DRIFTing and Share-ing

A DIG Jazz livestream, The Big Share and more Isthmus Picks for Feb. 25-March 4

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UW Symphony Orchestra, Thursday, Feb. 25, 7:30 pm: Even though the new Hamel Music Center is closed to the public due to COVID-19, the Mead Witter School of Music at UW-Madison is making great use of its concert halls with a robust livestream schedule featuring student ensembles and solo performances. This week features the next concert by the school's symphony, with a program including I Crisantemi by Giacomo Puccini, a suite of arrangements drawn from Bizet's opera Carmen by Rodion Shchedrin, and "Coqueteos" by Lena Frank. Find the livestream on YouTube; donations can be made here.

DRIFT, Friday, Feb. 26, 7 pm: Led by trumpet player Dave Cooper, the DRIFT ensemble was initially gathered to play a set of compositions and arrangements by Cooper, inspired by music from Béla Bartók to Miles Davis. Making up for March and December 2020 DIG Jazz dates postponed by the pandemic, DRIFT reconvenes with some new Cooper compositions and a reconfigured lineup just for this show. Pianist Chris Rottmayer is unable to participate, so tenor sax player Tom Gullion (from Cooper's more improvisation-based group, QUAD) will make up the quartet with returning drummer Matt Endres and bassist Nick Moran. Find the free Madison Music Collective livestream on the Arts + Literature Laboratory Facebook and YouTube pages.

Beloit International Film Festival, Through Sunday, Feb. 28: Featuring more than 100 films available for on-demand screening, Q&A sessions with filmmakers, free drive-in outdoor screenings, and more, the Beloit International Film Festival makes the leap to virtual for its 16th season. The wide-ranging program features two films of particular interest in the Badger State: the drama Small Town Wisconsin, from Milwaukee director Niels Mueller, and the documentary Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod, about a Green Bay native taking on the copyright system in a novel way, directed by Ryan Camarda. Tickets are $10 per film.

International Festival, Saturday, Feb. 27, live at 10 am: This free celebration of cultures usually brings throngs to the Overture Center, but for 2021 International Festival transforms into an online extravaganza. In a way, cheers to us all for going down that road to continue to make these performances available. But the buzz of activity in the theaters and common spaces of the O.C. will be sorely missed (not to mention the food court). Don't miss the MLK Community Choir, UW Russian Folk Orchestra, Roots of Brazil Capoeira, Beni Daiko or the Mad Craic Irish Dance troupe. Even Yid Vicious is doing a set. Find the livestream on the Overture website through March 5; registration is appreciated but not required.

It's in Our Nature, Saturday, Feb. 27, 3 pm: Nothing prompts poetry like nature; the two have been walking hand-in-hand since well before Wordsworth. The Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve is launching its second annual “It’s In Our Nature” poetry slam. Madison poet Robin Chapman will emcee over Zoom. If you are interested in attending or reading your work in a 3-5 minute spot, register here.

Nicholas Payton, Saturday, Feb. 27, 7:30 pm: This addition to the Wisconsin Union Theater schedule (rescheduled for Feb. 27) is a big one: Nicholas Payton. First coming to national prominence as a jazz trumpeter — picking up a Grammy as well as several more nominations over the years — Payton's musical range transcends genre boundaries. (As stated on his website, "There are no fields, per se. There are lineages.") The New Orleans native is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger who runs his own record label; he’s also a prolific essayist on topics as wide-ranging as his musical directions. Find tickets here; the concert will be followed by a Q&A session.

Todd Rundgren, Sunday, Feb. 28, 8 pm: On his last trip to Madison in 2018, songwriter Todd Rundgren brought "An Unpredictable Evening" of surprise covers and a spontaneous playlist; in 2021, it's the "Clearly Human" tour, with sets including all of the Nearly Human album. If you are now asking yourself "Tour?"...you read that right. Rundgren and a 10-piece band are staying in a quarantine pod in Chicago, and playing individual shows for 25 markets this winter. He's experimented with multimedia and interactivity since the '70s so it's not surprising to see him "on the road" virtually, or that the livestream add-ons include innovations such as a multi-camera option. Find tickets here.

Winter Arts Mosaic, Monday, March 1, live at 9 am: One aspect of our safer-at-home times that is sometimes overlooked is that it's not just the professional companies that have been missing from our arts landscape. A lot of performers of all ages and experience levels have also been missing the chance to learn and practice their craft. To that end, Central Midwest Ballet Academy, Madison Savoyards and Upstart Crows Productions have collaborated on Winter Arts Mosaic, a pre-recorded variety show featuring dance, light opera and scenes from Shakespeare, as well as a collaborative piece featuring new music by Mark Wurzelbacher. Find tickets ($18) here; Winter Arts Mosaic will be available for streaming on demand through March following its premiere Monday morning.

