The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: University Opera updates and stages Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” on this Friday night, Sunday afternoon and Tuesday night. Plus, here are the winners of the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Final Forte
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NEWS UPDATE: If you missed it, here are the results of Wednesday’s night Final Forte teenage concerto competition with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, which was broadcast live from Overture Hall on Wisconsin Public Radio and PBS Wisconsin (formerly Wisconsin Public Television).
First and second place prizes of a $2,000 scholarship went to pianist Michael Wu and pianist Jessica Jiang, respectively. The two runners-up — violinists Emily Hauer and Jonah Kartman — each received a scholarship of $1,000.
Here is a link to more information, photos and background – including teachers — for each of the four contestants as well as the dates for rebroadcasting the finalists’ concert on radio and TV.
By Jacob Stockinger
The prize-winning University Opera and UW Symphony Orchestra will stage three performances of “Cosi fan tutte” (So Do They All, or Women Are Like That), the late comic and seriously satirical opera by Mozart about love, gender roles and cheating on partners.
The performances are in Old Music Hall on Bascom Hill on this Friday night, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday afternoon, March 1, at 2:30 p.m.; and Tuesday night, March 3, at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $25 for general admission with reserved seats, $20 for seniors (62 and up) and $10 for UW students.
As usual, UW students will alternate certain roles during the three performances. (Below is returning singer Anja Pustaver, one of the three Despina’s in the production.)
The stage director is David Ronis, the head of the opera program at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. He has won numerous national awards during his tenure at the UW-Madison for his inventive re-imaginings of well-known operas and musicals.
The student orchestra will be conducted by Oriol Sans, the acclaimed new professor of conducting and director of Orchestral Activities at the UW-Madison. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the Overture to “Cosi” played by the Metropolitan Opera conducted by James Levine.)
Below is a studio photo by radio host Norman Gilliland of members of the production when they appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio. From left are: conductor Oriol Sans, director David Ronis, soprano Julia Urbank and soprano Cayla Rosche.
The opera has been updated to the Roaring Twenties, at a time when the women’s suffrage movement and other women’s rights issues were gaining traction. The re-staging also seems especially timely and contemporary, given the #MeToo and Time’sUp movements.
Here is a link to the full press release with the complete cast and production staff as well as a sketch of the abstract stage set (below) designed by Joseph Varga and other information, including a detailed synopsis and an explanation of the reason for setting the opera by in the Roaring 20s: https://www.music.wisc.edu/2020/02/10/cosi-fan-tutte/
Here is a link to a shortened version – with information about tickets and parking — on the Mead Witter School of Music’s home website under Concerts and Events: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/university-opera-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte/2020-02-28/
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Classical music: The Beethoven Year in Madison will include complete cycles of string quartets and piano trios as well as many other early, middle and late pieces. Here is a partial preview
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By Jacob Stockinger
As you may have already heard, 2020 is a Beethoven Year. It will mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. (He lived from mid-December of 1770 to March 26, 1827. Dec. 17 is sometimes given as his birthday but it is really the date of his baptism. No one knows for sure the actual date of his birth.)
Beethoven, who this year overtook Mozart as the most popular composer in a British radio poll, clearly speaks to people — as you can see at the bottom in the YouTube video of a flash mob performance of the “Ode to Joy.” It has had more than 16 million views.
Locally, not all Beethoven events have been announced yet. But some that promise to be memorable are already taking shape. Many programs include early, middle and late works. And you can be sure that, although nothing formal has been announced yet, there will be special programs on Wisconsin Public Television and especially Wisconsin Public Radio.
Here is a partial round-up:
The UW’s famed Pro Arte String Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), for example, will perform a FREE and complete cycle of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets in six concerts. It will start later this fall.
This is not the first time that the Pro Arte has done a Beethoven cycle. But it is especially fitting since that is the same Beethoven cycle that the Pro Arte was performing in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater in May of 1940 when World War II broke out and the quartet was stranded on tour in the U.S. after its homeland of Belgium was invaded and occupied by the Nazis.
That is when the ensemble was invited to become musical artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and accepted – thereby establishing the first such association in the world that became a model for many other string quartets.
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society with the San Francisco Trio (below) plans on performing a cycle of piano trios next summer. No specific dates or programs have been announced yet.
The 20th anniversary of the Ancora String Quartet (below, in a photo by Barry Lewis) will coincide with the Beethoven Year. That is when the Ancorans will complete the cycle of 16 string quartets that they have been gradually programming over the years. Three quartets remain to be performed: Op. 59, No. 2 “Rasumovsky”, Op. 130 and Op. 131.
