The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Salon Piano Series again postpones two final concerts for 2019-20. Programs for Spring 2021 will be announced soon
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By Jacob Stockinger
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post from the directors of the Salon Piano Series:
Although it likely will come as no surprise, we are saddened to announce that Salon Piano Series — like so many of our concert colleagues everywhere — must take a pause in our recital series.
We delayed our last two concerts of the 2019-20 season until late summer. It’s clear now that even late summer is too soon to re-open the doors of our intimate performance hall. The safety of our artists, audience, supporters, and staff is our first concern.
These are uncertain times, but we want to assure you that we are looking ahead to reschedule classical pianist Drew Petersen (below top) and jazz pianist Bill Charlap (below bottom), and we plan to announce the exciting performers we’ve scheduled for spring 2021 events very soon. (Editor’s Note: in the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Drew Petersen play Chopin’s Ballade No. 4.)
Until then, we hope that you continue to support the mission of the Salon Piano Series as we weather this storm.
We ask you to keep your Petersen and Charlap tickets and we will honor them when we are able to resume the series. If that won’t work please consider donating them (which is tax-deductible) to Salon Piano Series. However, if you need a ticket refund, please check below for instructions on how to proceed.
Salon Piano Series is dedicated to preserving the intimacy and intensity of the recital experience. We bring you world-class artists performing on superbly restored instruments, offering some of the greatest piano repertoire in the world, from timeless classics to lesser-known works.
We eagerly await the day when we can safely gather together and bring back these masterful concerts. Contributions are welcome at any time, and will help ensure the vitality of our organization.
In the meantime, we extend our best wishes for your health and safety, and look forward to seeing you again as soon as it’s possible.
With appreciation,
SPS Board of Directors
Refunds
If you would like a refund immediately, please follow the instructions below and specify which concerts you are requesting a refund for. For refunds issued through Salon Piano Series, please allow several business days for processing.
Paper Tickets
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, email Brown Paper Tickets at refunds@brownpapertickets.com. Please be sure to include your order confirmation number. Brown Paper Tickets’ refund processing is significantly delayed; however, all refunds will be honored in full.
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: This weekend, the Madison Symphony Orchestra celebrates the legacy and works of Leonard Bernstein
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, Leonard Bernstein (below, in a photo by Jack Mitchell) will be remembered, honored and celebrated by his friend and Madison Symphony Orchestra music director John DeMain in a “Remembering Lenny” concert that explores Bernstein’s musical contributions as an American composer and conductor.
Original works by Bernstein will be performed by the MSO on the first half of the concert. The MSO starts with the Overture to Candide, then moves on to On The Town, and, finally, performs his Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety,” featuring Van Cliburn Competition bronze medal winner and UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor.
The second half of the program features Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, the last work that Bernstein (1918-1990) ever conducted during a concert at the summer Tanglewood Festival of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall, 201 State Street, on this Friday night, Nov. 9, at 7:30 p.m.; this Saturday night, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m.; and this Sunday afternoon, Nov. 11, at 2:30 p.m. Ticket information is below.
Says DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson): “To have my 25th anniversary with the MSO coincide with the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth is special for me personally because of the unique opportunities I had to work with this great American musician.”
DeMain, who premiered Bernstein’s opera “A Quiet Place” in Houston, adds: “The first half of the concert celebrates Lenny the composer, culminating in the first performance by the MSO of his second symphony, The Age of Anxiety, which has a dazzling and at times jazzy part for the piano, and carries with it, still, a timely social statement. Christopher Taylor (below), a Madison favorite with whom I have often enjoyed collaborating, will perform the challenging and exciting piano part.”
