The Well-Tempered Ear
Too bad the Wisconsin Union Theater didn’t book a great pianist for next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
“We are living in a Golden Age of pianists,” famed concert pianist, Juilliard teacher and frequent Madison performer Emanuel Ax (below) has said.
He should know. But you would never guess that from the recently announced next season at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below).
The WUT has not booked a solo pianist for the 2022-23 season.
Here is a link to the lineup for the next season:
https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/
Is The Ear the only one who has noticed and is disappointed?
Who else feels bad about it?
After all, this is the same presenting organization that brought to Madison such legendary pianists as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Jan Paderewski, Percy Grainger, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Dame Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Egon Petri, Robert Casadesus, William Kapell, Claudio Arrau, Alexander Brailowsky, Gary Graffman, Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Byron Janis, Misha Dichter, Peter Serkin, André Watts, Lili Kraus and Garrick Ohlsson
It is the same hall (below) in which The Ear has heard Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Valentina Lisitsa, Andras Schiff, Joyce Yang, Yefim Bronfman, Jeremy Denk, Ingrid Fliter, Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, Simone Dinnerstein, Wu Han and so many other great and memorable names including, of course, Emanuel Ax.
What a history!
As you can see and as The Ear likes to say, the Wisconsin Union Theater is “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.” For over 100 years, it is where the great ones play.
One irony is that many of those former bookings of pianists took place when the University of Wisconsin School of Music had many more pianists on the faculty and provided a major alternative venue for piano recitals.
Another irony is that so many young people take piano lessons (below) and are apt to want to attend, probably with their parents, to hear a live professional concert piano recital. You would think the WUT would also see the advantages of having such community outreach links to the public and to music education, especially since the WUT has hosted Open Piano Day for the public. (See the YouTube video of a Channel 3000 story in February 2020 at the bottom.)
From what The Ear reads, there are lots of up-and-coming pianists, many affordable names of various winners of national and international competitions. They should be affordable as well as worthy of being introduced to the Madison public.
But that seems a mission now largely left to the Salon Piano Series.
Plus, so many of the new pianists are young Asians who have never appeared here, which should be another draw for the socially responsible and diversity-minded WUT.
But that is another story for another day.
What do you think of the WUT not presenting a solo pianist next season?
Maybe there will be a pianist booked for the 2023-24 season.
What pianists would you like see booked by the WUT student programming committee?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #AlexanderBrailowsky, #AlfredBrendel, #AndrasSchiff, #AndréWatts, #AngelaHewitt, #ArthurRubinstein, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ByronJanis, #CarnegieHall, #Channel3000, #CommunityOutreach, #ConcertHall, #ConcertPianist, #EgonPetri, #EmanuelAx, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #GarrickOhlsson, #GaryGraffman, #GlennGould, #GoldenAge, #GuiomarNovaes, #IgnazJanPaderewski, #IngridFliter, #JacobStockinger, #JeremyDenk, #JoyceYang, #JuilliardSchool, #LatinAmericanmusic, #LeonFleisher, #LiliKraus, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MishaDichter, #MurrayPerahia, #MusicalOrganization, #Musicfaculty, #MyraHess, #OpenPianoDay, #PercyGrainger, #PeterSerkin, #PIanoRecital, #PIanoTeacher, #RichardGoode, #RobertCasadesus, #RosalynTureck, #RudolfSerkin, #SalonPIanoSeries, #SergeiRachmaninoff, #SergeiRachmaninov, #ShannonHall, #SimoneDinnerstein, #TheEar, #TheUW, #TheUW-Madison, #TooBad, #Up-and-Coming, #ValentinaLisitsa, #VladimirAskenazy, #VladimirHorowitz, #WilliamKapell, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #WuHan, #YefimBronfman, #YouTubevideo, advantage, affordable, Alexander Brailowsky, Alfred Brendel, alternative, András Schiff, André Watts, Angela Hewitt, announce, appear, Arrau, Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, Ashkenazy, Asia, asian, audience, bad, Baroque, Beethoven, blog, Blog post, Book, Brendel, Byron Janis, Carnegie Hall, Chamber music, Channel 3000, China, Chinese, Classical music, Claudio Arrau, committee, community, Competition, composer, Concert, concert hall, concert pianist, diversity, Education, Egon Petri, Emanuel Ax, Facebook, Facebook post, faculty, fame, famed, famous, female, Garrick Ohlsson, Gary Graffman, Glenn Gould, Golden Age, great, guess, Guiomar