The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: This season’s last Sound Waves program, to explore origins and beginnings in science and music, is at the UW-Madison this Friday night.
Leave a Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following notice:
The final SoundWaves event of the year will be on this Friday, April 29, at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Center of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discover (WID), 333 North Orchard Street, across from the Union South.
SoundWaves events explore a broad theme through different lenses from the sciences and the humanities, ending with a related performance.
The title of Friday’s event is “Let’s Start at the Very Beginning: Origins in Science and Music.”
The presenters are John Yin, speaking about the COOL (Chemical Origins Of Life) Project; Clark Johnson speaking about the first billion years of the Earth’s history; Elizabeth Hennessy on the interaction of man and animal in a pristine environment (the Galapagos) and about Darwin; and the School of Music’s own composer Laura Schwendinger (below), speaking about the inspiration for the creation of new works.
Then, SoundWaves Curator Daniel Grabois (below, in a photo by James Gill), horn professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Music, will speak about the process of creating a new CD recording.
The event will conclude with a performance by School of Music pianist Christopher Taylor (below). He will be playing a dual-manual piano (a piano with two keyboards).
This is an instrument that creates whole new possibilities in piano performance, and Professor Taylor will be performing selections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations as well as his own arrangement of Liszt’s “Paysage” (“Landscape” from the Transcendental Etudes) made for this instrument.
(You can hear the haunting opening Aria from Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, from the second recording made by Glenn Gould, in a popular YouTube video at the bottom that has almost 1.9 million hits.)
Admission is free.
Cash bar opens at 7 p.m.
Registration is suggested at www.discovery.wisc.edu/soundwaves
Tags: "Goldberg" Variations, animal, Arts, Bach, Baroque, beginning, chemistry, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, Compact Disc, Daniel Grabois, Darwin, Earth, Galapagos Islands, Horn, humanities, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Laura Schwendinger, life, Liszt, Madison, man, Music, New Music, origins, Paysage, performance, Piano, science, theme and variations, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, YouTube
Classical music: Clocks in Motion and Transient Canvas perform new music for winds and percussion this Wednesday night. Plus, the Pro Arte Quartet performs a FREE concert of Mozart, Beethoven and Webern on Saturday night.
2 Comments
ALERT: The Pro Arte Quartet, artists-in-residence at the UW-Madison School of Music, will give a FREE concert this Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall. The program features: the String Quartet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 1 (1799-1800) by Ludwig van Beethoven; the Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement) for String Quartet (1905) by Anton Webern; and the String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428 (1783) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following word from Clocks in Motion:
Clocks in Motion (below), Madison’s premier new music ensemble, welcomes the renowned bass clarinet and marimba duo Transient Canvas to Madison for a collaborative performance of new sounds, new instruments, and new music.
Featuring a world premiere by Italian-American modernist composer Filippo Santoro, as well as rarely heard works by Daniel T. Lewis, Matthew Welch, and Franco Donatoni, this concert offers a singular chance to experience the cutting edge of new music.
The performance is this Wednesday night, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m. in the DeLuca Forum (below bottom) of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (below top), across from the Union South at 330 North Orchard Street.
It will feature Transient Canvas (below), which consists of the “dazzling” (Boston Globe) clarinetist Amy Advocat and the “expert and vivid” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) marimbist Matthew Sharrock performing thrilling repertoire commissioned for their distinctive instrumentation, as well as larger works in partnership with Clocks in Motion.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 the day of the show; $5 with a student ID. PURCHASE TICKETS
Advance tickets are available at https://www.artful.ly/store/events/7534
Praised by the Boston Globe as “superb,” Transient Canvas has been blazing its own trail in the world of contemporary music since 2011. In four years, they have premiered over 40 new works, essentially creating an entirely new repertoire for their unique instrumentation. Fearless in their programming and hungry for new collaborations, TC actively seeks out new composers who will stretch their instrumentation to its limits. (You can hear a sample in the YouTube video at the bottom)
Learn more about Transient Canvas at http://www.transientcanvas.com/
Hailed as “nothing short of remarkable” (ClevelandClassical.com), Clocks in Motion is a group that performs new music, builds its own instruments, and breaks down the boundaries of the traditional concert program. The group Clocks in Motion consistently performs groundbreaking concerts involving performance art, theater, and computer technology.
Featuring world premieres alongside rarely performed classic works, the ensemble strives to create a new canon of percussion repertoire.
Clocks in Motion works passionately to educate young audiences through master classes, residencies, presentations, and school assemblies. The ensemble’s unique skill sets and specialties contain an impressive mix of rock, jazz, contemporary classical, orchestral, marching, and world styles.
