Capitol Theater, chamber orchestra, champion, classic, Classical music, commission, Compact Disc, composer, Concert, concerto, conductor, Czech, David Bedford, Early music, English, ensemble, establish, Facebook, flute, forward, Four Seasons, Georg Philipp Telemann, green, group, Gustav Holst, hair, information, insight, instrument, interpretation, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Joseph Suk, like, link, live, long, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Marriage, masterwork, Mead Witter School of Music, Music, Music director, New Music, nickname, notes, novelty, Orchestra, Overture Center, performer, Piers Adams, planet, priest, program, Quartet, recorder, recorder concerto, recording, Red Priest, repertoire, reputation, sample, Serenade, share, soloist, soloists, son-in-law, spread, Spring, standard, string section, strings, study, successful, Suite, surpass, symphony, tag, tenure, The Planets, ticket, UK, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, unusual, UW-Madison, Venice, Viola, Violin, violinist, virtuosity, virtuoso, WCO, Wisconsin Chamber Choir, word, young, YouTube
Classical music: Saturday brings percussion music, chamber music and choral music, much of it free
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By Jacob Stockinger
As you can tell from earlier posts this week, this weekend will be very busy with music.
But Saturday is especially, offering percussion music, chamber music and vocal music, much of it FREE.
PERCUSSION MUSIC
At 1:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the Percussion Ensemble of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras will perform its 18th annual Percussion Extravaganza.
It features the world premiere of “Common Mind” by composer and WYSO alumnus Jon D. Nelson (below). For more a bout Nelson and his music, go to: http://jondnelson.com
More than 150 performers – instrumentalists, singers and dancers – will be featured.
Here is a link to details about the event, including ticket prices:
https://www.wysomusic.org/wyso-percussion-ensemble-to-present-the-2019-percussion-extravaganza/
CHAMBER MUSIC
At 3:30 p.m. in Morphy Hall, the Perlman Piano Trio plus two guest artists will give a FREE concert.
The program is the “Kakadu”Variations in G major, Op. 121a, by Ludwig van Beethoven; the Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49, by Felix Mendelssohn; and the Piano Quintet in F minor by Cesar Franck. (You can her the first movement of the Mendelssohn Trio performed in the YouTube vide at the bottom, by pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.)
Members of the quintet, based on an annual student piano trio supported by Kato Perlman (below), are: Kangwoo Jin, piano; Mercedes Cullen, violin; Micah Cheng, cello; Maynie Bradley, violin; and Luke Valmadrid, viola.
A reception will follow the concert.
CHORAL MUSIC
At 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW-Madison Concert Choir (below top) will perform a FREE concert under conductor Beverly Taylor (below bottom), who is the director of choral activities at the university.
AN UPDATE: Conductor Beverly Taylor has sent the following update about the program:
“I’m happy to update our Saturday, April 6, free concert at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall:
“The Concert Choir is singing a program called “Half a Bach and other good things.”
“We’re singing just half of the B Minor Mass: the Kyrie and Gloria (12 movements), which were what Bach originally wrote and sent off for his job interview!
We have a small orchestra and a mixture of student and professional soloists: Julia Rottmayer, Matthew Chastain, Wesley Dunnagan, Miranda Kettlewell, Kathleen Otterson, Elisheva Pront and Madeleine Trewin.
The remaining third of the concert is an eclectic mix of modern composers (Petr Eben’s “De circuitu eternal,” Gerald Finzi’s “My Spirit Sang All Day”), Renaissance music (Orlando Gibbons’ “O Clap your Hands”), spirituals and gospel.
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Classical music: Personal experience, artistic excellence and historical importance drew pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel into planning next year’s centennial season at the Wisconsin Union Theater
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By Jacob Stockinger
Now that Spring Break is over and subscription tickets are available for the Wisconsin Union Theater’s special centennial celebration next season – which includes superstar soprano Renée Fleming and pianist Emanuel Ax — here is an email interview that pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel (below, in a photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco), the wife-and-husband consultants and planners of that season, granted to The Ear.
For more about the season and tickets, go to two websites:
https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/concert-series/
Could you briefly introduce yourselves to readers and tell them both your past and current activities?
