Thursday March 19 7:30 pm at Mills Hall 455 North Park Street, Madison
The strings of the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kyle Knox present a free concert
The UW Symphony Orchestra’s string section offers an evening of lush harmonies.
Friday March 20 7 pm at Lakeside Street Coffee House
Madison Classical Guitar Society Showcase
Friday March 20 at Overture Center-Capitol Theater
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra with Guest Artist, Amit Peled, cellist. Works by Bridge, Schumann, Schubert & Mozart
Cost: $75-$15
Call: 608-258-4141
Web: www.wcoconcerts.org
Program:
BRIDGE | Suite for String Orchestra
SCHUMANN | Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129
POPPER | Tarantella
CASALS | Song of the Birds
MOZART | Symphony No. 40 in G minor K.550
Friday March 20 8 pm in Overture Center-Promenade Hall 201 State Street Madison
Flautistico featuring flutist Stephanie Jutt and many others
Stephanie Jutt, local flutist, Latina, and artistic director of Overture resident company Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, presents a concert celebrating Latin American and Spanish culture. The evening will feature the music of Spain, Argentina and Venezuela, with spoken word, tango, and original art by Carolyn Kallenborn.
Ticket and cost information at https://tickets.overturecenter.org/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=264
Friday March 20 8 pm at Music Hall 925 Bascom Mall, Madison
The Lakeshore Rush Chamber Ensemble presents a free concert including George Crumb’s Vox Balenae
Erin Kendall Murphy, flute (UW-Madison DMA, 2013)
Laura McLaughlin, clarinet (UW-Madison DMA, 2013)
Amanda Bailey, violin
Christopher Ferrer, cello
Dane Crozier, percussion (UW-Madison BM, 2007)
Elena Doubovitskaya, piano
Lakeshore Rush is a chamber ensemble comprised of six extraordinary musicians in the greater Chicago area. We seek to inspire, enlighten, and entertain our audiences through creative musical programming, collaborative partnerships, and intimate performances. At a Lakeshore Rush concert, expect to hear riveting new music by living composers. Works often incorporate various dance styles including rock and jazz.
Lakeshore Rush was co-founded by Laura McLaughlin and Erin Murphy in 2014. Our ensemble name comes from a previously endangered lakeshore grass that has recently made a comeback on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago. Much like contemporary classical music, rush grass has again taken root and flourished in our city. In addition, the energy felt while walking down Chicago roads Lakeshore Drive and Rush Street remind us of the exhilarating feeling of our chosen repertoire.
Program:
George Crumb – Vox Balaenae
Mason Bates – Difficult Bamboo (Chicago Symphony Orchestra commission, 2013).
Joshua Hintze (UW-Madison MM, 2013) – Chequamegon: Morgan Falls (World Premiere). This work was commissioned by Lakeshore Rush in 2014 and is inspired by a 70-foot waterfall in northern Wisconsin.
Friday Marg 20 8 pm at Morphy Hall 455 North Park Street, Madison
Le Domain Musicale: An Hommage to Pierre Boulez’s Legendary Group presented by Marc Vallon and Les Thimmig
Active from 1954-1973 in Paris, Pierre Boulez’s Domaine Musical was a concert society devoted to the performance of new music and of earlier works by important modernist composers. In this concert, UW’s Marc Vallon (who worked with Boulez in Paris) and Les Thimmig present a tribute to Pierre Boulez’s legendary pathbreaking ensemble, featuring works by Boulez, Bach, and Stockhausen.
Friday March 20 8 pm at Mills Hall 455 North Park Street, Madison
UW School of Music Showcase Concert: UW Percussion Ensemble 50th Anniversary Concert (this is a ticketed event)
Tickets: Adults $10.00, students free. Reception in Mills Lobby immediately following.
In 2015, the UW-Madison percussion program, directed by Anthony di Sanza, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the UW Percussion Ensemble by traveling to Shenyang and Beijing, China for a series of concerts in collaboration with the Shenyang and Chinese Conservatory Percussion Ensembles. The March concert in Mills Hall is at once a celebration of the ensemble’s first 50 years and a send off for the China tour. The program will offer a potpourri of music from the United States, China, Mexico and Brazil and will feature James Latimer (UW-Madison, Emeritus Professor of Percussion) conducting Toccata for Percussion by Carlos Chavez, which was performed on the UW-Madison Percussion Ensemble’s first concert on March 5, 1965. This trip is supported by Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Graebner and the UW-Madison China Initiative.