Clocks in Motion has served as resident performers and educators at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Casper College, the University of Michigan, Baldwin-Wallace University, VIBES Fine and Performing Arts, Traverse City West High School, Traverse City East Middle School, Rhapsody Arts Center, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
Formed in 2011, Clocks in Motion began as an extension of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Graduate Percussion Group, and now serves as an affiliate ensemble of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
Tags: Arts, Baldwin-Wallace University, bass clarinet, Beethoven, Chamber music, clarinet, Classical music, Clocks in Motion, composer, computer, Daniel T. Lewis, Filippo Santoro, Franco Donatoni, Harvard University, Interlochen, Interlochen Arts Academy, Italian-American, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, marches, marimba, Massachusetts, Matthew Welch, MMOCA, Mozart, Museum, Music, Music education, New Music, Orchestra, orchestral music, percussion, performance art, Pro Arte Quartet, Rock, String quartet, technology, The Boston Globe, theater, Transient Canvas, Union South, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Webern, winds, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, World music, YouTube
Classical music: On Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., SoundWaves moves to Mills Hall to present a FREE and PUBLIC discussion and performance of inventions and music from the 1920s.
6 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
Daniel Grabois (below, in a photo by James Gill), a professor of horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and a friend of The Ear, writes:
I’m not sure if you know about my FREE and PUBLIC series SoundWaves. But I’d like to tell you about it because we have our first-ever presentation in the UW-Madison School of Music next week. It is part of the statewide Wisconsin Science Festival.
The basic idea is this: I choose a theme and get four scientists from different disciplines (or sometimes academics from the humanities) to explore the theme — for the layman — in short 15-minute talks.
I then give a short talk about the theme as it relates to music.
Then, there’s a related music performance.
To make this concrete for you, our program coming up is about The Roaring ’20s.
Now in its fourth year, the SoundWaves series is underwritten by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF, below with founder Prof. Harry Steenbock), which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. So it seemed fitting to explore the decade of its creation for our first event of the year.
Accordingly, we will have a historian of science speaking about Vitamin D, which was discovered and synthesized by Steenbock, explaining things like “What the hell IS a vitamin, anyway?”
Then, a dermatologist will talk about bandaids (invented in 1920). Kids love them, but do they work? How? Why does someone invent a bandaid?
Next, a law professor will discuss the lie detector, also invented in 1920. We see them on cop shows, but do they work? Is their evidence admissible in court? How do they work?
Then, an industrial engineer will speak about automotive breakthroughs from the 1920s that have shaped our driving experience. Power steering, the traffic light, the car radio (invented by Motorola, hence the “motor” in the company name) — all were invented in the 1920s and all have had a broad impact on cars and driving today.
Then I’ll be talking about music of the 1920s. I’m particularly interested in what was then the recent invention of the 12-tone system by Arnold Schoenberg (below). If you are a composer, how on earth do you respond to that? Do you reject it, and if so, what do you do instead? How is the musical aesthetic reshaped by such a radical (and difficult to listen to) idea?
At the end, there will be a performance of the String Quartet No. 1 (subtitled “Kreutzer Sonata,” based on the short story by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy) by Czech composer Leos Janacek (below top), written in 1923, played by the Rhapsodie String Quartet (below bottom, in a photo by Greg Anderson), made of Madison Symphony Orchestra players including Suzanne Beia, our own second violinist of the Pro Arte Quartet. (You can hear it in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
We’ve been getting around 175 people for our programs at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, including lots of people who come back over and over.
For me, doing this series is hugely stimulating — being able to collaborate across traditionally rigid academic boundaries is one of the reasons I was excited to come to Madison.
Here are the specifics:
Date: This Saturday, Oct. 24, at 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Speakers and performers:
Kevin Walters, WARF historian-in-residence
Klint Peebles, Department of Dermatology
Keith Findley, UW Law School
John Lee, Department of Industrial Engineering
Daniel Grabois, School of Music and SoundWaves curator
Rhapsodie String Quartet
For more information, visit:
http://discovery.wisc.edu/home/town-center/programs–events/soundwaves/soundwaves.cmsx
Sales pitch over!
Hope to see you there.
Tags: 12-tone, Arnold Schoenberg, Arts, automobile, band aid, bandaid, car radio, cars, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, cop, cop shows, court, Czech, Czech music, dermatology, driving, engineering, Harry Steenbock, Horn, industry, Jacob Stockinger, Janacek, Kreutzer Sonata, law, lie detector, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Motorola, Music, Orchestra, power steering, Pro Arte Quartet, Radio, Rhapsodie Quartet, Roaring 20s, Russia, Russian literature, science, short story, String quartet, Tolstoy, traffic light, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Law School, Viola, Violin, vitamin, vitamin D, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, YouTube
Classical music: Early music group Eliza’s Toyes offers a fascinating exploration of the role of music in medicine from Medieval though Baroque times.
Leave a Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker, who also took the performance photos. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who for 12 years hosted an early music show every other Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
Eliza’s Toyes (below top), the consort of voices and instruments devoted to early music, is led by the formidably talented Jerry Hui. The group gave another of its imaginative programs, this time on Friday night at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (below bottom).