We have been performing on the world’s many concert stages for almost our entire lives. In addition to our careers as concert performers, we serve as the founding Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, the premier chamber music festival in Silicon Valley, as well as the Artistic Directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) in New York City.
Our main responsibility as concert performers is to give the best concerts we possibly can, and we are constantly striving to achieve the highest possible level of artistry in our performances.
In our roles as artistic directors, our responsibilities lie in the programming, casting and designing of concert series and chamber music projects for our organizations. At CMS, this includes designing the programming for our seven different satellite series around the country, plus international partnerships in Taiwan, Korea and Europe.
We are also involved in chamber music programming endeavors beyond Music@Menlo and CMS, having just completed a first-ever chamber music residency at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida. Furthermore, Wu Han is serving as Artistic Advisor to Wolf Trap Chamber Music at the Barns, which entails thematically programming eight concerts per season for the 2018–19 and 2019–20 seasons.
As artistic directors, we spend much of our time putting ourselves in the shoes of our listeners, measuring their experience and receptivity to chamber music of all periods and styles, and putting together the best programs and artists who will move our audiences forward into ever-increasing engagement with and love of the art.
David was the cellist of the Emerson String Quartet for 34 seasons, and we have been performing together as a duo for about 35 years, and continue to do so as one of our main performance activities.
What are your personal relationships to the Wisconsin Union Theater, and what do you think of it as a concert venue?
Our engagement with the Wisconsin Union Theater goes back quite a few years, but certainly not even close to the beginning of the Theater’s distinguished history. For any performer setting foot on its stage, there’s a sense of slipping into an ongoing tradition of artistic excellence that makes us feel both privileged and obligated to do our best.
The Wisconsin Union Theater and its story in American cultural life is larger than any of us; only the music we play rises above and beyond it all, and as performers, our lucky moment is to represent that incredible literature in a venue as significant and storied as the Wisconsin Union Theater. (Below is the theater’s main venue, the renovated and restored Shannon Hall.)
Why did you agree to be artistic advisors and artists-in-residence for the centennial season? Did your personal experiences in Madison play a role in that decision?
As seasoned artists, we deeply admire and respect the very special place in the classical music tradition and history that the Wisconsin Union Theater (below) inhabits, and the invitation to participate in the Theater’s 100th anniversary was an honor for us to receive. Our experiences playing on this distinguished stage and forming a relationship with the local audience have made our pursuit of the common goal of artistic excellence in the centennial season incredibly fulfilling.
Of course, having performed there in the past gave us a hint of confidence through our familiarity with the place, but we must say we have learned perhaps double what we knew originally through this planning process. Without interfering, but at the same time sharing our uncompromised commitment to artistic excellence, we hope that our presence during the process has been useful, and we know that we look so much forward to seeing the careful thought and hard work of all involved come to fruition.
Is there a unifying or guiding principle to the season you have put together?
The guiding principle behind our work on this historic season is artistic excellence, which in our opinion is what most inspires audiences and best serves the art form of classical music.
Our area of expertise is chamber music, and, as we wanted to share the best of what we can do with the Theater, our focus has been on ensuring that the chamber music offerings during this historic season, and hopefully beyond, reflect the best of the world of chamber music.
In our suggestions, we looked for variety of instrumentations, of composers and periods—in other words, giving as much of an overview of the art as we could within a season.
What would you like the public to know about the Wisconsin Union Theater and the upcoming centennial season?
In the Theater’s centennial season, the audience will have the opportunity to savor a variety of different genres of chamber music, from solo piano to vocal music, as well as a sampling of the very best works of the chamber music canon. Between these various genres, the great composers left a wealth of chamber music that could sustain the art form on its own, but that’s still only the tip of the iceberg.
Our chamber music offerings will include the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, which has a long history of performing for the Madison audience. Their December program will include celebrated cornerstones of the piano trio repertoire, including Mendelssohn’s D minor Trio and Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio. (You can hear the opening of the Archduke Trio in the YouTube video at the bottom.) Both pieces have achieved monumental historical significance through their influence in propelling the art form forward from the Classical period to the Romantic period.