Novaes, hall, he, hear, her, here, History, Horowitz, Ingrid Fliter, international, irony, Jacob Stockinger, Japan, Japanese, Jeremy Denk, Joyce Yang, Juilliard, know, Korea, Korean, legendary, Leon Fleisher, Lili Kraus, lineup, link, live, living, Madison, male, Mead Witter School of Music, memorable, men, Misha Dichter, mission, Murray Perahia, Music, music student, Myra Hess, name, national, new, Open Piano Day, organization, outreach, Paderewski, Parent, Percy Grainger, performer, Peter Serkin, Pianist, Piano, piano recital, piano student, piano teacher, play, post, posting, presenter, professional, program, programming, public, Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninov, read, recent, recital, Richard Goode, Robert Casadesus, Rosalyn Tureck, Rubinstein, Rudolf Serkin, Salon Piano Series, say, Season, see, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Rachmaninov, Shannon Hall, share, Simone Dinnerstein, socially responsible, solo, Sonata, South Korea, South Korean, Student, tag, Taiwan, Taiwanese, Teacher, Television, The Ear, think, too bad, TV, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Madison, Valentina Lisitsa, venue, video, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Horowitz, who, William Kapell, winner, WISC-TV, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Theater, women, worth, worthy, Wu Han, WUT, year, Yefim Bronfman, you, young, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Symphony Orchestra opens its new season with superb playing, hypnotizing space photos by NASA and close to three full houses
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By Jacob Stockinger
Several years ago, artistic director and conductor John DeMain (below, in a photo by Prasad) decided to use the season-opening concerts of the Madison Symphony Orchestra to spotlight the symphony and its first-chair players as soloists.
No big-name imported guest soloists were to be booked.
In addition, this year Maestro DeMain chose to open the season with a multimedia show that combined Jumbotron-like space images from NASA (below is Jupiter) with Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.”
Such multimedia events increasingly seem to work as a way to build audiences and boost attendance by new people and young people. After all, a music director has to sell tickets and fill seats as well as wave a baton.
And it seems that, on both counts, DeMain’s strategy proved spectacularly successful.
All sections of the orchestra (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) — strings, brass, winds, percussion — played with energy, precision and subtlety. The MSO proved a very tight ensemble. Each year, you can hear how the MSO improves and grows increasingly impressive after 23 years of DeMain’s direction.
The public seemed to agree. It came very close to filling the 2,200-seat Overture Hall for all three performances with more than 6,100 audience members, according to Peter Rodgers, the new marketing director for the MSO. Especially noteworthy, he said, was the number of children, students and young people who attended.
In fact, so many students showed up for student rush tickets on Friday night that the performance was delayed by around 10 minutes – because of long lines at the box office, NOT because of the new security measures at the Overture Center, which Rodgers said worked smoothly and quickly.
But not everything was ideal, at least not for The Ear.
On the first half, the playing largely outweighed the music.
True, the Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 by a very young George Enescu (below) received a sizzling and infectious performance. With its catchy folk tunes, dance rhythms and Gypsy harmonies, the fun work proved an irresistible opener – much like a starting with an encore, which is rather like eating a rich and tasty dessert before tackling the more nutritious but less snazzy main course.
The music itself is captivating and frequently played – although this was its surprising premiere performance by the MSO. Little wonder the Enescu got a rousing standing ovation. Still, it is hardly great music.
Then came the Chaconne for violin and orchestra by the American composer John Corigliano (below), who based the work on his Oscar-winning film score for “The Red Violin.”
Concertmaster Naha Greenholtz (below) impressed The Ear and most others with her mastery of what appeared to be a very difficult score. The ovation was for her, not for the music.
That music also has some fine moments. But overall it seems a dull and tedious work, an exercise in virtuosity with some of the same flaws you find in certain overblown piano etudes by Franz Liszt. Once again the playing trumped the music.
Then came The Big Event: Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” coupled with clear, high-definition photos of the planets taken by NASA that were projected on a huge screen above the orchestra. Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s and Venus’ clouds and Mars’ landscape (below) have never looked so impressive.