Adds violist Marika Fischer Hoyt: “We’ll perform Op. 130 in February (with the original final movement, NOT the “Grosse Fuge”), and we plan to do the remaining two quartets in the summer and fall of 2020.”
Here are some other Beethoven dates to keep in mind:
On Nov. 2 in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater, and as part of the WUT’s centennial celebration of its Concert Series, pianist Emanuel Ax (below, in a photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco), who since 1974 has played many solo recitals, chamber music recitals and piano concertos in Madison, will play Beethoven’s first three solo piano sonatas, Op. 2.
On Dec. 6 at the Wisconsin Union Theater, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Piano Trio will perform the famous “Archduke” Trio, Op. 97. Also on the program are works by Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.
On Feb. 1, UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor, who has performed all 32 piano sonatas in Madison, will continue his cycle of Beethoven symphonies as transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt. He will perform Symphony No. 1 and the famed Symphony No. 9, the ground-breaking “Choral” Symphony with its “Ode to Joy.” No chorus will be involved, but there will be four solo singers. Taylor said he will then complete the cycle with Symphony No. 2 at some future time.
The Mosaic Chamber Players (below, in a photo by John W. Barker) will perform two all-Beethoven programs: on Feb. 21, a FREE program offers two sonatas for violin and piano (Op. 12, No. 3 and Op. 30, No. 2, and one sonata for cello and piano (Op. 5, No. 1); on June 13, a ticketed program features three piano trios (Op. 1, No. 1; Op. 70, No. 2; and Op. 121a “Kakadu” Variations).
On May 8, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below top, in a photo by Mike Gorski), under conductor Andrew Sewell (below bottom, in a photo by Alex Cruz), will perform the popular Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” – a pioneering piece of program music — to commemorate the Beethoven Year.
There is one very conspicuous absence.
You will notice that there is nothing by Beethoven programmed for the new season of the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers).
But The Ear hears rumors that music director John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) is planning something special for the following season that might involve both symphonies and concertos, both original Beethoven works and perhaps “reimagined” ones.
(For example, pianist Jonathan Biss, who has just completed recording the piano sonata cycle and who performed with the MSO several years ago, has commissioned and will premiere five piano concertos related to or inspired by Beethoven’s five piano concertos.) Sorry, but as of now only rumors and not details are available for the MSO. Stay tuned!
The Ear would like to hear complete cycles of the violin sonatas and cello sonatas performed, and a couple of the piano concertos as well as the early symphonies and the famed Ninth Symphony with its “Ode to Joy” finale. He fondly remembers when DeMain and the MSO performed Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9 on the same program. Talk about bookending a career!
What Beethoven would you like to hear live?
What are your most favorite or least favorite Beethoven works?
Do you know of other Beethoven programs during the Beethoven Year? If so, please leave word in the Comment section.
And, of course, there is the inevitable question: Can you have too much Beethoven?
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Classical music: This weekend, the Madison Symphony Orchestra and other individuals and groups join forces to celebrate John DeMain’s 25th season with Mahler’s monumental “Symphony of a Thousand”
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By Jacob Stockinger
By any standard, it is epic music.
The stage in Overture Hall will have more than 500 participants on it this coming weekend when the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) partners with the Madison Symphony Chorus, the Madison Youth Choirs, the UW–Madison Choral Union and eight critically acclaimed vocal soloists to bring a performance of Gustav Mahler’s massive Symphony No. 8 — or “Symphony of a Thousand.”
For the first time since 2005, MSO music director and conductor John DeMain will conduct one of the largest undertakings in the classical music repertoire as the final concert marking his Silver Anniversary Season.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall of the Overture Center, 201 State St., on Friday night, May 3, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday night, May 4, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon, May 5, at 2:30 p.m.
Information about tickets ($18-$93) is below.
Says DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson): “I have spent 25 years with this orchestra and chorus. In that time, our collaboration on Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 8 in 2005 stands out as perhaps the most memorable. I feel a magnetic affinity with Mahler, and began my career 25 years ago with his first symphony. I am honored and moved to conduct this work and feel it is the perfect conclusion to my 25th season.”
Composed in December 1906, Symphony No. 8 is the last work by Mahler (below) to be premiered in his lifetime. It is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire, and because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces, it is frequently called the “Symphony of a Thousand.” (Below is a photo of the final rehearsal for the world premiere performance in Munich in 1910.)
The structure of the work is unconventional; instead of the normal framework of several movements, the piece is in two parts.