DeMain describes the final work in the program: “The second half of the concert pays tribute to Lenny the conductor, and his life-long love of Beethoven. Since the Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, was the last piece Lenny conducted, I thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate Lenny and his great contribution to American musical life.” (NOTE: You can hear Bernstein conduct the famous second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 during his last public performance, just two months before he died, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is some more background:
Bernstein’s operetta Candide is based on the 1759 novella by French philosopher Voltaire. The well-known Overture is quick-paced, with a feverish excitement that begins from the first breath of sound. Many of the meters are in seven beats, or of other non-traditional types, and quickly change. Each player of the ensemble is required to perform with simultaneously the utmost virtuosity and togetherness.
On the Town is a dance-centric musical scored by Leonard Bernstein based on Jerome Robbins’ idea for the 1944 ballet “Fancy Free.” The story depicts three American sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City during wartime, where each man meets and quickly connects with the woman of their dreams. The musical is the source of the ubiquitously popular show tune New York, New York.
The Age of Anxiety was composed between 1948 and 1949, and is inspired by a poem of the same name by W.H. Auden (below). The 80-page poem follows four lonely strangers who meet in a wartime New York bar and spend the evening ruminating on their lives and the human condition. Subtitled “a baroque eclogue” (a pastoral poem in dialogue form), the characters speak mostly in long soliloquies of alliterative tetrameter, with little distinction among the individual voices.
Composed from 1811–1812, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 premiered with Beethoven (below) himself conducting in Vienna on December 8, 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau.
The symphony’s dance elements, vitality and sense of celebration are conveyed principally through rhythm. It is not the melodies that are so striking and memorable as the general sense of forward movement.
The Overture 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 MSO recommends that 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 are available online. Go to: http://bit.ly/nov2018programnotes
Tickets can be purchased in the following ways:
- Single Tickets are $18-$93 each and are on sale now at: https://madisonsymphony.org/bernstein\through 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.
- Subscribers to 5 or more symphony subscription concerts can save up to 50% off single ticket prices. More information is available about the season at: https://madisonsymphony.org/18-19
- Flex-Ticket booklets of 10 vouchers for 2018-19 symphony subscription concerts are available. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/flex
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
Find more information at madisonsymphony.org
The Presenting Sponsor for the November concerts is Steinhauer Charitable Trust. Underwriting for Christopher Taylor is provided by Sharon Stark, “to Peter Livingston with love.” Major funding is provided by: Stephen D. Morton, The Gialamas Company, Inc., Myrna Larson, Madison Symphony Orchestra League, and Nancy Mohs. Additional funding is provided by Robert Benjamin and John Fields, Godfrey & Kahn, S.C., and Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Classical music: The third annual Madison New Music Festival features three world premieres and 25 composers, and takes place this weekend with three concerts
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By Jacob Stockinger
It has been a good year for new music in Madison, which has often seemed inhospitable to that music in the past.
Among major contributors have been the LunART Festival of contemporary women composers; programs by the UW Symphony Orchestra and other UW-Madison groups and individuals; the Madison Opera; the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society; the Willy Street Chamber Players; and the Oakwood Chamber Players. Plus, The Ear is sure there are many other contributors he is overlooking.
But the largest share of the credit has to go to a three-day annual festival of living composers that will take place for the third year this coming weekend. (Photos from last year’s well-attended festival are by Max Schmidt.)
Here is an announcement from the festival with the details:
The third annual Madison New Music Festival will take place this coming Friday, Aug. 10, Saturday, Aug. 11, and Sunday, Aug. 12.
The Madison New Music Festival is an annual weekend-long concert series dedicated to strengthening Madison’s cultural vitality through the celebration of fresh classical music from our lifetimes.
Founded by Madison native composer Zachary Green (below bottom), the festival presents new works by some of the world’s leading living composers, shines a spotlight on new music created in Wisconsin, and shares underplayed music of the 20th and 21st centuries with the Madison community.
Every concert will also have a world premiere of music that has never been heard before. On the opening night, Conduit is performing a new piece by Kyle Tieman-Strauss called Abject. The next day, organist Tyler Jameson Pimm premieres his new piece Psalm 22. Then on Sunday, listeners get to hear the premiere of They’re Still Here by BC Grimm, featuring music for nine different instruments (all of which will be played by Grimm himself).