The orchestra again struck one with its exotic and “spacey” sound effects and with what must have been the difficulty of timing simultaneously the music and the images.
Yet ultimately Holst’s work became a sound track — music accompanying images rather than images accompanying the music. The Ear heard several listeners compare the admittedly impressive result to the movies “Fantasia” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That says something.
At some moments the sound and images really matched and reinforced each other, especially in the dramatic opening section, “Mars, the Bringer of War.” Holst’s score also succeeds nicely with “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” and to a lesser degree with “Venus, the Bringer of Peace.”
But overall “The Planets” reminds The Ear of colorful and dramatic programmatic showpieces such as Ottorino Respighi‘s “The Pines of Rome” and “The Fountains of Rome.” (Earth, curiously, is not included in “The Planets.” Makes you wonder: What would Earth bring?) Enjoyable music, to be sure, but not profound fare.
The Ear’s extensive library of CDs has none of the three works on the program. And it will probably remain that way.
While Holst’s work does have great moments, it grows long, repetitive and finally uninteresting as it ends not with a bang but with an underwhelming whimper – which was beautifully enhanced by the atmospheric singing of the MSO Women’s Chorus. There are just too many planets!
Listen to the YouTube video at the bottom, played by James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and you will see: Mars rules!
Add it all up and despite three standing ovations, in the end The Ear found the concert less than fully satisfying. The music, however likable and appealing, was not, for the most part, great music. Moreover, it was mostly trumped first by the performances and then by the visuals.
So on a personal note, here is The Ear’s request to the MSO, which scored an undeniably brilliant success with this program: Keep the same all-orchestra and first-chair format for season-openers and use multimedia shows whenever appropriate. But please also include at least one really first-rate piece of music with more substance.
Is that asking for too much?
Is The Ear alone and unfair in his assessment?
Other critics had their own takes and some strongly disagree with The Ear.
Here is a link to three other reviews:
By John W. Barker (below) for Isthmus:
http://isthmus.com/music/beautiful-music-distracting-backdrop/
By Jessica Courtier for The Capital Times:
And by Greg Hettmansberger (below), who writes for WISC-TV Channel 3 and his Classically Speaking blog for Madison Magazine, and on his own blog, What Greg Says:
https://whatgregsays.wordpress.com/tag/john-corigliano/
What did you think of the music, the performances and the visual show?
How well did they mix?
What did you like most and least?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Academy Award, Academy Awards, Arts, blog, brass, CD, Cello, chaconne, Chamber music, Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, choral music, chorus, Classical music, Classically Speaking, concertmaster, critic, Earth, Enescu, etude, Fantasia, Film score, Fountains of Rome, Greg Hettmansberger, Gustav Holst, Holst, Isthmus, James Levine, Jessica Courtier, John Corigliano, John DeMain, John W. Barker, Jupiter, landscape, library, Liszt, Madison, Madison Magazine, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mars, movie music, movie score, Music, Naha Greenholtz, NASA, Orchestra, Oscar, Overture Center, percussion, Piano, Pines of Rome, program music, Respighi, review, rhapsody, Saturn, space, strings, symphony, The Capital Times, The Planets, The Red Violin, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Venus, Viola, Violin, war, What Greg Says, winds, WISC-TV, Wisconsin, women, YouTube
Classical music: Mark Adamo’s “Little Women” is a second-rate opera that got a first-rate production from the Madison Opera
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By Jacob Stockinger
Loyal readers of this blog know very well the name of Mikko Rankin Utevsky. The young violist, baritone and conductor is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where he studies with Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm and conductor James Smith, plays in the UW Symphony Orchestra, and sings with the University Opera.
Utevsky, who has won awards and impressive reviews for his work in music education since his days at Madison’s East High School, is the founder and conductor of the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO – www.MAYCO.org), which will perform its sixth season this summer. He also directs a local community orchestra, The Studio Orchestra (www.disso.org).
You can check out his many honors and projects by typing his name into the search engine on this blog site.
Utevsky offered The Ear a guest review of this past weekend’s performance of Mark Adamo’s “Little Women” by the Madison Opera.
I immediately took him up on the offer. After all, he is a fine and perceptive writer who, you may recall, blogged for this post when he was on tour with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) tour to Vienna, Prague and Budapest.