Part I is based on the Latin text of a 9th-century Christian hymn for Pentecost, and Part II is a setting of the words from the closing scene of Goethe’s Faust.
The two parts are unified by a common idea: redemption through the power of love, a unity conveyed through shared musical themes.
Symphony No. 8 is revered as one of the greatest achievements of classical concert repertoire and expresses the composer’s confidence in the eternal human spirit. (You can hear Sir Simon Rattle conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in the famous finale of the Symphony No. 8 in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
The distinguished solo singers are: soprano Alexandra LoBianco; soprano Emily Birsan (below), who just last weekend sang the title role in the Madison Opera’s production of Antonin Dvorak’s “Rusalka”; soprano Emily Pogorelc; mezzo-soprano Milena Kitic; mezzo-soprano Julie Miller; tenor Clay Hilley; baritone Michael Redding; and bass-baritone Morris Robinson.
For photos and impressive biographical information about the soloists, go to:
https://madisonsymphony.org/event/symphony-of-a-thousand/
The Madison Symphony Chorus (below top, in a photo by Greg Anderson) gave its first public performance on Feb. 23, 1928 and has performed regularly with the Madison Symphony Orchestra ever since.
The chorus is comprised of more than 150 volunteer musicians who come from all walks of life and enjoy combining their artistic talent under the direction of Beverly Taylor (below bottom), who is the director of Choral Activities at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Inclusive of members of all skill levels, the Madison Youth Choirs (below), Michael Ross director, incorporate singers from ages 7-18 into their orchestration.
The choirs aim to introduce youths interested in musical performance to collaborative forms of self-confidence and responsibility in the atmosphere of musical training. Randal Swiggum is conducting rehearsals preparing members of the choir for the MSO’s May Symphony of a Thousand concerts.
With 150 members, the UW-Madison Choral Union (below) fuses university and non-university members. Under the direction of Beverly Taylor, former associate conductor of the MSO who also teaches at the UW-Madison, the Choral Union is another testament to the musical outreach in the Madison arts.
CONCERT, TICKET and EVENT DETAILS
The lobby opens 90 minutes prior to each concert. One hour before each performance, Wisconsin Public Radio host Anders Yocom (below, in a photo by James Gill) will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers’ understanding and listening experience. It is free to ticket-holders.
The Symphony recommends concert attendees arrive early for each performance to make sure they have time to pass through Overture Center’s security stations so they can experience the Prelude Discussion.
Program notes for the concerts are available online: http://bit.ly/msomay19programnotes
- Single Tickets are $18-$93 each and are on sale now at: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/symphony-of-a-thousandthrough the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street, or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online/phone sales.
- Groups of 10 or more can save 25% by calling the MSO office at (608) 257-3734. For more information, visit, https://www.madisonsymphony.org/groups.
- Student rush tickets can be purchased in person on the day of the concert at the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street. Students must show a valid student ID and can receive up to two $15 or $20 tickets. More information is at: https://www.madisonsymphony.org/studentrush
- Seniors age 62 and up receive 20% savings on advance and day-of-concert ticket purchases in select areas of the hall.
- Flex-ticket booklets of 10 vouchers for 19-20 symphony subscription concerts are available. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/flex
- Subscriptions for the 2019-2020 season are available now. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/19-20
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
Major funding provided by NBC15, Larry and Jan Phelps, Diane Ballweg, Carla and Fernando Alvarado, Johnson Financial Group, and University Research Park. Additional funding provided by DeWitt LLP, Kennedy Gilchrist and Heidi Wilde, Thomas E. Terry, Fred A. Wileman, Helen L. Wineke, and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Classical music: This Saturday night, the Leonard Bernstein centennial will be marked at the UW-Madison with a faculty vocal concert and a sing-along
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement about this weekend’s celebration of the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth:
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990, below in a photo by Jack Mitchell) — the legendary composer, conductor and pianist — will be celebrated in a concert of his music on this coming Saturday night, Sept. 15, at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Tickets are $17 for adults; $7 for students and children; and free to music majors, music faculty and music staff. To avoid long lines you are asked to purchase tickets early. If you do purchase tickets at the door, you are asked to arrive 30 minutes before the concert begins. For details about tickets, see below.
This Faculty Concert Series event is one of the many world-wide observances of the 100th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth. They will include a special program by the Madison Symphony Orchestra under its music director and conductor John DeMain, who worked with Bernstein and who discussed Bernstein on Wisconsin Public Radio, which you can hear here:
https://www.wpr.org/madison-symphonys-john-demain-remembers-bernstein-during-centennial-birth-year
From Broadway to the concert stage, Bernstein embodied the eclectic nature of America’s music. As a composer, conductor and teacher he embraced all kinds of music, and in his own work created enduring masterpieces in both popular and classical styles.