The theme and title of this program was “Music: The Miracle Medicine.” Offered were 15 selections, conveying various ideas or beliefs about health (both physical and spiritual), illness, medicine, miracle cures and good living.
Each selection was preceded by the reading of passages from moral and medical texts of various periods. (I wonder if today’s medical and health-advice writings will sound as comical generations from now as do those of the past to us!)
Fifteen composers were represented in the course of the program, from Medieval through Baroque: Hildegard von Bingen (below top, 1098-1179), Alfonso El Sabio (1221-1284), Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), Cipriano da Rore (1516-1565),Hubert Waelrant (1515-1595), Orlando di Lassus (1532-1594), William Byrd (1540-1623), Lelio Bertani (1553-1612), John Wilbye (1574-1638), Gabriel Bataille (1575-1630), Melchior Franck (1579-1639), John Maynard (15??-16??), Anonymous 17th-Century (2 items), Marin Marais (1656-1728) and John Eccles (1668-1735).
The selections were mostly vocal, either solo or ensemble. One instrumental selection stood out as probably the one most likely to be familiar: Marin Marais’ excruciatingly detailed “Representation of the Operation for Gallstone” (below top is Marais, below bottom is the introduction to his work) — complete with narrative headings for each section. (You can hear the narration and the music to the unusual piece in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The performances were earnest and often accomplished. But it must be said in honesty that, in motets and madrigals, the vocal ensemble was not balanced or smooth — the singers clearly need to live with this kind of musical writing somewhat longer. Still, the overall effect was certainly entertaining and thematically fascinating.
There were no printed programs, but the titles and text translations were projected on a background screen. These projections were fully visible and readable, so they worked well.
This is a program that will be offered again, I understand, at the Chazen Museum of Art on July 15, so that it can be caught and savored once more.
Above all, it is one more tribute to the thoughtful, deeply researched and intriguing program skills of Jerry Hui (below).
Tags: Arts, Baroque, Cello, Chamber music, Chazen Museum of Art, choral music, Classical music, cure, Early music, gallstones, good living, Health, Hildegard von Bingen, illness, instrumental music, Jacob Stockinger, Jerry Hui, John W. Barker, John Wilbye, living, Madison, madrigal, Marin Marais, medicine, Medieval, Melchior Franck, miracles, motet, Music, music therapy, Orlando de Lassus, Orlando di Lasso, projections, screen, text, Thomas Tallis, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, viola da gamba, vocal music, wellness, William Byrd, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: The early music group Eliza’s Toyes will explore music as medicine in a concert this Friday night at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
Leave a Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear’s friend Jerry Hui –- a supremely talented individual and graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music who performs, composes and teaches at UW-Stout – sends the following word:
The Madison-based early music group Eliza’s Toyes (below top) has a concert this Friday night, May 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (below bottom). The concert is titled “Music: The Miracle Medicine.”
Here is an introduction to the program:
“Rediscover the integral role of music as the restorer of health in the early days of medical science during the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods.
“Music has been an integral part of our wellbeing. To this date, many listen to music for its power in relaxation, excitement, and even catharsis. The development of music therapy as a medical profession, as well as increasing research in the physiological and psychological effects of music, signifies our ongoing interest to understand and utilize music.
“As scientists continue to examine music in a utilitarian light, it is worthwhile for us to rediscover how human beings have historically viewed music and its connection with health.”
Tickets will be available at the door: $15 for the general public and $10 for students.
Here is the program, which is organized by theme, and which include singing i English, Latin, French, German and Spanish:
CONCERNING THE FOUR HUMORS
Vos flores rosarum — Hildegard von Bingen (below top, 1098-1179)
Descendi in hortum meum — Cipriano de Rore
Absterge Domine (1575) — Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)
Turn Our Captivity (1611) — William Byrd (below bottom, 1540-1623)
MIRACLES AND REMEDIES
Tantas en Santa María — (Cantigas de Santa Maria)
In principio erat Verbum (1566) — Orlando di Lassus (below, 1532-1594)
Caecus quidam (1558) — Hubert Waelrant (1518-1595)
Gehet hin und saget Johanni wieder — Melchior Franck (1579-1639)
PRACTICING MEDICINE
Le Tableau de l’Opération de la Taille (1725) — Marin Marais (below, 1656-1728; you can hear the piece, with a narration in French, in a YouTube video at the bottom)
Qui veut chasser une migraine — Gabriel Bataille
The nurse’s song — (Pills to Purge Melancholy)
A Wonder: The Physician — John Maynard
GOOD HEALTH THROUGH GOOD LIVING
Chloe found Amyntas lying — (Pills to Purge Melancholy)
My fair Teresa — (Pills to Purge Melancholy)
O Sonno / Ov’e’l silenzio — Marco da Gagliano (1582-1643)
Cara mia Dafne — Lelio Bertani (1553-1612)
Sweet honey sucking bees — John Wilbye (1574-1638)
Tags: Arts, Baroque, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, Doctor of Medicine, Early music, Eliza's Toyes, England, English, English music, France, French, French music, German, German music, Germany, Health, Hildegard von Bingen, Hubert Waelrant, Jacob Stockinger, Jerry Hui, John Maynard, John Wilbye, Latin, Lelio Bertani, Madison, medicine, melancholy, Melchior Franck, Music, music therapy, Orlando di Lasso, Orlando di Lassus, physician, pills, science, scientist, Spain, Spanish, Spanish music, Thomas Tallis, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, viola da gamba, vocal music, William Byrd, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, YouTube
Classical music: Percussion ensemble Clocks in Motion features guest artist Matthew Coley in rare marimba solos and other works this Friday night.