Also, his latest venture was the successful recent launch of the Impresario Student Opera at the UW-Madison.
Here is the review by Mikko Utevsky (below) with production photos by James Gill for the Madison Opera:
By Mikko Rankin Utevsky
A great opera can be memorable in many ways. You might remember how you felt at the climaxes of the music, or walk out humming the Big Tune from the showstopper aria, or leave with an image fixed in your mind’s eye of the most dramatic moment in the first-act finale.
In an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Giuseppe Verdi or Giacomo Puccini, you might remember all of these. But in American composer Mark Adamo’s debut opera, “Little Women,” there’s nothing to remember — no great moving moments, no thrilling stage pictures, no hummable tunes.
There are motifs, certainly, and recurring lines. But “Things change, Jo” (song by acclaimed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in the YouTube video at the bottom) can hardly hold a candle to “O soave fanciulla” in Puccini’s “La Bohème,” the first-act Trio in Mozart’s “Figaro,” the parents’ sextet in Jake Heggie‘s “Dead Man Walking,” or the quartet from Verdi’s “Rigoletto.”
It’s all technically correct, but it’s not great opera — neither great storytelling nor great music.
I left the Sunday performance by Madison Opera with the unshakeable feeling that Adamo’s score had been performed far better than it deserved.
Part of the problem is that Mark Adamo (below) is too clever for his own good. The libretto, from the classic 19th-century American novel by Louisa May Alcott, is stronger than the music — never quite moving, but full of evocative and witty phrases.
The music displays a clear command of naturalistic settings of the text, rising to peaks when it should and creating compelling atmosphere. But it always seems to pull back just when a lyrical melody might break forth, or when an emotional climax draws near.
Several times he uses the gambit of two conversations on stage at the same time, talking about the same things. But the pacing is never quite right, and the unison lines are predictable and trite rather than powerful. He lacks the confidence to let people talk over one another unless we’ve already heard half of the lines. (Whether the lack of trust is in the audience or stems from his own compositional skill is a matter of conjecture.)
The dramatic and musical tricks are all “correct” — Adamo knows his business — but none of them make an emotional impact, a point driven home by their success in last season’s “Dead Man Walking,” which employs all the same devices to far greater effect. When the opening scene came back at the end of the show, I was ready to walk out. Enough already!
It is a sad fact that the most moving part of the whole affair was only half Adamo’s — a setting of Goethe’s “Kennst du das Land” (Do You Know the Land) thrown into the second act that almost approached melody, and tugged at the heartstrings in a way no other scene of the opera managed to do.
Beth’s death scene – below top with Chelsea Morris Shephard as Beth (left) and Heather Johnson as Jo — was a close second, admittedly.
And the lovely wedding vow — below bottom with, from left, Alexander Elliott as John Brooke; Courtney Miller as Meg; Rick Henslin as Gideon March; Elizabeth Hagedorn as Alma March — was marred only by Rick Henslin’s intonation.
The minimal set cheated the opera out of the lush visual setting it deserved. If the realism of the story had been played up, with painted walls and structures, the human elements of the story might have been more believable in a setting that doesn’t feel as though a strong wind might knock it all down.
Instead, a few flown-in flats with cheap-looking projections stood in for the occasional wall, and some rather cool shifting images on the scrim in front of the orchestra highlighted the apparent supernatural elements of the story — not that I thought there were supposed to be any in “Little Women.”
This is not to say the visuals were all misses — costumes, wigs, and makeup (Karen Brown-Larimore and Jan Ross) were excellent, particularly in establishing distinctive characterizations for the four sisters, who could easily have been hard to tell apart in a less careful production.
The ghostly vocal quartet that opens the opera — and haunts various scenes in the middle, although I’m told they were intended to be offstage — felt like nothing so much as discount Eric Whitacre: cascading clusters and whole-tone scales with no particular narrative purpose, illuminating nothing about the plot. I did find myself wondering if we were supposed to think Jo had gone insane, between that and the drifting projections on the set, but I’m sure that wasn’t the intended effect.
Despite all this, the voices themselves were superb, and married to strong acting skills to boot. Time and again Madison Opera has shown a knack for finding up-and-coming young singers with tremendous talent, and this cast was no exception.