The Escher String Quartet performance in January represents the best of the next generation of young string quartets. Their program includes a quartet by Franz Joseph Haydn—the father of the string quartet genre—and the sole quartet of none other than revered violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler, who performed in the Wisconsin Union Theater nearly a century ago. Kreisler set foot on the Theater’s stage numerous times, and his rarely heard string quartet nods to the Theater’s long, distinguished history. David will join the Escher Quartet for the beloved Schubert Cello Quintet, which is the “desert island” must-have piece for many music lovers.
Furthermore, in March, we will bring two of the most fantastic musicians in the world to join us for a program of Antonin Dvorak, Josef Suk and Johannes Brahms. This multigenerational cast of musicians includes the incredible young French violinist Arnaud Sussmann (below top, in a photo by Matt Dine) as well as the most important violist of our generation, Paul Neubauer (below bottom). This program is all about the passing down of the baton and the continuous investment in the next generations of artists: Brahms was the one who discovered Dvorak, and Dvorak in turn discovered Suk.
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Classical music: Two FREE chamber music concerts on Thursday and Friday nights at the UW-Madison feature quartets and quintets by Mozart, Boccherini, Schubert, Dvorak and Weinberg
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By Jacob Stockinger
Chamber music fans have something special to look forward to this week with back-to-back evening concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music that mix famous and well-known works with less familiar ones.
THURSDAY NIGHT
On Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the Pro Arte Quartet will perform.
The program features six miniature “Evening Songs” (1865) – also called “Cypresses” — by Antonin Dvorak; the String Quartet No. 5 in B-Flat Major (1945) by Mieczyslaw Weinberg; and the String Quartet in B-Flat Major “Hunt,” K. 458 (1784), by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (You can hear one of Dvorak’s “Cypresses” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Members of the Pro Arte Quartet (below, from left, in a photo by Rick Langer) are: violinists David Perry and Suzanne Beia; violist Sally Chisholm; and cellist Parry Karp.
For more information about the unique and dramatic history of the critically acclaimed Pro Arte Quartet, the longest active string quartet in the history of music, go to:
https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/pro-arte-quartet/
FRIDAY NIGHT
On Friday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, UW-Madison cellist Uri Vardi (below) will be joined by several faculty colleagues, one of his students and his son for an evening of three quintets.
In addition to Uri Vardi, the performers include: clarinetist Amitai Vardi (below); pianist Christopher Taylor; violinists David Perry and Soh-Hyun Park Altino; violist Sally Chisholm; cellist James Waldo; and double bassist David Scholl.
The program includes: the Quintet in C major, assembled from other quintets by Johann Lauterbach, by Luigi Boccherini, a contemporary of Mozart; the famous Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the well-known “Trout” Quintet by Franz Schubert.
For more background, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uri-vardi-quintets-students-friends-and-family/
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Classical music: This Wednesday brings a FREE Just Bach concert and the FREE Final Forte concerto competition of the Madison Symphony Orchestra on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Wednesday, March 13, brings two noteworthy and FREE events: this month’s midday Just Bach concert; and, at night, the annual Final Forte teenage concerto competition of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
Here are details about both events:
JUST BACH
This month’s FREE hour-long performance by Just Bach (below, in a photo by John W. Barker) will take place at Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, starting at 1 p.m. Food and drink are permitted and free-will donations are accepted.
The program this Wednesday is: the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor “Dorian” for organ, BWV 538, by Johann Sebastian Bach; the cantata “Herr, Ich Warte auf dein Heil” (Lord, I Wait for Your Salvation) by Johann Michael Bach, a cousin of Johann Sebastian; and the famous cantata “Christ lag in Todesbanden” (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death”), BWV 4, by Johann Sebastian Bach. (You can hear the opening Sinfonia and Chorus to the latter in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a list of upcoming performances and programs for the second semester:
https://justbach.org/concerts/
And here is a link to the home page and website with links to information about the performers and more.
FINAL FORTE
Then on Wednesday night, starting at 6:45 p.m. in Overture Hall of the Overture Center, the four finalists in the annual Final Forte teenage concerto competition, held by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, will compete accompanied by the MSO and conductor John DeMain.
