Concerts on the Square

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Dee Hues Photography

A close-up of Amber Merritt.

Amber Merritt

media release: The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s famous Concerts on the Square returns for its 40th Season this summer. Concerts will take place on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM starting June 28, 2023, and ending on August 2, 2023 on the King Street corner of Capitol Square and are free and open to the public.

An iconic Madison tradition, Concerts on the Square has grown from an idea by American Girl Founder Pleasant Rowland into a nationally recognized concert series, attracting 250,000 people annually for free concerts on the steps of the Wisconsin state Capitol.

On July 19 experience a variety of works by our composer in residence, Dr. Bill Banfield, including excerpts from his opera Edmonia with guest soprano Amber Merritt, and It’s All Good My Brother featuring UW professor of jazz studies, our very own Johannes Wallmann on piano. We conclude the evening with the popular Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture by Tchaikovsky.

Program

Glazunov | “From the Middle Ages” Suite for Orchestra, Op.79

Banfield | “It’s All Good My Brother”

Banfield | Symphony No. 6, III. “Get Dizzy over Miles”

Banfield | Selected songs from Edmonia

Morricone | Main Theme from Once Upon A Time in the West

Tchaikovsky | Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

*program subject to change

Guest soloists:

Amber Cierra Merritt is a second-year Specialist student at the University of Michigan where she studies with Dr. Louise Toppin. During her time at Michigan, Merritt starred as Edmonia in the workshop of the opera Edmonia by William Banfield and as the Sparrow in Nkeiru Okoye’s Bre’r Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Merritt also starred as Frau Herz in Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor. Merritt placed first in the Great Lakes Region’s National Student Auditions in the Advanced Category and first in the regional and national level in the Hall Johnson Spirituals category in 2020. Last season, Merritt starred in two PBS specials with the American Pops Orchestra entitled “One Voice: American Roots” and “United in Song: Celebration of American Roots”.

Johannes Wallmann is a pianist, composer, and the Peterson Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wallmann has recorded ten critically acclaimed albums as a leader, including Precarious Towers, which was named a “Best of Bandcamp, June 2022” album, a Best of 2022 Album by Something Else! and Classical/Jazz/World Album of the Year by the 2022 Madison Area Music Awards. Milwaukee’s Shepherd’s Express said: “Wallmann rises to precipitous heights in his 10th album, Precarious Towers, proving his ability to create a concept album, with extra-musical aspects streaming gracefully throughout.”

Wallmann’s 2021 release, Elegy for an Undiscovered Species, was named a “Best of 2021” album by DownBeat magazine and described as “delightfully mind blowing throughout” by Midwest Record. DownBeat magazine has called Wallmann “a remarkable pianist and composer [whose] evocative compositions are brimming with melodic cogency and rhythmic pull” and called his playing “confident, muscular and elegant.” Learn more.

Bill Banfield was appointed in 2019 as a research associate with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH), one of the Smithsonian’s 12 research and cultural centers. His work focuses on what he identifies as cultural through-lines, delineating the ways in which contemporary artistry and new works harken back and hold onto critical cultural linkages to understand. Learn more.

The decision to continue or cancel a concert due to weather conditions will be made at 3 PM on concert days. The official announcement will be made on wcoconcerts.org and on the WCO’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Email will also be sent to WCO subscribers. If the concert is postponed at that time, it will be held the following day at 7 PM. If the concert is not postponed by 3 PM but is subsequently canceled due to poor weather conditions, that week’s concert will not be held or may be cut short. Table reservations can be made here.

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