Over the course of three concerts around town, we are featuring a total of 17 musicians playing the works of 25 composers, all of which were written in the last 50 years.
Though each concert has a different theme, every performance features music by Wisconsin composers, composers of color, and both men and women.
Fifteen of our musicians were born, raised or currently reside in Wisconsin, but we’re bringing several back to town just for the festival. They include members of the Madison, Milwaukee and Quad City symphonies; and graduates of Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes Conservatory, Northwestern University, and, of course, the UW-Madison.
We invite you to join us for the following three concerts:
CONCERT 1: Sounds of the ‘60s and Beyond – Friday, Aug. 10, at 7:30 p.m.
Hear sounds born out of the ’60s counterculture with works exploring minimalism, social and political engagement, and electronic experimentation, as well as the music they inspired for decades to come. There will be a cash bar, as well as opportunities to explore the exhibits.
Where: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMOCA), 227 State Street
Who: Caitlin Mead, soprano; Heather Zinninger Yarmel, flute; Kristina Teuschler, clarinet; Jeremy Kienbaum, viola; Alex Norris, violin, and Zou Zou Robidoux, cello; and Conduit (below, Zach Manzi, clarinet and Evan Sadler, percussion).
Program: Music by Melissa Dunphy, Angelica Negron, Evan Williams, Steve Reich, Gilda Lyons, Anna Meadors, Kyle T. Strauss, David Lang and Andy Akiho
CONCERT 2: Sounds of Reflection – Saturday, Aug. 11, at 2 p.m.
The festival continues with an afternoon program invoking spirituality, morality and reflection. Organ interludes will be interspersed throughout the program of vocal and instrumental music.
Where: Bethel Lutheran Church, 312 Wisconsin Ave.
Who: Greg Zelek, Madison Symphony Orchestra organist (below); Jeremy Kienbaum, viola; Satoko Hayami, piano; Tyler Pimm; organ; Kristina Teuschler, clarinet; Alex Norris, violin; Micah Cheng, cello; Caitlin Mead, soprano; and Scott Gendel, piano.
Program: Music by Toru Takemitsu, Trevor Weston, Morton Feldman, Daniel Ficarri, John Weaver, Tyler Pimm, Tania Leon, John Musto and Scott Gendel
CONCERT 3: Festival Closing Party 2018 – Sunday, Aug. 12, at 7:30 p.m.
Kick back a drink as local musician BC Grimm plays his original works for instruments from cello to Chinese Guqin zither, followed by a set of music for solo strings. Then, the musicians from all three concerts come together for a performance of the 1973 piece “Stay On It” — heard in the YouTube video the bottom — by Julius Eastman (below).
Where: Robinia Courtyard, 829 East Washington Avenue
Who: BC Grimm, Jeremy Keinbaum, Aaron Yarmel, and All Festival Performers
Program: BC Grimm, Philip Glass, Ursula Mamlok, Aaron Yarmel, and Julius Eastman
All individual concerts are $15 for general admission, $5 for students. You can also subscribe to all three concerts for $35.
For more information, please visit our website http://madisonnewmusic.org or find us on Facebook (@Madison New Music Festival) or Instagram (@madisonnewmusic).
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Classical music education: The all-student Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) performs music by Mozart and Aaron Copland this coming Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, below in a photo by Steve Rankin) performs “Interplay,” featuring music by Mozart, Copland and Grieg.
There will be two performances.
The first is on Saturday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church (below), 203 Wisconsin Avenue, off the Capitol Square.
Then on Sunday, Aug. 5, MAYCO will perform at 12:30 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery 3 at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art as part of the monthly “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” series, which can be STREAMED LIVE by going to: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen-8-5-18/
Admission for the Saturday performance is $10 at the door; students by donation. The Sunday performance is FREE, and reservations can be made by going to the above link.