The public is invited to attend the FREE event, but tickets but must be reserved in advance.
The performances will also be broadcast live starting at 7 p.m. by both Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) and Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).
The four finalists, from dozens of statewide applicants who took part in the two preliminary rounds, are (below, from left): violinist Monona Suzuki of Fitchburg playing Ravel; cellist Grace Kim of Waunakee playing Saint-Saens; flutist Holly Venkitaswaren of Lisbon playing Pierce; and pianist Antonio Wu of Madison playing Rachmaninoff.
For more information about the performers, what they will perform and how to obtain tickets, as well as background on the competition, including impressive radio and television ratings, go to:
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Classical music: Superstar soprano Renée Fleming and pianist Emanuel Ax headline the 100th anniversary of the Wisconsin Union Theater’s Concert Series next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following major announcement to post about the Wisconsin Union Theater, which The Ear calls “the Carnegie Hall of Madison” for its long and distinguished history of presenting great performing artists.
The Wisconsin Union Theater (below top, with Shannon Hall below bottom) is delighted to announce the schedule for its 100th Concert Series during 2019-20.
In this celebratory year, we introduce two exciting additions: A transformative gift by Kato Perlman establishes the David and Kato Perlman Chamber Series, ensuring the world’s best chamber ensembles continue to perform as a regular feature of the Concert Series.
Additionally, two Concert Series performances will take place in the Mead Witter School of Music’s new Hamel Music Center (below). We look forward to increased collaborations with the school of music.
The 100th anniversary series was curated by the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Performing Arts Committee, with wife-and-husband advisors pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel (below, in a photo by Tristan Cook), who are celebrated musicians and directors of several festivals of classical music and also serve as co-artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. (You can hear them performing music by Johann Sebastian Bach in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The first season of this distinguished series was in 1920-1921, and featured soprano May Peterson, violinist Fritz Kreisler and pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch.
Nineteen years later, in 1939-1940, the series moved to the newly opened Wisconsin Union Theater. The first season in the Wisconsin Union Theater featured bass singer Ezio Pinza, cellist Emanuel Feuermann, violinist Joseph Szigeti, pianist Robert Casadesus and, the highlight, contralto Marian Anderson.
Through these 99 years, numerous renowned, accomplished and prominent classical musicians have played in the series, the longest continuous classical series in the Midwest. Some made their debut here and continued returning as their fame rose.
See this article for an interview with former WUT director Michael Goldberg about the history of the series.
The schedule for the 100th Concert Series, including the inaugural David and Kato Perlman Chamber Music Series, is:
Oct. 6 – A cappella choral group Chanticleer, Hamel Music Center. Program To Be Announced
Nov. 2 – Pianist Emanuel Ax (below), Shannon Hall. All-Beethoven program, including Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 2 and 3.
Dec. 6 – The Kalichstein, Laredo and Robinson Piano Trio (below), Shannon Hall. “Canonic Etudes” by Robert Schumann; Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor by Felix Mendelssohn; and Piano Trio in B-flat major “Archduke” by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Jan. 25, 2020 – The Escher String Quartet (below), featuring David Finckel, Shannon Hall. Quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn, Fritz Kreisler and Franz Schubert.
March 5, 2020 – Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center – featuring David Finckel, Wu Han, Paul Neubauer and Arnaud Sussman, Shannon Hall. Sonatine by Antonin Dvorak; Piano Quartet by Josef Suk; Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25, by Johannes Brahms.
March 7, 2020 – Wu Han with the UW Symphony Orchestra, Hamel Music Center. Program TBD.
March 28, 2020 – Violinist Gil Shaham (below) with pianist Akira Eguchi, Shannon Hall. Program TBD.
May 2, 2020 – Special Gala Concert with Renée Fleming (below). Shannon Hall. Mixed Recital.
All programs are subject to change.
Subscriptions will be available starting March 18, 2019. Subscribers benefits include: access to the best seats, 20% off the price of single tickets, no order fees, a free ticket to Wu Han’s performance with the UW Symphony Orchestra, and the opportunity to be first to purchase tickets to Renée Fleming’s 100th Anniversary Gala Concert.
