Dick Ainsworth
The audience will see a birds-eye video of Jeffrey Sykes and Randall Hodgkinson performing piano four hands June 23-25.
No one does chamber music quite like Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society.
The group celebrates its 26th year with an ambitious summer festival, Alphabet Soup, playing at venues in Madison, Spring Green and Stoughton.
The ensemble’s artistic directors, flutist Stephanie Jutt, who just retired from UW-Madison after 27 years, and pianist Jeffrey Sykes, will be joined by 19 guest artists from Madison and around the country.
Alphabet Soup features music from the 1700s to the digital age, including some Midwest premieres. In addition to virtuoso playing, the festival also features commentaries and stage sets for the Madison concerts by Helen Hawley, an award-winning multidisciplinary artist.
Here are some highlights of the festival, which runs June 9-25, with different programs each week.
The first week’s concert will showcase violist Jeremy Kienbaum, cellist Trace Johnson and violinist Misha Vayman, in Gideon Klein’s String Trio. Free kids’ concerts take place on June 8 and 10. The artists are part of Dynamite Factory, a new BDDS program for exceptional young musicians. “We’ve been eager to put together a young artist fellowship program for years, and this will be our first foray,”says Jutt.
Week two features cabaret songs by Benjamin Britten, William Bolcom and Arnold Schoenberg. The vocalist is Emily Birsan of Madison Opera fame, whom Sykes calls “inimitable.” Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts will explore themes of human existence with a piece titled “Living Frescoes.” Another highlight is an appearance by Alan Kay, principal clarinet of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
What does duet piano playing look like from above? You’ll see during the final week in Czerny’s Sonata in C minor. A camera will be suspended over the keyboard so the audience can see how the pianists’ hands cross and interlock. Bass-baritone Timothy Jones (who performed in a world premiere of Puts’ “In at the Eye” at last year’s festival) returns to sing songs by Ned Rorem and Gerald Finzi. That program also includes Puts’“Rounds for Robin” and Paul Moravec’s shapeshifting “Cool Fire.”