Saturday’s concert will feature a number of lesser-known works that come from all periods of Bernstein’s career, as well as favorite selections from his classic Broadway scores On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide and West Side Story, and songs from his exquisite incidental music for Peter Pan.
Cellist Alison Rowe (below top) will join her parents, baritone Paul Rowe and soprano Cheryl Bensman-Rowe (below bottom, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) in selections from Mass, Songfest and the beautiful song Dream With Me (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom).
Pianists Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes (below) will join the Rowes in a performance of one of Bernstein’s last major works for two singers and two pianists, Arias and Barcarolles. It is a song cycle in which “Lenny” fully explored the range of styles and subject matter that represent his unique achievement in American music.
There will be a short SING-ALONG at the end of the concert featuring some favorite and familiar Bernstein hits.
For more information, including how to obtain tickets, a video and a link to a Bernstein tribute in The New York Times, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/music-of-leonard-bernstein-a-100th-birthday-tribute/
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Classical music: TONIGHT through Sunday night, the Ancora String Quartet reprises the program it just performed on a 10-day tour of Germany
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ancora String Quartet (below, in a photo by Barry Lewis) has sent the following announcement about its upcoming concerts in Wisconsin – including two in Madison – that will reprise the group’s recent tour to Germany.
Members are (below, from left) violinist Wes Luke, violinist Robin Ryan, violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.
“The Ancora String Quartet (below, rehearsing in Nieder-Olm during the tour) is fresh back from Germany, our first overseas tour, which we called “Deutsch-Amerikanische “Träume,” or “German-American Dreams.”
“We are partnering with a wonderful mezzo-soprano, Melinda Paulsen, who serves on the voice faculty at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany.
“Together, we have prepared a program of works by German and American composers, for string quartet, and for mezzo-soprano and quartet.
“We spent 10 fabulous days in Germany in August of 2018, performing at town halls, concert halls, churches, and a music school, in Nieder-Olm, Frankfurt, Vellmar, Schlitz and St. Goar on the Rhine. It was wonderful and we can’t wait to go back again in future years.
“We are back in Madison now with Melinda, to perform this same program in concert venues around the state of Wisconsin.
“We are grateful for funding from several German organizations, and from the Kassel-Dane Sister County Task Force.
“Melinda and the members of this quartet (below, in Schlitz) are thrilled that this project has taken shape, are pleased with our recent reception in Germany, and look forward to sharing with Wisconsin audiences a program exploring the intersections between two cultures that are quite distinct today, but which share deep, common roots.”
Here is the “German-American Dreams” Tour, Sept. 4-9, at venues in Wisconsin
Admission is FREE except where noted
- TONIGHT, Tuesday, Sept. 4, at 7 p.m. at Capitol Lakes Grand Hall, Madison
- Wednesday, Sept. 5 at noon on The Midday on Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison and at 6 p.m. at Germantown Community Library, Germantown
- Thursday, Sept. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Light Recital Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. For ticket information, go to: https://mastercal.uww.edu/MasterCalendar/EventDetails.aspx?data=hHr80o3M7J72xlWbKk4NucsOjgrgFcp7yGVHvRRLZ2VDe4XLariznlZrFvCFdeeY
- Friday, Sept. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Janesville Women’s Club
- Saturday, Sept. 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the Eaton Chapel, Beloit College
- Sunday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Madison. Admission is $15.
PROGRAM
“Dover Beach” by Samuel Barber
Drei Lieder (Three Songs) by Viktor Ullmann
“Melancholia,” Op. 13, by Paul Hindemith
Intermission
Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11, by Samuel Barber (with the more transparent slow movement that later became the orchestral “Adagio for Strings,” heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)
“Wesendonck” Lieder, WWV 91 (arranged by Stefan Heucke) by Richard Wagner
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Classical music: Four UW concerto competition winners and the student composer winner are featured in the annual Symphony Showcase concert this Sunday night. Plus, the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s “Final Forte” high school concerto competition airs tonight at 7 on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television
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REMINDER: The final round of the Madison Symphony Orchestra‘s teenage concerto competition, “The Final Forte,” will be broadcast live TONIGHT at 7 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television.
ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Ave., features a “Triple Play” of trumpeter David Miller, cellist Amy Harr and pianist Jane Peckham in music by Pärt, Piazzolla, Scarlatti, Levy and Verdi. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m.