Find more information about the series and the artists at www.uniontheater.wisc.edu. Subscriptions will be available on March 18 at www.artsticketing.wisc.edu.
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Classical music: Canadian violinist James Ehnes and American composer John Harbison are spotlighted this coming weekend by the Madison Symphony Orchestra
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By Jacob Stockinger
Internationally recognized and Grammy Award-winning Canadian violinist James Ehnes returns to Overture Hall this weekend to perform the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO, below in a photo by Greg Anderson).
The program opens with a performance of American composer John Harbison’s The Most Often Used Chords, and closes with Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
This program is a continuation of MSO music director John DeMain’s 25th anniversary season.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall, 201 State Street, on Friday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Feb. 17, at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets information is below.
“Mussorgsky’s masterpiece explores the colors of the orchestra — the correlation of an artist’s visual medium through the colors of sound and music. And its finale The Great Gate of Kiev (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom), is one of classical music’s greatest hits,” says DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson).
DeMain adds: “James Ehnes (below, in a photo by Benjamin Ealovega) is a violinist who is completely to my taste. With an absolutely gorgeous sound and consummate technique, he goes to the heart of the music. He will approach the Brahms violin concerto as a violinist’s violinist, adored by the public, by his colleagues and by me for the integrity in his playing.”
On this Friday afternoon, Feb. 15, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, Ehnes will give a free and public master class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
DeMain continues: “We celebrate the 80th birthday of the internationally renowned — and Madison resident — composer John Harbison (below) with the first performance by the MSO of his delightful composition, The Most Often Used Chords.”
Harbison’s The Most Often Used Chords is a satirical piece of “anti-art art,” or “found object,” art. According to the composer, the found object that inspired this symphony (originally titled Fli Accordi Piu Usati) were the pre-printed “Fundamentals of Music” pages that he noticed in an Italian music-writing notebook. The work was originally composed in 1992 for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Written in 1878, the Brahms Violin Concerto was dedicated to his friend Joseph Joachim and premiered in 1879 in Leipzig, with Joachim soloing and Brahms (below) conducting.
An equal partnership between soloist and ensemble is on full display in this concerto; it is not a piece in which the orchestra serves as mere backdrop. Rather, the violinist and orchestra are a team, collaborating and interacting to recount an elegant and nuanced musical drama.
Originally written as a piano composition, Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky was composed as a memorial to his friend, the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann, who died in 1873. The suite consists of 10 movements — each a musical depiction of one of 10 paintings by Hartmann. These movements are interspersed with a recurring promenade theme that represents a visitor strolling through the exhibition.
The arrangement by Maurice Ravel (below), produced in 1922, represents a virtuoso effort by a master composer. His instrumental colors — a trumpet solo for the opening Promenade, dark woodwind tones, the piccolo and high strings for the children’s “chicks in shells” — are widely admired. The influence of Ravel’s version may often be discerned in subsequent versions of the suite.
CONCERT AND TICKET DETAILS
The lobby opens 90 minutes prior to each concert. One hour before each performance, Randal Swiggum (below) will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers’ understanding and listening experience. It is free to ticket holders.
The symphony recommends concert attendees arrive early for each performance to make sure they have time to pass through Overture Center’s security stations, and so they can experience the Prelude Discussion.
Program notes for the concerts, written retired MSO trombonist J. Michael Allsen, are available online: http://bit.ly/feb2019programnotes
- Single Tickets are $18-$93 each and are on sale now at: https://madisonsymphony.org/ehnesthrough the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street, or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online/phone sales.
- Groups of 10 or more can save 25% by calling the MSO office at (608) 257-3734. For more information, visit, https://www.madisonsymphony.org/groups.
- Student rush tickets can be purchased in person on the day of the concert at the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street. Students must show a valid student ID and can receive up to two $15 or $20 tickets. More information is at: https://www.madisonsymphony.org/studentrush
- Seniors age 62 and up receive 20% savings on advance and day-of-concert ticket purchases in select areas of the hall.