Leave a Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
The acclaimed Madison-based percussion ensemble Clocks in Motion opens its spring season of new sounds, new instruments and new music this Friday night with internationally renowned percussionist and composer Matthew Coley.
Coley (below) is a versatile musician, particularly acclaimed as a marimba virtuoso and a premier authority on hammer dulcimer performance in the United States and Europe.
The concert is this Friday, Feb. 13, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. in the DeLuca Forum (below top) at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (below bottom).
Admission is $15, $5 with student ID.
The concert will feature two distinct halves
The first half offers a solo marimba performance by Coley and the second half has a chamber performance of works featuring hammer dulcimer with percussion ensemble. Clocks in Motion will collaborate with Coley on this latter program, which includes the world premiere of his new work, Pelagic Winter Wanderings.
The contrast of warm marimba timbres with the brittle, yet sweet sound of the hammer dulcimer promises a broad and captivating experience for the audience.
Coley (below, playing a marimba) shares his thoughts on the second half of the program:
“Pelagic Winter Wanderings (2011-2015) is a collection of pieces written to capture the inspiration, synergy, and awe I get from large bodies of water. Living in the Midwest I am often motivated during the winter months, for obvious reasons, to retreat to warmer places that have water. This, with my love of traveling, and the possibilities of the hammered dulcimer and psaltery in chamber music inspired me to compose this collection. It has taken a long time to finish because the last component of knowing the right ensemble that would help give the piece the impression I originally imagined didn’t come along until I became acquainted with Clocks in Motion. It is as much a piece for them as it is a piece for me to showcase the zithers.
“Glitz (2005) came about as part of an ongoing collaboration I had with Bjorn Berkhout for many years to increase the chamber music available for the hammered dulcimer. I asked Bjorn if he would write a percussion piece with dulcimer and through the timbre of the instrument with marimba, vibraphone, and glockenspiel he was inspired to represent the sounds of a casino. During this work you will be transported into the glitzy, flashy, cacophony of a casino. There is even a jackpot moment!
“Fantezie was composed by the Moldavian cimbalom player Valeriu Luta and is included within a four-volume collection of other Moldavian folk music, transcriptions, and contemporary works for cimbalom. I came across this music while visiting Chisinau, Moldova to play and teach marimba. Fantezie is my favorite of the original Eastern European tunes from this collection and I’ve gotten to preform it in 4 different ensemble arrangements. This arrangement was created for the Sudar Percussion Group in Croatia.”
You can learn more about Matthew Coley at http://hearmatthewcoley.com/ And you can hear him perform a fugue for marimba in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Hailed as “nothing short of remarkable” (ClevelandClassical.com), Clocks in Motion (below) is a group that performs new music, builds its own instruments, and breaks down the boundaries of the traditional concert program.
With a fearless and uncompromising ear to programming challenging and adventurous contemporary percussion ensemble repertoire, Clocks in Motion consistently performs groundbreaking concerts involving performance art, theater, and computer technology.
Featuring world premieres alongside rarely performed classic works, the ensemble strives to create a new canon of percussion repertoire.
Clocks in Motion works passionately to educate young audiences through master classes, residencies, presentations, and school assemblies. The ensemble’s unique skill sets and specialties contain an impressive mix of rock, jazz, contemporary classical, orchestral, marching, and world styles.
Clocks in Motion has served as resident performers and educators at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Casper College, the University of Michigan, Baldwin-Wallace University, VIBES Fine and Performing Arts, Traverse City West High School, Traverse City East Middle School, Rhapsody Arts Center, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Formed in 2011, Clocks in Motion began as an extension of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Graduate Percussion Group, and now serves as an affiliate ensemble of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
Classical music: It will be a busy week with many FREE concerts of many different kinds of music at the University of Wisconsin School of Music. Plus, the Miro Quartet of Austin, Texas, will perform Haydn, Schubert and Philip Glass on Friday night.
6 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
The next two weeks will be especially busy ones at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
All save one of the concerts will be FREE, and they include orchestral music, percussion, strings, winds and even lectures linking science and music.
