Thomas Kasdorg, recent piano alum, featured in Wisconsin State Journal

Freelance pianist believes in music as a universal language.

People know me as: Thomas Kasdorf, freelance collaborative pianist, coach and musical theater director.

Coming up next: I’ll be performing Mozart’s Concerto in A Major with Middleton Community Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Middleton Performing Arts Center at Middleton High School. Tickets are $10; free for students. Tickets are available at Willy Street Co-op West or at the door.

Don’t miss it because: The Middleton Community Orchestra is a fantastic community ensemble, made up of so many highly talented amateur musicians. I’m very excited to be working with them again, having worked with them previously with the Perlman Trio for last year’s performance of the Beethoven Triple Concerto. For a collaborative musician, working with an orchestra is really the highest form of collaboration, and the Mozart concerto is a superb vehicle for large-scale ensemble playing. The elegance, lyricism, brilliance and poise of the piece create a great canvas for both soloist and orchestra.

Your training? I graduated last summer with my bachelor’s of music in piano performance from UW-Madison, studying with professor Christopher Taylor.

Favorite place to perform: I’d have to declare a tie between the Middleton Performing Arts Center and the Bartell Theatre. Both are radically different, but I love the impressive grandeur and richness of the PAC and the attitude, warmth and sense of community that the companies working at the Bartell give to their venue. I’ve worked on many different kinds of performances at both venues and have so many fantastic memories of each place.

Most inspiring moment on stage: I played the final movement of Oliver Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” with violinist Eleanor Bartsch at a house concert. After we finished, there was an intense solid minute of silence, and we slowly looked up at our audience, each member of which was sobbing. It reaffirmed clear beliefs of mine that music not only expresses what cannot be fully comprehended in any other manner, but also that music is a universal language, understood and felt by absolutely everyone in some way.

Worst moment on stage: During a performance of “Cabaret,” with the band positioned in full view of the sold-out audience. I fell asleep during a really long scene and woke up playing in the middle of the musical number “Mein Herr.” I was so stunned and terrified, but I guess no one knew anything was wrong. It gave new meaning to being able to “play something in your sleep.”

Who or what inspires you?: I’m constantly inspired by my collaborative partners. I feel so blessed to be able to learn so much from every individual that I work with, and that insight carries into all of my future collaborations.

— Interview by Gayle Worland

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/lifestyles/article_a2234cf6-a6b3-11e1-958f-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz228coxmtx

UW Marching Band stalwart 'Badger Bill' Garvey succumbs to cancer

"Badger Bill" Garvey was an icon in both McFarland where he taught music for 31 years and among the UW-Madison community who shared his passion for all things Wisconsin.

On Thursday, Garvey passed away after a bout with cancer. He was 60.

In addition to teaching music in McFarland, Garvey was also field assistant to the UW Marching Band for 35 years.

Longtime UW Marching Band director Mike Leckrone said his close friend was a figurehead for the organization, helping to organize the alumni band and the annual "Band Day" celebration of high school musicians from around the state.

As a freshman at UW-Madison 43 years ago, Garvey played trumpet in Leckrone's first band. He began his teaching career in Kenosha, but after being hired by McFarland he spent his evenings after school rushing to campus to assist with the UW Marching Band, Leckrone recalled.

"I don't know of anybody who was more of a Badger than Bill Garvey," Leckrone said. "We all admired that loyalty he had."

Over his career, Garvey coached sports, served as president of the McFarland Federation of Teachers through five teaching contracts and served as a guest conductor for several state music festivals.

"The guy lived for everybody," McFarland Superintendent Scott Brown said.

In January, despite health concerns, Garvey participated in his fifth New Year's Day Rose Parade, marching with his daughter Jessica, a UW-Madison senior.

Upon his retirement from McFarland in 2008, Garvey said the legacy he wanted to leave was continued cooperation between the music and athletic departments.

"There is a mutual respect and admiration for each other's accomplishments. There is also a concerted effort made to not force students into making choices between one activity or another," Garvey said. "There is a hope and desire on my part for this fine relationship to continue."