Tickets: Adults $10.00, students free. Reception in Mills Lobby immediately following.
Saturday March 21 noon at Grace Episcopal Church 116 West Washington Avenue, Madison
The Madison Bach Musicians present a free concert on J.S. Bach’s birthday
Celebrating their 11th season, the Madison Bach Musicians ensemble is dedicated to presenting the music of Johann Sebastian Bach – as well as works by other great composers of the Baroque, Renaissance, and Classical periods-through performances, lectures, and workshops. Bach’s music was chosen as a focal point because of its outstanding beauty, variety, and profundity and because it speaks with urgency to modern audiences; it is the high water mark of musical expression and craft in western culture. MBM provides a unique forum for professional and exceptionally talented young musicians to work together in an exciting and engaging period performance style. In pursuit of the greatest clarity they perform primarily on period instruments, and their ensemble sizes are typical of those used by Bach himself.
Saturday March 21 7:30 pm at UW Music Hall 925 Bascom Mall, Madison
The UW-Madison Contemporary Chamber Ensemble with Parry Karp, cello presents a free concert
You can see the program at music.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CCE-CRUMB-CONCERT3.21.15.pdf
Saturday March 21 8 pm at Mills Hall 455 North Park Street
The Wisconsin Brass Quintet presents a free concert
Wisconsin Brass Quintet rehearsalFounded in 1972, the Wisconsin Brass Quintet is a faculty ensemble-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. The quintet’s musical expertise has been acknowledged by Verne Reynolds, Jan Bach, Karel Husa, John Harbison, Daron Hagen and many other composers. In addition to performing with the WBQ, the players have also been members of the American Brass Quintet, Empire Brass Quintet and Meridian Arts Ensemble. Quintet member Daniel Grabois and former member John Stevens and Douglas Hill have also composed many works for the group. With extensive performances throughout the Midwest and nationally, including appearances at New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall and Merkin Concert Hall, the quintet’s educational programs and master classes have been presented in such prestigious settings as The Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music. They perform annual live radio broadcast concerts on Wisconsin Public Radio. Their three CD recordings, on the Summit, Mark and Crystal labels, feature music by John Stevens, Douglas Hill, Verne Reynolds, Daron Hagen, John Harbison and Enrique Crespo. An earlier LP recording features the only recording of Jan Bach’s “Rounds and Dances” and Hilmar Luckhardt’s “Brass Quintet.” Each of these works was composed for the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, in keeping with the WBQ’s commitment to commissioning and performing new music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Barry Kilpatrick writes for the American Record Guide: “I’ve reviewed over 250 brass recordings in the past five years, and this is one of the very best. The WBQ is a remarkable ensemble that plays with more reckless abandon, warmth, stylistic variety and interpretive interest than almost any quintet in memory.”
John Aley and Jessica Jensen, trumpets; Mark Hetzler, trombone; Daniel Grabois, horn; Tom Curry, tuba.
Saturday March 21 8 pm at UW Memorial Union-Shannon Hass (Wisconsin Union Theater)
Sharon Isbin and Isabel Leonard, guitarist and mezzo-soprano in concert
Cost: $50/$25
Call: 608-265-2787
Web: www.uniontheater.wisc.edu
SHARON ISBIN, GUITAR, AND ISABEL LEONARD, MEZZO-SOPRANO, SHARE SPAIN’S MUSICAL PANTHEON
Two greats, in guitar and in voice, unite. Sharon Isbin and Isabel Leonard will perform in the Wisconsin Union Theater Saturday, March 21, 2015, at 8 p.m. in Shannon Hall in a recital of Spain’s musical pantheon. This concert is co-sponsored by Madison Opera. Purchase tickets online or call the Box Office at 608-265-ARTS (2787). Tickets can also be purchased at either Vilas Hall (entrance on East Campus Mall, 821 University Avenue) or the box office in the Wisconsin Union Theater. Ticket prices are as follows. General Public: $50, $25; Wisconsin Union Members & Non UW-Madison Students: $44; UW-Madison Faculty & Staff: $46; UW-Madison Student (with ID): $10.