The one major non-free exception is a notable MUST-HEAR: The acclaimed Miro Quartet (below) as presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater, will perform on Friday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall. The Miro Quartet is in residence at the University of Texas-Austin. (You can hear it playing Beethoven in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The program of Classical and contemporary masterpieces of features the “Lark” Quartet, Op. 64, No. 5, by Franz Joseph Haydn; Franz Schubert’s well-known and the String Quartet No. 14 “Death and the Maiden”; and Philip Glass’ Quartet No. 5 (1991).
Tickets are $25 for the general public; $21 for UW faculty and staff and for Memorial Union members; and $10 for UW students.
Here is a link to more information that includes tickets, sound samples and critical reviews:
http://www.uniontheater.wisc.edu/Season13-14/Miro-String-Quartet.html
TUESDAY
At 7:30 p.m.in Mills Hall, the accomplished UW Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of director James Smith, the Overture to “La scale di seta” (The Silk Ladder) by Gioacchino Rossini; the Chamber Symphony by Franz Schreker; the “Classical” Symphony by Sergei Prokofiev; and the “Winter’s Tale” by Lars-Erik Larsson.
WEDNESDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, guest artist Todd Reynolds (below) will give a FREE recital. Reynolds is the violinist of choice for such well known individual and ensemble performers as composers as Steve Reich and Meredith Monk and the group Bang on a Can. He violinist, composer, educator and technologist is known as one of the founding fathers of the hybrid-musician movement.
Todd Reynolds will be performing compositions of his own from his critically acclaimed 2011 CD “Outerborough,” including music by Michael Gordon, David Little, Michael Lowenstern and Ingram Marshall, and a couple of pieces written and improvised especially for the evening, right there, from the stage and in real time.
THURSDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Western Percussion Ensemble (below) will perform a concert that features the monumental work “Strange and Sacred Noise” by the contemporary American composer John Luther Adams (below), whose work was also featured recently by Clocks in Motion. Directors of the Western Percussion Ensemble are Tom Ross and Anthony Di Sanza.
FRIDAY
At 7 p.m. in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (below), at 330 North Orchard Street, across from the Union South, the ongoing SoundWaves program, curated by UW hornist Daniel Grabois, program will explore the science and art of wood. Here is a summary that, unfortunately, offers no information about the music and specific topics and speakers:
Wood You Could You? The Science and Music of Wood
“SoundWaves combines scientific lectures about the world with live classical music performances. Each event revolves around a theme, exploring it first from many scientific angles and then through the lens of music. The program concludes with a live performance of music related to the evening’s theme.
“The science lectures are delivered using language that the curious layman can understand, with a minimum of jargon and formulas. The music lectures, while demanding careful listening, are likewise designed for the layman and not the specialist.
“Every SoundWaves event brings UW-Madison scientists from several departments together with UW-Madison School of Music faculty performers to explore a topic that is relevant to our world and our lives. SoundWaves is free and open to the public. This series generally is held in the evening at the Town Center of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.’
8 p.m. in Mills Hall: The Miro Quartet. (See above.)
SATURDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Wind Ensemble (below) will give concert under director Scott Teeple that features the Wisconsin premiere of a work by composer Roger Zare.
Works on the program include “Smetana Fanfare,” by Karol Husa; “Mar Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility),” by Roger Zare (Wisconsin premiere); and “Ecstatic Waters for Wind Ensemble and Electronics,” by Steven Bryant.
SUNDAY
At 2 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Concert Band will perform under Mike Leckrone (below). Sorry, no details about the program are available yet.
Then at at 3:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, the Hunt Quartet will perform a FREE concert. The program includes Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet, Op. 76, No. 4, and Bela Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1.
The Hunt Quartet (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) is comprised of outstanding graduate students from the School of Music, and is sponsored by the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
This year’s members (from the left) include Ju Dee Ang, Elspeth Stalter-Clouse, Paran Amirinazari and Lindsey Crabb.
Tags: Arts, band, band music, Béla Bartók, Beethoven, Chamber music, Classical, Classical music, Concert Band, Death and the Maiden, Franz Joseph Haydn, Franz Schreker, Franz Schubert, Jacob Stockinger, John Luther Adams, Karol Husa, Lars-Erik Larsson, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Michael Lowenstern, Mills Hall, Miró Quartet, Miro String Quartet, percussion, Philip Glass, Roger Zare, Rossini, Sergei Prokofiev, Steven Bryant, String quartet, Sunrise Quartet, Texas, Todd Reynolds, University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Chamber Orchestra, Western percussion, wind ensemble, wind music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, Wisconsin Union Theater, YouTube
Classical music: Brass Week in Madison kicks off with tuba and French horn concerts at the University of Wisconsin by John Stevens and Daniel Grabois, who will highlight works by contemporary UW composers.
Leave a Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
Call it Brass Week in Madison.
Concerts this week will feature three different brass instruments: the tuba, the French horn and the trumpet.
The Ear guesses it is all due more to happenstance than planning.