For more information, visit www.mayco.org or www.facebook.com/madisonchamberorchestra.
ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA
MAYCO is a free summer festival ensemble dedicated to providing an intensive small orchestra experience for advanced high school and college musicians.
Founded in 2010 by music director Mikko Rankin Utevsky, the orchestra prepares a full program over the course of each one-week summer session, culminating in a public concert (below is a photo by Dennis Gotowksi of the concert this past June).
For The Ear, Utevsky (below top) and his general manager and concertmaster-wife Thalia Coombs (below bottom) answered some questions about the concerts:
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROGRAM?
The orchestra will be joined by guest soloist Trevor Stephenson (below), who is the artistic director and keyboard player of the Madison Bach Musicians. On fortepiano, he will solo in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, sometimes nicknamed the “Jeunehomme” Concerto. (You can hear the lively, tuneful and infectious last movement of the Mozart concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Stephenson has led workshops on historical performance practices with the orchestra in past seasons, and we’re delighted to work with him to bring one of Mozart’s weirdest and wildest youthful masterpieces to life.
The ballet suite from “Appalachian Spring” by Aaron Copland (below) is one of the defining works of his classic American sound, juxtaposing the pastoral beauty of the countryside with his trademark rhythmic vitality. We are performing the original chamber version, in which the clarity of texture illuminates the intricate internal structure of the piece.
Two high school students from our Conducting Apprenticeship Program will lead Grieg’s affecting miniature, “Last Spring,” for string orchestra. Cellist Elizabeth Strauss and violinist Monona Suzuki (below, in 2013) are this year’s Apprentices.
WHY IS THE CONCERT CALLED “INTERPLAY”?
We wanted to highlight the sense of conversation and interaction present in the two major works on this program.
The Mozart concerto is remarkable for the degree of interplay between soloist and orchestra. From the opening bars they are constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other’s sentences. It’s what gives the piece its unique sense of drama.
There’s a truism that Mozart made everything he wrote into an opera, and it’s certainly evident here: the melodies could have been lifted straight out of “The Marriage of Figaro.”
In the Copland work, it’s more about the intricacy of texture and the sense of playfulness in the way the various parts interact.
This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board; and by Dane Arts, with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
Tags: #AaronCopland, #AppalachianSpring, #CapitolSquare, #ChamberOrchestra, #ChazenMuseumofArt, #ChristianChurch, #ChristianReligion, #Classicalera, #CollegeStudent, #DaneArts, #EdvardGrieg, #EndresMfg.Company, #EvjueFoundation, #FirstUnitedMethodistChurch, #HighSchool, #HistoricallyInformedPerformancePractices, #JeunehommeConcerto, #JohannSebastianBach, #LiveStreaming, #MadisonAreaYouthChamberOrchestra, #MadisonArtsCommission, #MadisonBachMusicians, #MarriageofFigaro, #MethodistReligion, #MikkoRankinUtevsky, #MikkoUtevsky, #MusicEducation, #OperaAria, #PeriodInstrument, #PianoConcerto, #PleasantT.Rowland, #PublicConcert, #SaturdayNight, #Sundayafternoon, #SundayAfternoonLiveattheChazen, #TheCapitalTimes, #TheMarriageofFigaro, #TrevorStephenson, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #W.JeromeFrautschi, #WisconsinArtsBoard, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YoungPeople, #YouTubevideo, Aaron Copland, afternoon, American, Appalachia, Appalachian Spring, apprentice, Arts, Bach, beauty, Capitol Square, cellist, Cello, Chamber music, charitable, Chazen Museum of Art, Christian church, Christian religion, Classical era, Classical music, composer, Concert, concerto, conductor, conversation, countryside, Dane Arts, donation, Edvard Grieg, Endres Mfg. Company, ensemble, festival, fortepiano, foundation, high school, historically informed performance practices, Jacob Stockinger, Jeunehomme, Johann Sebastian Bach, link, live, live streaming, Madison, Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra, Madison Arts Commission, Madison Bach Musicians, masterpiece, MAYCO, MBM, melody, Methodist, Methodist Religion, Mikko Utevsky, Mozart, Music, Music education, night, opera, Orchestra, pastoral, performance, period-instrument, Piano, Piano concerto, Pleasant T. Rowland, public, reservation, rhythm, Saturday, Season, solo, soloist, Spring, streaming, structure, Student, summer, Sunday, Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen, symphony, texture, The Marriage of Figaro, Trevor Stephenson, truism, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, Viola, Violin, violinist, vitality, W. Jerome Frautschi, Website, weird, wild, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, young people, youthful, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: A veteran reviewer bids farewell with a rave review of this summer’s last concert by the Willy Street Chamber Players and UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor
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IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a very special posting, the final review that will be written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker.