Winter is Alive, Through March 7: What is Winter is Alive? What isn't Winter is Alive, is a better question. This multi-disciplinary art festival encompasses film, visual art installations at various locations around Madison, community, dialogue, reflection and inspiration to engage with the natural world and address climate change. So a mashup of a carnival and a Zen retreat center, maybe. The more temperate weather means it's time to check out some of the site-specific installations around town before they're gone, including "The Eroding House" by Jenie Gao (at Badger Rock Neighborhood Center) or "The Dying Iceberg" by Latvian artist Ojārs Feldbergs (on Lake Wingra near Vilas Park Beach). Find the schedule of remaining livestreams at winterisalive.org; livestream links will show up there and at twitch.tv/winterisalive. Winter is Alive is presented by Dane Arts and Garver Events with additional support from the Madison Arts Commission and Sustain Dane.

Celebrating 60 Years of Service and Friendship, Monday, March 1, 6 pm: Since the Peace Corps was created by executive order on March 1, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, more than 6,400 Wisconsinites have signed on for international service; more than half of those — 3,300 — attended UW-Madison. So it's fitting that on the 60th anniversary of the Peace Corps, UW-Madison is hosting a live panel discussion featuring past directors of the organization from the 1970s to 2021. But wait, there's more Badgers connections. Former UW-Madison Chancellor Donna Shalala, who was apparently one of the first to serve in the Peace Corps — from 1962-1964 in Iran — will moderate the discussion. Stories of volunteering will be just one of the topics explored during the 90-minute event. Register for the talk, on Zoom, here. This is just one of the events the university is planning to commemorate the Peace Corps' 60th anniversary. UW-Madison’s International Division is hosting a virtual showing of  A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps, on demand from Feb. 26-March 1. It's free but registration is required to receive a link.

The Big Share, Tuesday, March 2: The pandemic has proven that nonprofits are an ever more important part of our societal safety net, whether providing a constant community presence with direct assistance to the most needy or advocating for policy for the public good. Help them help us all by making a donation during The Big Share, the annual online fundraiser hosted by Community Shares of Wisconsin, a membership organization of nonprofits working for environmental and social justice. Find more info on participants and how to donate at thebigshare.org; for related events, keep an eye on Community Shares' Facebook page. The kickoff event, on Zoom at 6 pm on March 1, features speakers and drag queen bingo.

Black Bodies Swinging: An American Postmortem, Tuesday, March 2-Thursday, March 4, 12:30 pm: The title of this series of lectures by UCLA professor of history and author Robin D. G. Kelley is shared with a forthcoming book examining the roots of the Black Spring protests of 2020; as described by Kelley, it will be a "historical autopsy" of racial capitalism. The specific lecture topics — “The Price of the Ticket: Making a Killing in Cincinnati” (Tuesday), “'Count All Women’s Lives!' Abolition Feminism vs Racial Femicide” (Wednesday) and "Where do We Go From Here? Abolition or Fascism” (Thursday) — should make for a bracing preview of the book. The lectures are presented on Zoom by the Havens Wright Center; register here for the links.

Heather McGhee, Tuesday, March 2, 7 pm: Racism meets the economy in Heather McGhee’s groundbreaking work The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (One World, 2021). Persons of color and whites alike suffer from the inequalities of the system, which McGhee examines. Racism contributes to everything from the loss of the power of unions to the broken healthcare system, McGhee finds. Presented in partnership by the Wisconsin Book Festival with Black Mountain Institute, Literary Arts, and The Loft's WordPlay, Heather McGhee will appear live in conversation with Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All. Register here.

Kurt Dietrich, Wednesday, March 3, 7 pm: There's no shortage of books about jazz music, but retired Ripon College professor Kurt Dietrich provides a tome unlike any we've seen in the past. Wisconsin Riffs: Jazz Profiles from the Heartland (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018) builds a history of the genre in the Badger State through essays on its players. From legends such as Woody Herman and Les Paul, Dietrich brings the story right up to the current day with performers such as Hanah Jon Taylor and Nick Moran, who you can see and hear play in local clubs (well, once we are all back at live shows). A player himself in Wisconsin since the 1970s, Dietrich shares his unique insight on a genre and musicians often overlooked in the state's musical history. He'll discuss the book during the next WHS Book Bites livestream, on Facebook.

J. Elle, Thursday, March 4, 6 pm: The debut novel from J. Elle introduces a new heroine to the young adult fantasy universe: Rue, a Black teenager from Houston, who learns a surprising fact about her ancestry after her mother is killed. And Rue may be the only one who can save two worlds from destruction. Elle will discuss Wings of Ebony with Sabaa Tahir (author of An Ember in the Ashes and sequels) during a free Instagram Live presentation hosted by Barnes & Noble.

We hope it's handy for you to find the Picks in a single weekly post. The individual Picks can still be found in the usual places online: collected here, and sprinkled throughout all the events.