But whatever the origin, Brass Week begins Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music with a FREE recital by tuba professor and composer John Stevens, who will retire at the end of this semester.
It continues on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall with a FREE recital by French horn professor, who also is the latest addition to the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, Daniel Grabois.
And then on Thursday, Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth will start her three performances as soloist in concertos by Haydn and Alexander Arutiunian with the Madison Symphony Orchestra under John DeMain.
Helseth will be featured in a separate Q&A on this blog tomorrow.
But here are details, drawn from the UW School of Music calendar of events, about the first two concerts.
UW tuba professor John Stevens (below) will perform three well-known masterpieces – the Horn Quintet by Mozart, the “Songs of a Wayfarer” by Gustav Mahler and the Horn Trio by Johannes Brahms– all adapted for the tuba.
Guest artists include violinist David Perry, violist Sally Chisholm, cellist Parry Karp, all of the UW Pro Arte Quartet, and UW pianist Martha Fischer.
John Stevens (below with his instrument) has enjoyed a distinguished career as a teacher, orchestral, chamber music, solo and jazz performer and recording artist, composer/arranger, conductor and administrator. He has performed with every major orchestra in New York and was a member of the New York Tuba Quartet and many other chamber groups. He was principal tubist in the Aspen Festival Orchestra; toured and recorded with a wide variety of groups including Chuck Mangione, the American Brass Quintet and the San Francisco Ballet; and was the tuba soloist in the original Broadway production of BARNUM.
Stevens has released two solo recordings; an LP of his own compositions titled POWER (Mark Records, 1985) and a CD titled REVERIE (Summit Records, 2006). He joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1985 and, in addition to his other duties, was the Director of the School of Music from 1991 to 1996 and 2011 to 2013.
As a composer and arranger with over 50 original compositions and almost as many arrangements to his credit, Stevens is internationally renowned for his works for brass, particularly for solo tuba, euphonium and trombone, tuba/euphonium ensemble, brass quintet and other brass chamber combinations. He is the winner of numerous ASCAP awards and has received many composition grants and commissions.
In 1997 Stevens (below, composing at his Madison home and at bottom in an interview in a YouTube video) was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to compose a tuba concerto. This work, entitled JOURNEY, was premiered by the CSO, with tubist Gene Pokorny as soloist. Recent compositions include the CONCERTO FOR EUPHONIUM AND ORCHESTRA, SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS, a composition for wind band commissioned by a consortium of 14 American universities, and MONUMENT for Solo Tuba and String.
And here is a link to a long story by local writer Paul Baker about Stevens, his career and the activities surrounding his retirement this semester. It appeared on the outstanding blog “Fanfare” at the UW-Madison School of Music:
http://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/stevens/
DANIEL GRABOIS
The program by horn professor Daniel Grabois (below, in a photo by James Gill), who also curates the SoundWaves program at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, and pianist Jessica Johnson will perform a program of “All in the Family: 21st Century Music by UW-Madison Composers.”
The works include “Gossamer Snowfall, Crystalline Pond” (2000), by UW saxophone professor Les Thimmig (below); the world premiere of “War Suite” (2014) by Alex Charland (1. War Song, 2. Dirge, 3. Ballad); “Indigo Quiescence” (2000) by Les Thimmig; “Soliloquy in June” (2000) by Les Thimmig; the world premiere “Antilogy” (2014) by Daniel Grabois; Sonata for Horn and Piano (2008) by John Stevens; and “Song at Dusk” (2000) by Les Thimmig .
Daniel Grabois is Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. The former Chair of the Department of Contemporary Performance at the Manhattan School of Music, he is the hornist in the Meridian Arts Ensemble, a sextet of brass and percussion soon to celebrate its 25th anniversary. With Meridian, he has performed over 50 world premieres, released 10 CDs, received two ASCAP/CMA Adventuresome Programming Awards, and toured worldwide, in addition to recording or performing with rock legends Duran Duran and Natalie Merchant and performing the music of Frank Zappa for the composer himself.
The author/composer of two etude books for horn, Grabois has appeared as a frequent guest with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has performed in New York and on tour with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and many other ensembles. He also appears on over 30 CD recordings, and has recorded a concerto written for him by composer David Rakowski. Grabois taught horn for 14 years at The Hartt School, and has taught courses on the business of music at both the Hartt and the Manhattan School of Music.
Tags: American Brass Quintet, Arts, ASCAP, Aspen Festival, Brahms, Brass quintet, Chamber music, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Classical music, Compact Disc, concerto, Daniel Grabois, Duran Duran, Frank Zappa, Gene Pokorny, Horn, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, John DeMain, John Stevens, Les Thimmig, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mahler, Manhattan School of Music, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Mozart, Natalie Merchant, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pro Arte Quartet, Saxophone, Sonata, Suite, symphony, Tine Thing Helseth, trio, Trumpet, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
Classical music Q&A: Science and music will meet again this Friday night in a FREE lecture-concert at the second SoundWaves program at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
3 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
This Friday night, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, this season’s second SoundWaves event will take place. It is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
The curator of the unusual program that combines science and music is University of Wisconsin-Madison horn professor Daniel Grabois. Besides teaching, he also performs in the Gretzler band with his colleague UW trombonist Mark Hetzler, the Meridian Arts Ensemble and the Wisconsin Brass Quintet.
