Maxim Lando: Chris McGuire / Ter
Andrew Sewell, left, and guest artist Maxim Lando with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and Terrence Wilson, guest pianist with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
The summer was not kind to Madison’s outdoor classical music scene.
Listeners and musicians found themselves breathing bad air from smoky Canadian wildfires, sunbaked during the early season drought, and drenched by unexpected rainstorms, all of which postponed or canceled some of the city’s favorite musical traditions. Clearly, it’s time to go back to the concert hall, where area companies are mixing classics with more diverse contemporary material.
Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra: Banfield and Brahms
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra continues to feature more diverse composers, says music director Andrew Sewell. “There has been a lack of coverage of Black American composers and we’re just trying to even the score, so to speak. We need more awareness of diversity in music and on stage, and that is part of what art does.”
A special performance in October is the season’s cornerstone. “Harmony in Black” features the music of third-year artist in residence Bill Banfield and Grammy-nominated Patrice Rushen, a classically trained pianist best known for her blend of jazz, pop and R&B. Rushen’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, based on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, will join Banfield’s Testimony of Tone, Tune and Time, highlighting the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and his Symphony No. 8 (titled Here I Stand), which looks to singer/activist/actor Paul Robeson for inspiration.
The concert will be recorded, and released Feb. 24, 2024, on Albany Records, Banfield’s label, as the first of a five-part project, “Musical Landscapes in Color,” a performance partnership between Banfield and the chamber orchestra.
The WCO’s Masterworks series begins on Nov. 10 with “Majestic Brahms,” featuring Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Haydn’s Symphony No. 13 in D and Gerald Finzi’s Love’s Labour’s Lost Suite with guest pianist Maxim Lando.
Madison Symphony Orchestra: Happy anniversary
The fall marks the start of John DeMain’s 30th anniversary season as music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, an event the maestro is celebrating on Sept. 22-24 with “American Rhapsody,” a tribute to leading American composers.
“As an American born and trained musician, I wanted to play the music of my country,” says DeMain. “I have a long affiliation with the works of George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and John Adams and the opening concert will have several firsts for Madison audiences.”
Copland’s Appalachian Spring, a personal favorite of DeMain, will be joined by Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, notable for its early infusion of jazz elements into the classical tradition. Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra and Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 round out the program. Pianist Terrence Wilson is the guest artist.
“We received a lot of letters asking for the Hanson piece,” DeMain says. “This is almost a premiere performance for us since the work was last performed in 1955 before we formally became an orchestra.”
DeMain and company also have been diversifying the symphony’s playlist with more contemporary works and those by composers of color. The program “Monumental Moments,” Oct. 20-22, features works by Brahms and Shostakovich, but also “Three Dance Variations” from Fancy Free by Leonard Bernstein.
In November, in the program “Symphony Gems,” compositions by Mozart and Schumann will be joined by William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony.
The fall season also will include two organ concerts that take full advantage of Overture Hall’s Klais organ. The Oct. 6 concert, helmed by symphony organist Greg Zelek, features the music of such Latin American and Hispanic composers as Astor Piazzolla and Joaquin Rodrigo as well as Latin standards. Zelek will be joined by a band of veteran Miami musicians he brought together (see sidebar).
The Nov. 11 organ concert will feature guest organist Ken Cowan, whose program will go back as far as J.S. Bach but lean toward 19th- and 20th-century composers Elgar, Liszt and Messaien.
The organ performances are attracting a growing number of attendees, DeMain says, as many as 1,500 for a single performance.
“We’re playing more new music today than ever before,” DeMain says. “I didn’t realize just how much music was out there. Expanding the canon of serious listening music by many composers is what orchestras should be doing today.”
Madison Opera: Body count
American musicologist Joseph Kerman once referred to Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca as a “shabby little shocker,” largely due to the violence in its narrative. Madison Opera general manager Kathryn Smith, who is mounting a production of the 1900 work Nov. 3 and 5, takes umbrage at Kerman’s assessment.
“The opera is based on what was considered a scandalous French play of the time written for the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt,” Smith says. “I am told Bernhardt often changed the ending of the play based on where it was being performed because the original was too shocking.”
Puccini wrote his operatic adaptation during the most productive period of his career, Smith says, following on the heels of La Boheme and leading up to Madame Butterfly and Turandot. Calling it a “shabby shocker” minimizes its role as classic melodrama filled with famous arias, large choruses, and other features that make it a proverbial standard in the annals of grand opera.
“Tosca is a great opera that we love to perform and haven’t done so in a decade,” Smith says. “Moreover, I don’t think it has the highest body count of every opera ever performed, but Italian operas do seem to end up with a lot of people dying.”
¡Hola!
A highlight of the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s fall season is “¡Greg Zelek y Amigos!,” part of the symphony’s concert organ series. Organist Zelek, the son of a Cuban mother and Polish-Irish father, taps his maternal musical roots for an evening of Latin American classics, jazz and popular music.
With the help of his former guitar teacher, Alvaro Bermudez, Zelek assembled a band of musicians from his hometown of Miami for a performance of works by Astor Piazzolla, Joaquín Rodrigo and others. Zelek will join the ensemble (on Overture Hall’s Orgelbau Klais organ), which also features Bermudez on guitar.
“This concert is basically about returning to my roots,” says Zelek, who grew up speaking Spanish at home. “I love the idea of having a bilingual program.”
Zelek hopes the concert will attract audience members with Latin American backgrounds more interested in the repertoire than the instrument. Very few Latin American composers wrote organ music, Zelek says, which meant significant research on his part for works that demonstrated the instrument’s versatility.
“As musicians, it’s our responsibility to research new music that might attract new audience members,” Zelek says. “My mom is so proud that I’m playing the music of our heritage on the Overture Hall stage that she’s bringing a large contingent of Cuban family members and friends from Miami to hear it.”
– M.M.