The four Little Women themselves (below, from left, with Eric Neuville as Laurie; Courtney Miller as Meg, Heather Johnson as Jo; Chelsea Morris Shephard as Beth; Jeni Houser as Amy), aided by sure-handed direction from Candace Evans, mustered warm, credible camaraderie and sisterly love.
They, and their paramours, baritone Alexander Elliot and tenor Eric Neuville, all displayed rich and even vocalism, with clear and precise English diction rendering the supertitles mostly superfluous.
As the aloof Aunt March and the mother Alma, Brenda Harris and UW-Madison guest professor Elizabeth Hagedorn were secure and confident in their roles as well.
As the German teacher Friedrich Bhaer (below left, with Heather Johnson as Jo), Craig Verm’s accent faded in and out, but his aria, the aforementioned setting of Goethe’s famous “Kennst du das Land,” was the highlight of the show despite this.
Guest conductor Kyle Knox (below), a graduate student at the UW-Madison, led musicians of the Madison Symphony Orchestra capably through a score mired in complexity and made the result sound natural — not an easy feat.
I admire general director Katherine Smith (below) and the Madison Opera for taking a chance on contemporary American opera, and I dearly hope they do so again next season, and the season after that.
In a tremendously conservative industry, it takes guts to put on something by a living composer when everyone else is picking the safe options to sell out the house. And I’d rather see a contemporary opera and hate it than sit through a mediocre “Bohème” (though this fall’s “Bohème” by the Madison Opera was quite excellent).
Modern opera is a gamble, both for the box office and for the musicians. Sometimes you find “Dead Man Walking.” And sometimes you don’t. I hope the next contemporary piece to grace the Capitol Theater stage is one for the ages, even if this one, well, wasn’t.
NOTE: For purposes of comparison, here are links to two other reviews of the Madison Opera’s production of “Little Women”:
This is the review John W. Barker wrote for Isthmus:
http://isthmus.com/arts/stage/madison-opera-little-women/
And this is the review by Greg Hettmansberger, who writes for Madison Magazine and now has his own blog WhatGregSays as well as monthly appearances on WISC-TV:
https://whatgregsays.wordpress.com/2016/02/06/madison-opera-stands-tall-for-little-women/
And here is a link to an interview with Mark Adamo:
Tags: American composers, American music, Arts, Classical music, Dead Man Walking, Giuseppe Verdi, Greg Hettmansberger, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jake Heggie, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John W. Barker, Joyce DiDonato, Kyle Knox, La bohème, Madison, Madison Magazine, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, Music, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, Puccini, Rigoletto, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, vocal music, WISC-TV, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Madison’s classical music critic Greg Hettmansberger has launched his own blog and has also been given a monthly slot on TV. Plus, this Wednesday night the UW-Madison Contemporary Chamber Music Ensemble will perform a FREE concert of new music
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ALERT: This Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m in Mills Hall, the UW Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, directed by UW-Madison composition professor Laura Schwendinger, will perform a FREE concert of new works by “rising young stars.”
On the program are: “Fluidity” by Yunkyung Hong; “Obnoxia” by Nathan Froebe; “Concerto da Camera II” by Shulamit Ran; Kay Ryan Songs by Laura Schwendinger; and a New String Quartet by Adam Betz.
Featured special guest performers are pianist Christopher Taylor, cellist Leonardo Altino, Erin K. Bryan and percussionist Sean Kleve, of Clocks in Motion, as well as students Biffa Kwok, Saya Mizuguchi, Mounir Nessim, Steve Carmichael, Seung Jin Cha, Joshua Dieringer, Seung Wha Baek, Saya Mizuguchi, Erin Dupree Jakubowski and Yunkyung Hong.
By Jacob Stockinger
One of the Madison-based classical music critics who deserves your respect is Greg Hettmansberger (below).
Hettsmanberger has two news items to announce.
He has just launched his own blog called “What Greg Says.”
First, some background.
Since August, 2011 Hettmansberger has authored the blog “Classically Speaking” for Madison Magazine, and added a print column of the same name two years ago.
He was first published as a critic by the Los Angeles Times in 1988, and freelanced as a critic and features contributor for a number of newspapers and other publications in Southern California.