Barker (below), who is dealing with medical issues, is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who wrote for The Capital Times, Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who, until two weeks ago, hosted an early music show once a month on a Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gave pre-concert lectures in Madison.
Please use the comment section to join The Ear in thanking Barker for his many years of public service and wishing him well.
By John W. Barker
I had to miss the first concert this summer by the Willy Street Chamber Players (below) on July 12; and the next one, on July 19, was cancelled because of power failures. But the final one, last Friday night, was well worth waiting for — one of the really memorable events of the year, I think.
The program, performed at the usual near East Side venue of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street, began with some short items.
First, there was a set of Three Nocturnes (1924) for piano trio — violin, cello and piano — by Ernest Bloch. They contain elements of the Hebraic sound that Bloch cultivated but also had their own individualities, the first two contemplative and the third marked “tempestuoso.” Interesting was Bloch’s alternating uses of muting the strings.
After this came an example of the short pieces for string quartet by the contemporary composer Jessie Montgomery, her “Voodoo Dolls” (2008). Much is packed into this five-minute piece. A few lyrical touches aside, it sounded like a hoedown gone crazy, full of quite novel sounds, including rhythmic thumping on the wood of the instruments.
All that was a curtain-raiser to the big event of the program: the Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, by Antonin Dvorak. This 40-minute work is one of the composer’s best-known chamber music compositions, and one of the standouts in the whole chamber music literature.
The very opening notes of the first movement bring a flood of warm well-being. (After hearing just that, I commented, “I haven’t felt such happiness in months.”)
The fecundity and richness of invention pervaded the entire work. For me, its high point is the second movement, in which Dvorak (below) used the Czech formula of the dumka, a kind of folk music lament that is paced slow-fast-slow-fast. (You can hear the Dumka movement, played by the Jerusalem Quartet and pianist Stefan Vladar, in the YouTube video below.)
Dvorak liked to play viola in chamber music, and so he always wrote some good things for himself. The sublime passages for viola in this movement were played with such transcendent beauty by Rachael Hauser (below) – who is leaving Madison for New York City — that I felt I was hearing the composer’s voice directly. Put simply, this was one of the greatest examples of chamber-music performance that I have ever heard.
All of the players, many of whom play in the Madison Symphony Orchestra, of course matched remarkable skill with humane vitality and vibrancy.
And a measure of the Willys’ standards was the fact that they were able to draw as a partner no less than that magnificent UW-Madison music school pianist, Christopher Taylor (below), who also performed the same Dvorak Piano Quintet in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he won a bronze medal. Much of his excellence here was demonstrated by the fact that he did not play the star, but joined with the Willys in perfect collegial integration.
This ends the Willy Street group’s fifth summer season. As a symbol of vibrancy and fresh spirit, they are among the most important of Madison’s classical music world today. They have drawn steadily growing audiences, and the house was truly packed for this concert. We can only hope that they will continue to brighten that world in the years ahead.
I am now ending my time as a music critic. I can think of no more satisfying a final review to write than of the Willy Street Chamber Players.
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