The magnificent program includes Federico Lorca’s Canciones espanolas antiguas, Enrique Granados’ Spanish Dance No. 5, Isaac Albeniz’s Asturias, Joaquin Rodrigo’s Aranjuez ma pensee, selections from Xavier Montsalvatge’s Cinco canciones negras, Francisco Tarrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, and Falla’s Siete canciones populares espanolas.
Isbin and Leonard have been performing together since the 2014 Aspen Music Festival. Future concerts include an appearance at the Kennedy Center, and this fall they will perform the world premiere of a new work by Richard Danielpour co-commissioned for them by Chicago’s Harris Theater and Carnegie Hall.
Hailed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time” and winner of multiple GRAMMY awards, Sharon Isbin is the subject of an exciting one-hour documentary presented by American Public Television for broadcast on nearly 200 public television stations throughout the US and viewed by millions to date. Sharon Isbin: Troubadour paints the portrait of a trailblazing performer and teacher who over the course of her career has broken through numerous barriers to rise to the top of a traditionally male-dominated field.
Isbin has performed with over 170 orchestras in some of the greatest performance spaces around the world as well as at the televised Ground Zero memorial on September 11, 2002. Other notable performances include a concert at the White House for President Obama and the First Lady and a 2010 GRAMMY Award performance. Her nearly 30 recordings span the Baroque, Spanish, Latin, 20th century and jazz genres. When she’s not dazzling audiences in performance, Isbin also wears the hat of director of guitar programs at the Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival.
Passion and vocal beauty come together in the likes of Leonard, a woman experienced in opera and the concert stage. Her career has taken her to the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, among various stages. The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic, among others.
“The beauty of her voice is well-documented,” according to a New York Classical Review of her recent leading role in Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” at the Metropolitan Opera. “Leonard is a captivating actress, bringing a natural, charming playfulness to the stage. Her voice, nimble and colorful, is wonderfully suited to this rep.”
These performances are presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater’s Performing Arts Committee and supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds form the state of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Media sponsor is WORT 89.9 FM.
Saturday March 21 8 pm ant Overture Center-Capitol Theater
Organist Cameron Carpenter
Cost: $40-$30
Call: 608-258-4141
Web: www.overturecenter.org
Remember those analogy questions on standardized tests? Try this one: Guitar is to Jimi Hendrix as Organ is to ___________. The answer’s Cameron Carpenter. Forget what you think you know about the organ. You’ll hear jazz standards and pop favorites, original compositions and a whole new take on classical.
Sunday March 22 2 and 4 pm at Overture Center-Promenade Hall
The Madison Symphony Orchestra Chorus presents “It Might as Well be Spring”
Cost: $19
Call: 608-257-3734
Web: www.madisonsymphony.org
Email: info@madisonsymphony.org
Welcome spring in song with Conductor Beverly Taylor and the Madison Symphony Chorus in a jubilant concert including works by Brahms, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Finzi, and Copland.
Program:
My spirit sang all day (text by Robert Bridges)
Gerald Finzi
Excerpts from the Liebeslieder Vol. I
Johannes Brahms
A Jubilant song (text by Whitman)
Norman Dello Joio
An Unseen Rain (text by Rumi)
Robert Kyr
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
Welcome sweet springtime (from Mikado)
William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
It might as well be spring (from State Fair)
Rodgers and Hammerstein, arr. Kirke Mechem
Elijah Rock
Spiritual arr. Moses Hogan
The Promise of Living (from The Tender Land)
Aaron Copland
Sunday March 22 2:30 pm at First Baptist Church 518 N. Franklin Ave, Madison WI
Flutes on Fire: Annual Chinese Orphans Project benefit concert, 2:30 pm, 3/22, First Baptist Church, featuring James Pellerite, Madison Flute Choir,Patricia George, Linda Mintener, Roberta Brokaw, Elizabeth Marshall. Donations encouraged.