He began writing program notes in 1996, and is currently completing his 19th season as an annotator for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Moving to the Madison area in 2001, Hettmansberger was the director of bands for Abundant Life Christian School until 2008.
Now Hettmansberger has also been tapped by WISC-TV Channel 3, a local CBS affiliate, to appear once monthly on a morning show (at 6:40 a.m.) to offer previews, reviews and news about the local concert scene. He will get 3-1/2 minutes on the third Wednesday of each month.
Hettmansberger is a discerning listener and a fine judge of musicians and music.
That makes him worth paying attention to. He always has important insights into performances by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, the Wisconsin Union Theater, the Overture Center and the countless chamber music groups in the area.
So perhaps you will want to bookmark his blog or subscribe to it.
The Ear will.
Here is a link:
https://whatgregsays.wordpress.com
Says Greg, in his typically modest manner, about his first major topic and posting:
“My blog space is up and running. In fact, I’ve posted twice. I still don’t feel fluent, but at least it’s serviceable, and my reviewing schedule begins in earnest this Friday.”
Presumably, he talking about a review of Friday night’s concert of works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Francis Poulenc and Dmitri Shostakovich by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below top)and piano soloist Adam Neiman (below bottom).
Here is the latest post, a reminiscence of Pierre Boulez (below), the avant-garde French composer and conductor who died recently at 90 and who gave Hettmansberger a personal interview that he recounts in his blog posting:
https://whatgregsays.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/merci-monsieur-boulez/
Wish Greg Hettmansberger well and leave your words of congratulations in the COMMENT section.
Tags: Arts, Baroque, Beethoven, blog, Boulez, California, CBS, Cello, Chamber music, Channel 3, choral music, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, Clocks in Motion, concerto, contemporary music, critic, Early music, Greg Hettmansberger, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, John DeMain, Kay Ryan, Laura Schwendinger, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mozart, Music, New Music, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, percussion, Piano, poems, Poulenc, Pro Arte Quartet, review, Santa Fe, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Schubert, Shostakovich, String quartet, TV, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, WISC-TV, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin Union Theater
Classical music: University Opera’s production of “The Marriage of Figaro” draws raves from two local critics. There are still two performances left to see and hear: Today at 3 p.m. and Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Unfortunately, The Ear didn’t get to see and hear the opening night performance on Friday night at Old Music Hall of the season-opening production by University Opera at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
The chosen opera is a beloved and beautiful classic: “The Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (below in a rehearsal photo by Michael R. Anderson).
Marriage of Figaro dress rehearsal. Tia Cleveland (Marcellina), Joel Rathmann (Figaro), Anna Whiteway (Susanna), Thomas Weis (Bartolo).
But The Ear is going to today’s matinee performance.
And two local reviews, by critics The Ear respects highly, agree that is a very successful production and puts another feather in the cap of guest director David Ronis (below, in a photo by Luke Delalio) from New York City.
But also praised highly are set designer Dana Fralick, the student singers-actors and the student orchestra players under UW-Madison professor and conductor James Smith (below, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson). You can hear the infectious Overture in a curious but eye-catching and mind-engaging “bar graph score” in a YouTube video at the bottom.
That makes The Ear, who loved last year’s production of “The Magic Flute,” all the more pleased and excited about going today.
Here is a review by John W. Barker (below), who often reviews concerts for this blog, for Isthmus:
http://www.isthmus.com/arts/stage/a-delightful-marriage-university-opera/
And here is the review by Greg Hettmansberger (below) for his column “Classically Speaking” in Madison Magazine and for WISC-TV Channel3000.com:
If you want to go, tickets are $25 for the general public; $20 for seniors; and $10 for student.
Here is a link to details about the show and about getting tickets:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/university-opera-the-marriage-of-figaro/
Tags: aria, Arts, Channel3000.com, choral music, Classical music, Count, Greg Hettmansberger, Internet, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, John W. Barker, Madison, Madison Magazine, Mozart, Music, New York City, opera, Overture, Television, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, TV, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, WISC-TV, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: It’s Mother’s Day. What music would you play for her? What music would she like to hear? Tell The Ear. Plus, this afternoon is your last chance to hear the final, critically acclaimed concert of the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s season with Beethoven’s Ninth on the program. Read the reviews here.