- Flex-ticket booklets of 10 vouchers for 18-19 symphony subscription concerts are available. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/flex
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
Major funding for the February concerts is provided by: The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club, BMO Harris Bank, Boardman and Clark LLP, Capitol Lakes, Dr. Robert and Linda Graebner, Marvin J. Levy, and Cyrena and Lee Pondrom.
Additional funding is provided by Martha and Charles Casey, and by the Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Classical music: Prize-winning composer John Harbison has turned 80. In February, Madison will see many celebrations of his birthday, starting this Friday night with the Imani Winds
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Friday night, Feb. 1, a month-long celebration in Madison of the 80th birthday of critically acclaimed and prize-winning composer John Harbison (below) gets underway.
The festivities start with a concert by the Grammy-nominated Imani Winds (below), which will perform this Friday night at 7:30 p.m. – with a pre-concert lecture at 6 p.m. — in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater. The program includes Harbison’s popular Wind Quintet.
Here is a link with more information about the group, the program and tickets: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/imani-winds/
Among America’s most distinguished artistic figures, Harbison is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them a MacArthur ”genius grant’ and a Pulitzer Prize. His work encompasses all genres, from chamber music to opera, sacred to secular. (You can hear Harbison discuss his approach to composing in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
He has composed for most of America’s premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York; and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Institute Professor at MIT, Harbison serves as composer, conductor, performer, teacher and scholar. He divides his time between Cambridge, Mass., and Token Creek, Wis., where he co-founded and co-directs a summer chamber music festival with his violinist wife Rose Mary Harbison.
Other local birthday events include a performance by the Madison Symphony Orchestra; several chamber music and choral concerts at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, including one by the Mosaic Chamber Players; an exhibition of books and manuscripts at the Mills Music Library at UW-Madison’s Memorial Library.
There are also several concerts, including the world premiere of a new Sonata for Viola, and a composer residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music; and the world premiere of a new motet by the Madison Choral Project.
Harbison will also be featured in radio interviews and broadcast retrospectives by both Wisconsin Public Radio and WORT community radio.
National and international celebrations include other world premieres of commissions, many new recordings and the publication of Harbison’s autobiographical book about Johann Sebastian Bach, “What Do We Make of Bach?”
For more details about the many local celebrations, you can go to the following two links. Schedules, programs and updates – events are subject to change — will be posted at www.tokencreekfestival.org and www.johnharbison.com.
To receive “Harbison Occasions,” an intermittent e-newsletter, write to arsnova.artsmanagement@gmail.com
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Classical music: WQXR radio names 19 musicians to watch in ’19. What do you think of the choices? Who would you add?
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By Jacob Stockinger
What will 2019 bring in the way of classical music?
What and who should we be looking at and paying attention to?
WQXR — the famed classical radio station in New York City – recently published its list of 19 to watch in ‘19, with detailed reasons for and explanations of their picks.
It seems like a pretty good choice to The Ear, although there is always something of a parlor game aspect to such projects.
Nonetheless, the list covers a fine variety – instrumentalists and vocalists, young and old, American and international, the well-known and the up-and-coming such as the opera singer Devone Tines (below, in a photo by Nikolai Schukoff).
Some names will be familiar to Madison audiences – such as pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Nicola Benedettti, the JACK Quartet and cellist Steven Isserlis — especially through their live appearances at the Wisconsin Union Theater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and the Madison Symphony Orchestra plus broadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio.
Here is a link to the list: https://www.wqxr.org/story/wqxr-presents-19-19-artists-collaborations-upcoming-year/
The Ear can think of some other musicians that he would add to the list.
An especially deserving one of them is the young American virtuoso pianist George Li (below, in a photo by Simon Fowler).
Born in China and brought as a child to the United States by his parents, Li attended Harvard and just finished his master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. (At the bottom, you can hear Li play virtuosic music by Liszt and Horowitz in the YouTube video of a Tiny Desk Concert at National Public Radio or NPR.)
Li won the silver medal in the 2015 at the 15th Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and had a lot of people talking about the energy and excitement of his playing. He was praised for both outstanding technical prowess and deep expressiveness.
He then took first prize at a piano competition in Paris.