For some background about the program and the first concert-lecture in September, which featured songs by Gustav Mahler, here is a link to a terrific interview with Grabois on the UW School of music blog “Fanfare”:
http://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/soundwaves9-26-2013/
Grabois (below) recently offered The Ear a Q&A about this week’s lecture-concert and about the program in general.
Here it is:
What is SoundWaves?
SoundWaves is a series I started last year. Each of our events takes on a theme, and explores it from various scientific angles (all aimed at the layman), then from a musical angle (I do that part), followed by a music performance relating to the theme.
The idea is for the public to learn about the world we live in, and to see how music fits in as well. Most of our presenters are UW faculty scientists and performers. At SoundWaves, they have an opportunity to share their knowledge in a non-technical way for people who are curious.
What kind of themes does SoundWaves tackle?
Our first event was called “Music to Our Ears.” We had a physicist talk about what sound is, a hearing expert talk about how the ear works, a neuroscientist discuss how the brain processes the ear’s signal, and a psychologist talk about how sounds affect our emotions.
We then performed the Horn Trio by Johannes Brahms (below), a patently emotional piece of music.
Doing that as our first event taught me that flow was really important: each lecture had to set up the next one. Other themes last year were Measurement, Tools, and Sequences. The theme of our October event is Groups and Their Behaviors.
Who is speaking and performing this Friday?
An entomologist will discuss bee communication. A mathematician will introduce us to group theory. A researcher from the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation (you have to love the UW!!!) will talk about his research regarding how groups of objects function in the physical world (through physics and chemistry), then what that tells us about group behavior in primates (including humans). And I’ll be talking about how musical groups function, specifically with regard to musicians’ body language.
After that, Linda Bartley (UW clarinetist, below top, in a photo by Katrin Talbot), Christopher Taylor (UW pianist, below bottom) and I will perform part of the Reinecke Trio for Clarinet, Horn (that’s me) and Piano. (A performance of Reinecke’s Trio on a YouTube video is at the bottom.)
Where is this project going?
Good question. I got a wonderful grant from the Chester Knapp Charitable Bequest to put on eight events this year, which I have to admit is a lot. But I’m having no trouble finding scientists to collaborate with, and I’m having a great time.
The biggest benefit for me is meeting all these great new people and learning lots of interesting stuff from them. Also, we’ve been having big audiences, and I love getting our School of Music faculty out of our building for performances in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery building (below, in a photo by Jeff Miller of the UW). WID is located at the corner of Orchard and University and is an amazing building).
What other themes will you be taking on this year?
Color, newness, rhythm, wood, repetition and metal.
How do you come up with themes?
I just sit down and think, “What do I want to know?” It’s pretty easy, since there’s so much I don’t know! And, here at UW, there’s a scientist available to answer just about any question you could think to ask.
For example, the instrument I play, the French horn (below), is made out of metal, but when push comes to shove, I have basically no idea what metal is, how it is manufactured, why making instruments out of it is a good idea, and so on. The music for the event on metal is planned already, and when I am ready to start lining up scientists, I’ll head straight to the Materials Science department, then Chemistry, maybe Engineering, and so on.
Once the theme is chosen, my questions about the theme lead me straight to the right science people. And I have to tip my cap to Laura Heisler (the program director at WID), who knows tons of scientists and has put me in touch with many brilliant people.
Is the science hard to understand?
NO!!! Our basic ground rules are: no jargon, no technical stuff unless it’s absolutely necessary. Last year, a chemist explained what DNA really is, and I think we all got it!
Where can people get more information?
Go to http://www.warf.org/home/news-media/campus-programs/soundwaves/soundwaves.cmsx for a list of our events. They all start at 7 p.m. Everything is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. In the WID building, right in the middle of the giant ground floor is a big round space called the DeLuca Forum (below), where we have our events.
Why should people come?
The UW-Madison has brilliant scientists and musicians. Come hear what they have to say and play, and learn about our world.
Tags: bees, chemistry, Christopher Taylor, clarinet, engineering, Friday, group theory, Horn, Horn Trio, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Mark Hetzler, Materials Science, Meridian Arts Ensemble, science, SoundWaves, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW School of Music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Brass Quintet, Wisconsin Institutes, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, YouTube
Classical music Q&A: University of Wisconsin conductor James Smith discusses the program of Beethoven, Stravinsky and Sibelius that the UW Symphony Orchestra will perform at a FREE concert this Sunday at 7:30 p.m. Also, UW soprano Elizabeth Hagedorn will sing Mahler songs in a FREE concert Thursday afternoon at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, plus a WORT-FM show on Thursday morning highlights the Madison Symphony Orchestra and its music director John DeMain.