Acclaimed Native American flutist, James Pellerite performs solos, duets and trios with strings. The Madison Flute Choir opens the concert with a surround-sound piece edited by Mr. Pellerite. Patricia George, editor of Flute Talk magazine, plays a lovely CPE Bach sonata, then joins local flutists for Cimarosa Suite, a charming trio composed by her husband. Linda Mintener and Roberta Brokaw will play a duet concerto by Cimarosa with flute choir accompaniment. Elizabeth Marshall–of MSO & WCO–and Roberta play a duet of lovely Chinese tunes.
Admission is free with a free-will offering taken for the Chinese Orphans Project, which provides educational opportunities to 85 orphans ranging from kindergarten to college students in China’s rural Henan Province. Many of the children were orphaned when their parents died of HIV/AIDS contracted from donating blood for small amounts of much-needed cash. Most live with elderly, infirm grandparents who struggle to provide for themselves, let alone their young grandchildren. The grandparents cannot pay for school fees, schoolbooks, pencils, notebooks, transportation costs, and exam fees. Our support provides those things, as well as adequate clothing and a healthy diet. $250 sponsors a child for a year.
Come to the concert, enjoy an afternoon of lovely music and donate to this great cause. Contact Linda Mintener, Project Coordinator, 3976 Plymouth Circle, Madison, WI 53705 or at 608-231-1680 for more Orphan Project information.
Sunday March 22 7:30 pm at Mills Hall 455 North Park Street, Madison
Miranda Cuckson and Nunc (this is a ticketed event)
Tickets $20.00 adults; free for students.
The program will include works of George Crumb, Laura Schwendinger, Sebastian Currier and Augusta Read Thomas.
This event is part of the series Honoring Contemporary Composer George Crumb.
Miranda Cuckson plays Michael Hersch: “the wreckage of flowers”
Her nine lauded solo CDs include music by Luigi Nono (a New York Times Best Recording of 2012), Shapey, Hersch, Martino, Finney and recent releases of Carter, Eckardt, Sessions, Haas, Xenakis and more, on the Centaur, Vanguard and Urlicht labels. In January 2015, she will record her first CD for ECM Records, of sonatas by Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski.
She has collaborated with such composers as Dutilleux, Carter, Adès, Sciarrino, Adams, Boulez, Hyla, Mackey, Crumb, Lachenmann, Saariaho, Lindberg, Davidovsky, Hurel, Bermel, Wyner, Haas, Murail, Wuorinen and Currier. The McKim Fund of the Library of Congress commissioned for her a new work by Harold Meltzer. Active with many organizations and ensembles, she is founder/director of Nunc and a member of counter)induction.
Miranda studied at The Juilliard School, where she received her DMA and won the Presser and Richard French Awards. Her teachers included Felix Galimir, Robert Mann, Dorothy DeLay, Shirley Givens, and for chamber music, Fred Sherry and the Juilliard String Quartet. She is on the violin faculty at Mannes College the New School for Music.
Nunc (Latin for “now”) is an organization devoted to presenting high-caliber performances of music of current, recent and older eras, through distinctive programming that highlights their innovations and contributions. By including contemporary compositions in a context of historical continuity and evolution, Nunc enhances our sense of immediacy of the present and reveals the interrelation of works across time and divergent philosophies. Comprising a flexible collection of performers and artists, rather than a fixed ensemble roster, Nunc exposes listeners to important styles and developments up to those of our own day.
Nunc was founded in 2007 as “Transit Circle ” by artistic director and violinist/violist Miranda Cuckson, and was renamed and incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 2012. Since its inaugural concert in New York City, it has presented several programs per season, including a number of world and United States premiere performances. The New York Times wrote that the organization “has a lineup likely to appeal to anyone who keeps tabs on the contemporary music world…these musicians are so thoroughly at home with [the repertory] that they made even the toughest of these works sing…the players found the fun in it.”
Nunc is pronounced with a short “u” as in “funk.”
The program will include works of George Crumb, Laura Schwendinger, Sebastian Currier and Augusta Read Thomas.
Tuesday March 24 7:30 pm at Mills Hall 455 North Park Street, Madison
The UW-Madison Concert Band presents a free concert
Wednesday March 25 noon at Luther Memorial Church 1021 University, Madison
Free organ recital featuring organist Bruce Bengston
Wednesday March 25 7:30 pm at Overture Center-Capitol Theater
The Bolz Young Artist Competition Finals. Free Concert by the Madison Symphony Orchestra and youth performers