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/university/article_70649552-a5f1-11e1-81ed-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz228c131KW

Matt Schlomer named new band conductor at Interlochen Arts Academy

Interlochen Arts Academy is pleased to announce Dr. Matthew Schlomer as the next band conductor at Interlochen Arts Academy. Dr. Schlomer is currently adjunct professor at Luther College and assistant conductor of wind ensemble at University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, Dr. Schlomer has twelve years of experience teaching at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School and Sheboygan North High School.

Dr. Schlomer studied wind conducting with Scott Teeple and dance with Kate Corby. He holds a doctor of musical arts degree and master of music degree in instrumental conducting with a minor concentration in dance from the University of Wisconsin, a bachelor of music in education from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a gold medal in saxophone from Bordeaux Regional Conservatory in France. In February of this year, he presented his research, “Essential Movement Lessons from Dance Pedagogy,” at the College Band Director’s National Association.

In addition to his outstanding conducting background, Dr. Schlomer has worked extensively as a saxophone performer, dancer and visual artist. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Matthew Schlomer to Interlochen.

UW Doctoral Student - Frederick "Fritz" Schenker receives Mellon Fellowship

Frederick "Fritz" Schenker, a doctoral student in ethnomusicology at theSchool of Music, has received one of 17 Mellon Fellowships for Dissertation Research in Original Sources.

He will use the fellowship to pursue research in Manila and Singapore for nine months beginning in September 2012 for his dissertation topic, "Performing Empire: Music and Race in Colonial Asia's Jazz Age."

According to the Council on Library and Information Resources, which administers this program, the fellowships are intended to help graduate students in the humanities and related social science fields pursue research wherever relevant sources are available and gain skill and creativity in using primary source materials in libraries, archives, museums and related repositories.

In a summary of his dissertation, Schenker begins with the observation that in the early 1920s, American jazz proliferated in southeast Asia in tandem with the expansion of American empire, and that the convergence of the two developments had far-reaching ramifications for both.

He writes, "Jazz moved along the same routes and circuits as U. S. empire, on the same ships that carried soldiers, goods and capital to port cities worldwide. ... Wherever colonialism and global capital traveled, jazz seemed to follow, and wherever jazz appeared in these Asian contexts, Filipino musicians were conspicuously present."

Schenker will spend eight months in Manila and the final month in Singapore, attempting to contact local collectors who may have photos, recordings, newspaper articles, letters and diaries, and others who are descended from those who lived there in the 1920s for their personal recollections of their forebears' accounts. In addition, he will examine newspapers, recordings, playbills and photos at museums, libraries and archives. He will receive a total of $19,000 from the Mellon fellowship to cover travel, living and research expenses.

Schenker is concluding the second year of his Ph.D. degree program, having received the M.A. in ethnomusicology at UW-Madison in 2010.

He has done considerable research into his topic at UW-Madison's Memorial Library and Cutter Collection, reviewing historical newspapers on microfilm and travelogues of American and European tourists to southeast Asia. Last summer, he studied Tagalog for eight weeks through the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute.

Shenker's dissertation adviser is Ronald Radano, professor of musicology and ethnomusicology; he has also worked with R. Anderson Sutton, professor of ethnomusicology and former director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

http://www.news.wisc.edu/20681

Demondrae Thurman - WAA Forward under 40

UW Major: Music Performance
Age: 37 | Tuscaloosa, AL
Associate Professor of Music at the University of Alabama

Demondrae Thurman hits so many notes in his busy life that the cadence belies the mellow tones of his horn, the euphonium. A brass instrument smaller than a tuba, the euphonium is rarely called upon in a symphony orchestra's repertoire, but Thurman's solo and quartet prowess has brought the instrument onto center stage. Its sound has taken him across the world for performances and clinics: France, Germany, England, Norway, Hungary, and China.

From backing up the Temptations to performing at Madison's Chazen Art Museum, Thurman acts as a role model for young African-American musicians, keeps a busy teaching schedule, and recently became director of the University of Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Thurman also excels at the trombone, baritone, and bass trumpet.

Thurman is a founding member and musical leader of the internationally acclaimed Sotto Voce Quartet, which features two euphoniums and two tubas. The group has three recordings on a major brass recording label with Thurman featured on two solo efforts. (Hear him play at demondrae.com.)