By Jacob Stockinger
This sure is the week for concerto competitions.
The Big Event this week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the annual Symphony Showcase concert devoted to student performances of concertos and the world premiere of new music by a student composer.
The concert takes place on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall.
Tickets are $10, free to students and children.
The concert features the UW Symphony Orchestra (below top) under the baton of its new conductor, Chad Hutchinson (below bottom).
The four winners of the concerto competition will perform and the work by the UW composition winner will receive its first public performance.
There will be reception in the lobby following the concert.
The four concerto winners, who study at the UW’s Mead Witter School of Music, are:
Violinist Kaleigh Acord (below, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson), who will perform the first movement from the Violin Concerto in D Major by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Percussionist Aaron Gochberg (below), who will perform the “Prism Rhapsody” by Japanese composer Keiko Abe.
Bassoonist Eleni Katz (below), who will perform the Bassoon Concerto in B-Flat Major, K. 191, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Pianist Eric Tran (below), who will play the Keyboard Concerto No. 4 in A Major, BWV 1055, by Johann Sebastian Bach.
“Blooming” is by UW composition student Mengmeng Wang (below), who is from China.
The concert will open with the Overture to “Candide” by Leonard Bernstein. This year is the centennial of Bernstein’s birth.
For more information about the contestants and their photos, as well as how to get tickets, go to:
https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/symphony-showcase-concerto-winners-solo-recital-reception/
You can also hear interviews with the winners, who discuss the pieces and their teachers, in the terrific YouTube video below:
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Legendary Austrian pianist and scholar Paul Badura-Skoda dies at 91. In the 1960s, he was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison School of Music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Paul Badura-Skoda, the celebrated Austrian pianist who was equally known for his performances and his scholarship, and who was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison in the mid-1960s until 1970, died this past Tuesday at 91.
A Vienna native, Badura-Skoda was especially known for his interpretations of major Classical-era composers who lived and worked in that city including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
He was the only pianist to have recorded the complete sonatas by those composers on both the modern piano and the fortepiano, the appropriate period instrument.
If memory serves, Badura-Skoda’s last appearances in Madison were almost a decade ago for concerts in which he played: the last piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert; a Mozart piano concerto with the UW Chamber Orchestra; and a solo recital of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Chopin at Farley’s House of Pianos.
But he also performed and recorded Bach, Chopin and Schumann among others. And Badura-Skoda was also renowned as a conductor, composer, editor and teacher.
You can find many of his recordings and interviews on YouTube. Normally, this blog uses shorter excerpts. But the legendary Paul Badura-Soda is special. So in the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear Badura-Skoda’s complete last recital of Schubert (Four Impromptus, D. 899 or Op. 90), Schumann (“Scenes of Childhood”, Op. 15) and Mozart (Sonata in C Minor, K. 457). He performed it just last May at the age of 91 at the Vienna Musikverein, where the popular New Year concerts take place.
Here are links to several obituaries:
Here is one from the British Gramophone Magazine:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/pianist-paul-badura-skoda-has-died-at-the-age-of-91
Here is one from WFMT radio station in Chicago, which interviewed him:
https://www.wfmt.com/2019/09/26/pianist-paul-badura-skoda-dies-at-age-91/
Here is one, with some surprisingly good details, from Limelight Magazine:
https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/paul-badura-skoda-has-died/
And here is his updated Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Badura-Skoda
But you will notice a couple of things.
One is that The Ear could not find any obituaries from such major mainstream media as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. But each had many other feature stories about and reviews of Badura-Skoda’s concerts over the years in their areas.
The other noteworthy thing is that none of the obituaries mentions Badura-Skoda’s years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in the 1960s, where he helped to raise the profile and prestige of the School of Music. Getting Badura-Skoda to join the university was considered quite an unexpected coup.
So here are two links to UW-Madison press releases that discuss that chapter of his life and career.
Here is an archival story from 1966 when Badura-Skoda first arrived at the UW-Madison:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=turn&entity=UW.v67i8.p0011&id=UW.v67i8&isize=text
And here is a press release that came from the UW-Madison News Service eight years ago on the occasion of one of Badura-Skoda’s many visits to and performances in Madison:
https://news.wisc.edu/writers-choice-madison-welcomes-badura-skoda-again-and-again/
Rest in Peace, maestro, and Thank You.
It would be nice if Wisconsin Public Radio paid homage with some of Badura-Skoda’s recordings since a complete edition was issued last year on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
If you wish to pay your own respects or leave your memories of Paul Badura-Skoda and his playing, please leave something in the comment section.
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