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ALERT: This afternoon at 2:30 in Overture Hall is your last chance to hear the season finale by the Madison Symphony Orchestra: a program of the “Serenade” after Plato’s “Symposium” by Leonard Bernstein, with concertmaster Naha Greenholtz (below) as soloist, and the famous Ninth Symphony — the “Ode to Joy” or “Choral” symphony — by Ludwig van Beethoven.
The reviews are unanimous in their enthusiastic praise.
Here is a link to the one that John W. Barker wrote for Isthmus:
http://www.isthmus.com/arts/stage/mso-closing-with-a-bang/
And here is one written by Lindsay Christians for The Capital Times:
And here is a review written by Bill Wineke for WISC-TV‘s Channel 3000.com:
http://www.channel3000.com/news/opinion/Symphony-review-MSO-ends-season-on-exuberant-note/32912810
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Mother’s Day 2015.
And nothing says love like music.
So what music would you like to play for your mother?
And what music would she like to hear?
They aren’t necessarily the same.
So here are The Ear’s choices.
For the first I am torn between a work by Antonin Dvorak and one by Johannes Brahms.
The Dvorak work is “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” which you can hear below in a YouTube video by superstar violinist Itzhak Perlman playing a transcription from the original for voice.
The second is the movement of the “German” Requiem by Brahms in which he evokes his recently deceased mother. Here it is performed in a classic rendition by soprano Elizabeth Schwarzkopf with Otto Klemperer conducting:
And the piece my mother would love to hear? She loved it when I practiced the piano – and to think I wondered how anyone could enjoy listening to someone practicing? And she especially loved it when I practiced Chopin.
And her favorite piece by Chopin that I played was the bittersweet and elegant Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2, heard below in a YouTube video played by Arthur Rubinstein, whom she took me to hear when he played an all-Chopin concert in Carnegie Hall in 1961 – and we sat on stage.
What are your choices in each category?
Leave word plus, if possible, a YouTube link in the COMMENTS section.
The Ear wants to hear.
And wishes you a Happy Mother’s Day.
Tags: 19th century, Anton Dvorak, Antonín Dvořák, Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, Beethoven's Ninth, Chamber music, Channel 3000.com, Choir, Chopin, choral music, Choral Symphony, Classical music, concertmaster, Czech, Dvorak, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Frédéric Chopin, German music, Germany, Isthmus, Itzhak Perlman, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, Leonard Bernstein, Lindsay Christians, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mothers Day, Music, Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy, Otto Klemperer, Piano, Plato, Serenade, soloist, Songs My Mother Taught Me, soprano, Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven), Symposium, The Capital Times, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, vocal music, Waltz, WISC-TV, YouTube
Classical music: Here is a good news update on the tour to Belgium later this month by the University of Wisconsin’s Pro Arte Quartet.
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By Jacob Stockinger
If you remember, the last you heard about it — and the last time I posted something about it — the planned tour to its homeland of Belgium by the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), longtime resident artists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was in jeopardy.
That came about because of an international ban on materials from endangered species that were used in new and even old musical instruments.
Here is a link to that background post:
Well, things are looking up.
Here is an update from Sarah Schaffer (below), the tireless and clever contact at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music who also heads the Centennial Committee of the string quartet and has been arranging the tour:
“Hello everyone,
“I just wanted to catch you all up on the latest developments concerning the PAQ trip to Belgium.
“As most of you know, recent efforts by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to step up enforcement of long-standing policies related to international trade of endangered species have jeopardized travel for all musicians because so many (especially old) instruments contain material most of interest: ivory, Brazilian rose wood, and sea turtle.
“An “instrument passport” allows border crossing with instruments containing these materials but, since learning of the new enforcement in late March, PAQ members simply did not have time to obtain these permits before travel on May 20.
“We’ve spent the past month on a multi-pronged strategy in hopes of finding some solution that would allow PAQ members to travel with their own instruments: an accelerated permitting process, a waiver, a “diplomatic suitcase,” intervention from the Belgian government, even (briefly) the untenable possibility of alternate instruments and bows.
“We seemed to be beating our heads against unyielding walls, until last Thursday when a solution appears to have presented itself.
“The path led from friends advocating our case to the Chancellor’s’ office, the engagement of her Office of Federal Relations who reached the office of U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (below), who in turn took our case to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency overseeing the new enforcement and also the issuer of the permit.
