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MILWAUKEE AND BEYOND
Early in his career, John Harbison thought he might become a jazz musician.
Some stars shine more brightly than the surrounding firmament, as pianist Stephen Hough displayed radiantly last night in performance with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
The mark of great theater piece is the show’s ability to take ordinary lives and make them extraordinary. Madison Opera’s production of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, unfortunately, leans a bit in the opposite direction.
Would an opera about a jazz performer still be considered an opera? Or is it more like an extended jazz riff on the performer’s life?
It’s that time of the year again: The leaves are beginning to change and the cold mornings are upon us. This change augers a new start in the Milwaukee arts community, including the 13th season of Milwaukee-based chamber music group Frankly Music.
Amid the autumn leaves’ changing colors comes the vivid musical colors of the notes, chords, cadenzas and crescendos of the local classical music scene
Blend the best of music and the best of theater and what do you get? Why, opera, of course. But that’s not to say appreciating opera is easy.
By his own estimation, Andrew Sewell has conducted the 1812 Overture some 50 times — but he never tires of the famous work.
In his life, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a trailblazing Russian composer. The first to make an impression on the international stage, Tchaikovsky was lauded both in Russia and abroad, leading to an appointment from Emperor Alexander III. His pieces, full of the lush rhythms and harmonies of…
Ah, summer! The time when concert organs get their pipes cleaned, tympani get their drumheads tarped, and maestros button up their batons until autumn’s first leaves signal the start of the new music season, right?
“Official” artistic canons have historically recorded a greater number of men than women among their ranks. But that discrepancy is shifting in both the present and the past, as female artists in the modern era stake their claims and female artists from the past are honored by research and s…
It’s been a good year for Present Music, and the company has lots of reasons to celebrate. So they’re going to do just that, inviting you and a wide range of guests to their Finale concert, June 3 at Turner Hall Ballroom.
The last time Frankly Music assembled a tango-centric concert was five years ago — more than long enough to justify a return of the classic musical form. This time, the chamber music company will end its season with tango pieces from South America and Europe in Return of the Tango on May 16,…
Milwaukee welcomes back director John Hoomes (Elmer Gantry 2010) as the Florentine Opera closes its season with the delightful and cheeky operetta Die Fledermaus. The comical tale, by Johann Strauss II, tells the story of a masked ball held by a prince that brings together a collection of du…
In the world of classical music, sometimes size does matter. When it comes to sheer musical scale, few pieces can compete with Carl Orff’s 24-movement cantata Carmina Burana, which will close the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s 2015–16 season later this month.
Categorizing German composer Johannes Brahms can be difficult. From his position at the end of the Romantic era (the late 19th century), the composer was both rooted in the old world of classical music as well as ahead of his time.
A century of Yiddish education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be celebrated with live and historic music, including the first event in an international Jewish performance series.
Beautiful sounds can always be heard wafting through the halls of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Many of those dulcet tones belong to the Prometheus Trio, the conservatory’s resident chamber music ensemble.
Bel Canto Chorus has never strayed from taking on the challenge of a new work for performance. March’s concert will be no exception. On March 6, Bel Canto will present The Revelations of Divine Love (Metaphors from Sea and Sky) by Carson Cooman, a Midwest premiere.
Musicians rarely play better than when performing a piece of music they love. Just ask flutist Dionne Jackson.
At the end of January, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra will present a meeting of titans. The final major works by Béla Bartók and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, both expressions of the composers’ maturation and realizations of their mortality, will define this early 2016 program.
When Perfect Harmony Men’s Chorus performs at the Stoughton Opera House on Feb. 6, it will be one more chance for the Madison-based, LGBT and LGBT-friendly choral group to carry on its musical missionary work in Wisconsin.
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