Ever since, he has been steadily booked. At 23, the amiable Li has already toured China, Japan and Russia and seems to have a very busy schedule ahead of him, judging by his posts on Instagram.
He has also released his first recording on the Warner Classics label, a fine CD that received many positive reviews from critics, including this one.
The program includes Haydn’s Sonata in B minor, Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor “Funeral March,” Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme of Corelli,” and Consolation No. 3 and the popular Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt.
Given all the concertos he is now performing, it would not surprise one to see his next recording be a concerto, possibly the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto N. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, which brought him instant acclaim.
Here is a link to his website: http://www.georgelipianist.com
And here is a link to his entry in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Li
Keep your ears and eyes on George Li.
What do you think of the choices made by WQXR?
Who would you add to the list of musicians to watch in 2019, and why?
If possible, maybe you can include a YouTube link to a performance, live or recorded, in your comment.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Music from Schubert’s last year of life is the focus of this year’s UW-Madison’s Schubertiade this Sunday afternoon when a world-famous Schubert scholar will share her insights
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NEWS UPDATE: The UW-Madison is offering FREE ADMISSION to Sunday afternoon’s Schubertiade, discussed below, to furloughed federal workers, who just have to show their federal identification to an usher.
By Jacob Stockinger
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s sixth annual Schubertiade – a re-creation of the historical and informal celebration of his music that Franz Schubert (1797-1828) used to hold with friends – will take place this Sunday afternoon, Jan. 27, at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
The focus this year is the music composed in the last year of Schubert’s life, before his death at 31.
A schedule of events and information about tickets are below.
This Schubertiade will feature a world-famous Schubert scholar. Susan Youens, recently retired from the University of Notre Dame, has one of the most impressive musicology resumes in the world, and will share her insights about the late style of Franz Schubert (below) in her pre-concert lecture.
Youens has won four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. She has published eight books, hundreds of articles, essays and chapters, and lectured all over the world.
“Dr. Youens (below) will explore the rich relationship of Schubert’s music to the poems he chose to set and the emergence of new directions in Schubert’s style,” says co-organizer William Lutes. “The influence of Beethoven had loomed large throughout Schubert’s music, and in the year following Beethoven’s death, the 31-year-old composer wrote works of homage to this great master, as he saw his own music becoming more widely recognized, published and performed.”
Highlights of the Schubertiade will be a complete performance of Schubert’s 14 final songs, published after his death as Schwanengesang, or “Swan Songs” — among the composer’s richest and most forward-looking works. (You can hear the famous “Serenade” from “Swan Songs” sung by Angela Gheorghiu in the YouTube video at the bottom,)
Also on the program are the humorous and risqué Refrain-Lieder; the slow movement of the great Piano Trio in E-flat major; the enchanting Rondo in A major for piano four-hands; and the beautiful song Auf den Strom for voice, horn and piano, composed for a concert commemorating the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death, and filled with subtly haunting references to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.”
In addition to pianists and singers Martha Fischer and William Lutes (below), guest performers will include voice faculty members Mimmi Fulmer, Julia Rottmayer and Paul Rowe, voice students Sarah Brailey, Wesley Dunnagan, and Benjamin Hopkins, graduate hornist Joanna Schulz, and guest singer Cheryl Bensman-Rowe.
Also participating is the Perlman Trio (Mercedes Cullen, violin; Micah Cheng, cello; and Kangwoo Jin, piano).
The School of Music also thanks donors Ann Boyer and Kato Perlman for their longtime support of the Schubertiades, the Perlman Trio and other musicians and events.
2019 SCHUBERTIADE SCHEDULE
Pre-concert lecture: 2 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 27, Morphy Hall. (Free.)
Concert: 3 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 27, Mills Hall. (Ticketed.)
Post-concert reception, included with ticket purchase: Sunday, Jan. 27, at the nearby University Club, 5:30 p.m.
TICKETS: $17 for adults, $7 for all age students/children; free to music majors, faculty and staff. To avoid long lines, we suggest arriving 30 minutes early or buying tickets ahead of time, either in person or online. Please see the link below.
Purchase options (online, by telephone and in person) here: https://www.music.wisc.edu/about-us/tickets/
To buy tickets directly online, click here.
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