Thurman's teaching is renowned, and his students in low brass performance have been nationally recognized. John Stevens, UW professor of music and a mentor to Thurman, says his former student is highly regarded internationally as a performer and teacher: "In reality, he has occupied a position of extremely high esteem in the field since his mid-twenties," Stevens says.

Thurman has been a leading advocate for the euphonium and its increasing popularity through commissioning or premiering more than ten new works for solo euphonium or euphonium in a chamber setting.

The musician's ties to Madison, his colleagues, and teachers is tight, despite the fact that he had never visited Madison or even spent more than two weeks outside of his hometown of Tuscaloosa before his graduate studies began. His former classmates are now his musical collaborators. Stevens, whom Thurman says "is like a father to me," wrote the music for Sotto Voce's first CD and Thurman's first solo CD. The Alabama professor's most recent CD features Martha Fischer, UW associate professor of collaborative piano.

"The same people who have had such a great impact on my professional life have also become some of my dearest friends," Thurman says.

What is the one thing every UW student must do?

Every UW student must go to the farmers' market at the Capitol on Saturday mornings in fall. There is nothing like that anywhere!

What do you do in your free time?

I wish I had free time, but when I carve it out, I tend to watch or play sports. I'm fond of boxing, basketball and football.

What was your first job?

Picking up trash from major highways as a 15-year-old.

What's your guilty pleasure?

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES! Warm them, please.

If you could trade places with any person for a week, with whom would it be?

Mike Tyson — I would like to have offered his mind and body the notion that with hard work, dedication, and a good environment along with his talent, he could have been the greatest boxer and one of the greatest ambassadors the world has seen.

Matthew Annin - Principal Horn, Milwaukee Symphony

Matthew Annin is currently Principal Horn of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.  A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Matthew previously held the position of Assistant Principal Horn of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  Under the direction of Paavo Jarvi, Matthew performed on several tours with the CSO, including tours to Japan and Carnegie Hall, as well as several recordings.  Matthew has also been a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Louisville Orchestra.  He has also performed with the Saint Louis Symphony, the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and has served as guest Principal Horn of the Buffalo Philharmonic.  Matthew was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida.

Matthew received a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Matthew has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Music Academy of the West, where he performed Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 2, K. 417 as a Concerto Competition winner.  He has also participated in the Sarasota and Aspen Music Festivals, in addition to the Henry Mancini Institute.  In his spare time, Matthew enjoys spending time with his wife, Christine, and spoiling their cat, Zoe.

http://www.mso.org/about_mso/meet_the_orchestra/musician_roster/matthew_annin

Isaac Roang - The Business Journal "Forty under 40"

Isaac Roang is 34 years old and has a library named after him.

The addition to a school in the bush country of Kenya was built on his resolve to do something important during his time on earth and the unique talents Roang applies to that goal.

As a Peace Corps volunteer teaching math and physics, he saw a problem — only five books in a classroom of 50 students — and built a solution.

Those who work with Roang in Milwaukee have become familiar with his sincere, understated approach.

It extends across his professional work as a real estate attorney, to his pro bono services at Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity and the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic, and his devotion to his wife and two daughters.

"You see no ego here," said Ann Murphy, managing partner at Quarles & Brady. "He wants to really give back in a way to make our community a better place."

The only child of a musical and creative couple, Roang grew up in Madison. He helped out at his father's fruit stand, and traveled with his mother to sell clothing at art fairs.

From elementary school to the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Georgetown University, he developed interests in classical music, math and physics, and tai chi.

His legal work crafting real estate transactions exercises his intellect. Playing French horn in Milwaukee's Concord Chamber Orchestra releases his emotions.

Roang uses the metaphor of a single butterfly creating great change by flapping its wings to express his mind-set about his volunteer work, helping low-income people find affordable housing or answers to their legal problems.

"It's what I tried to do in the Peace Corps," he said. "You're not going to change the world, but to the extent you can help one person take one step in the right direction, you're doing something."

If Roang has a selfish motive, it's the near universal desire to see and touch the fruits of his labor.

Even in doing that, he keeps the butterfly wings beating.

When he and his wife traveled 8,000 miles to visit the Isaac John Roang Library two years ago, they delivered 15 boxes of books.

— Tom Held

http://www2.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/events/2012/forty_under_40/isaac-roang.html

Read more: Isaac Roang - The Business Journal of Milwaukee