“Thanks to the efforts of all of these individuals and agencies, US F&W assured us last Thursday that if all application materials were received by this past Monday, the instrument “passports” will be issued in time for PAQ to travel.
“We are now in that optimistic uneasy phase of waiting for the arrival of the documents, but with the news have now actually booked travel and are in the process of finalizing details for the Belgian tour.
” With luck, everything will go off without a hitch. The necessary permits will probably go out on Wednesday or Thursdayfor receipt here Thursday or Friday.
“Meanwhile, we’ve purchased plane flights, booked the hotel, and are in general behaving as if we’re
travelling next week. Of course, it still all depends on those permits arriving.
“But we are now assuming the remarkable set of concerts and centennial events — including a day in the village of founding violinist Alphonse Onnou where, among many events, a street will be named after him, a Pro Arte Quartet exhibit will take place — arranged largely by our friend in Belgium, Anne van Malderen, will indeed take place from May 20 to May 28.”
For more about the Pro Arte Quartet’s centennial, listen to this special CBS-TV/WISC-TV Channel 3 news show on YouTube:
Tags: Arte, Arts, Belgium, CBS, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, endangered species, FedEx, ivory, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Orchestra, PAQ, Pro Arte Quartet, senator, String quartet, Tammy Baldwin, Thursday, U.S. Senator, United States, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, WISC-TV, YouTube
Classical music: University of Wisconsin–Madison viola student and conductor Mikko Utevsky receives the FIRST “1st Chair Award” from CBS affiliate WISC-TV. Look for him on Channel 3 and Cable Channel 603. You can nominate other recipients.
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By Jacob Stockinger
A justifiably proud parent of Mikko Utevsky has contacted The Ear about a community recognition for public service that went to his son and is well worth noting on this blog.
“I just received this from WISC-TV Channel 3 (Channel 603 on the Charter Cable high-definition channel) and hoped you might like to see it.” (The station logo is below.)
Indeed I did, and I expect you will too.
Here is a link to it: http://video.channel3000.com/embed/?v=47898
The “1st Chair Awards” are given by CBS affiliate WISC-TV Channel 3 and the Madison Area Music Association, and are awarded to a “a musician who used music to give back to their community, or used music to overcome an obstacle” and is between 5 and 18 years old.”
The video and audio of Mikko Utevsky, the first recipient, started running Feb. 21 and will air on the station until March 19.
Utevsky will also receive an invitation to be honored at the Madison Area Music Association Awards (MAMA) Show on Sunday, June 23, at the Overture Center for the Arts.
The Ear will try to keep you current with future recipients.
The award is sponsored by the Madison Area Music Association (MAMA) and Heid Music. Thank you, sponsors, for standing by such a laudable way to give a shout-out to local musical talent.
There will be five monthly winners. Mikko Utevsky (below) is the first.
Mikko certainly is a deserving recipient. Utevsky (seen below and also heard conducting the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the YouTube video at the bottom) is a Madison resident who attended and graduated from East High School; and who founded and still conducts the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO), which will soon start its third season. ( The season will be two 7 p.m. concerts in Music Hall on June 21 and August 9.) Mikko, who is finishing up his freshman year at the UW-Madison, is now a scholarship viola student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison‘s School of Music, where he studies with Pro Arte String Quartet violist Sally Chisholm and where he plays in the UW Symphony Orchestra and UW Chamber Orchestra.
As a member of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, he was also a guest blogger for this blog during last summer’s WYSO tour to Budapest, Prague and Vienna. (You can check out his fine writing skills by typing his name in the blog’s search engine.)
As for the 1st Chair Awards, here are links first to the rules and then to the nomination form:
http://www.channel3000.com/education/1st-chair/-/18095578/-/12l274vz/-/
The nominee’s date of birth must be 1/16/94-1/16/08 and the nominee must be a Wisconsin musician.
Who else deserve being nominated for such a recognition?
The Ear wants to hear.
Meanwhile, CONGRATULATIONS to Mikko Utevsky – and to WISC-TV Channel 3 for recognizing the importance of musical education and community service among young people in the Madison area.
I hope other media follow suit with similar recognition!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Prep Arts get similar coverage to Prep Sports?
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