1 Comment
TWO ALERTS: On this Thursday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, UW-Madison dramatic soprano Elizabeth Hagedorn (below) — filling in for soprano Julia Faulkner, who is on a leave-of-absence this academic year — will make her local debut. The FREE concert features her singing Gustav Mahler‘s moving “Rueckert Songs” with UW pianist Martha Fischer. It is part of the Wisconsin Science Festival that combines science lectures and live classical music in the SoundWaves program that is organized and directed by UW horn professor Daniel Grabois. For more information, visit the outstanding “Fanfare” blog at the UW School of Music: Here is a link:
http://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/soundwaves9-26-2013/
And here are links to more stories about Elizabeth Hagedorn:
http://uwmadisonschoolofmusic.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/hagedorn/
ALSO: Blog friend and radio host Rich Samuels (below) writes: “On this Thursday morning, Sept. 26, beginning at 7:08 a.m. on my weekly show “Anything Goes” that is broadcast from 5-8 a.m. on WORT 89.9 FM. I’ll be airing an interview I recently recorded with the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s music director John DeMain (the MSO’s 2013-2914 concert season begins, of course, on this Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon.
“Maestro DeMain talks about his transition from the Houston Grand Opera to the Madison Symphony Orchestra and about the artistic state of the orchestra as he begins his 20th season on the podium.
“Music for the segment will include selections from DeMain’s 1996 Grammy award-winning recording the Houston Grand Opera made when its production of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” was playing Broadway.
“Half the segment deals with the upcoming season and some of the younger soloists who will be heard between now and next May. We’ll hear performances by Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth, violinist Augustin Hadelich, soprano Emily Birsan and the young Madison pianist Garrick Olsen (not to be confused with pianist Garrick Ohlsson).”
By Jacob Stockinger
This is the week of orchestral season debuts. Yesterday, The Ear spotlighted the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s concerts this weekend.
But at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall on this Sunday evening — on what The Ear calls “Symphony Sunday” with performances by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the UW Symphony Orchestra and the Edgewood College Chamber Orchestra — the University of Wisconsin-Madison Symphony Orchestra will perform a FREE concert under its longtime director James Smith, who also directs the UW Chamber Orchestra and is the music director of University Opera.
Smith recently granted The Ear an email Q&A about the concert:
You programmed “The Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky (below) because this is the centennial year of its world premiere. How important is that work in the symphonic repertoire and to music history in general?
It is often cited as a landmark work in all respects. Several faculty members mentioned that we ought to perform it so that the students can appreciate its impact. At the time, 1913, the harmonies, the savage rhythms and the choreography were all quite jolting to the Paris audiences.
Right from the start, the bassoon explores a new range for the instrument as it sets the stage for the pagan ritual ahead.
How challenging technically is the “Rite of Spring” in general to perform but especially for UW undergraduate students? What makes it such a difficult work?
It is difficult on all levels: rhythmic, technical and tessitura (the comfort range of notes for a specific kind of voice or instrument).. We have performed works by Bohuslav Martinu, Alban Berg, Anton Webern and Gustav Mahler who also posed special difficulties. The students are working very hard outside of the rehearsals so that we can all experience this exciting work. (Below is a photo of the UW Symphony Orchestra performing with the UW Choral Union plus a link to a video by Kathy Esposito, concert manager and public relations director at the UW School of Music, of the UW Symphony Orchestra and conductor James Smith rehearsing “The Rite of Spring” that Esposito posted on Facebook.)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=632954003411618
Why did you choose the “Egmont” Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven to go with this program? Are there special thematic or pedagogical reasons?
Simple answer: It is a great way to start a program, and an opportunity for my graduate assistant to be introduced to the audience. His name is Kyle Knox (below). He is also an accomplished clarinetist who is the assistant principal clarinetist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
The Third Symphony is not one of the most famous or popular symphonies by Jean Sibelius (below). Why did you choose to program it and what should audience members listen for or pay attention to?
Good question. After the rather romantic and somewhat conventional First and Second Symphonies, the Third Symphony loses much of the bombast and announces a more austere and restless path. As my teacher one commented, Sibelius became more and more “north” in style and mood: austere and quixotic. (The first movement can be heard in a YouTube video at the bottom as performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.)
Tags: Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Augustin Hadelich, Bohuslav Martinu, Daniel Grabois, Elizabeth Hagedorn, Facebook, George Gershwin, Grammy Award, Gustav Mahler, Houston Grand Opera, Igor Stravinsky, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, John DeMain, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Martha Fischer, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra, Porgy and Bess, Rueckert Songs, soprano, symphony, The Rite of Spring, Tine Thing Helseth, University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, Wisconsin Science Festival, WORT FM, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 