Debut album release of Amy Wurtz String Quartets – multifaceted collaboration between composer, ensemble, and community

CHICAGO (March 11, 2012) – Chicago Q Ensemble, founded in 2009, is one of the few string quartets in the city that is specifically dedicated to collaboration with other art forms and championing works of living composers. Local pianist and composer Amy Wurtzapproached the ensemble with her String Quartet No. 2 in early fall of 2011. By November they had embarked on a major recording project of Wurtz’s Quartets No. 1 & 2. The debut album, Amy Wurtz String Quartets, will be officially released on April 15, 2012 at 3pm during their CD release party hosted at Jennifer Norback Fine Art, 217 W. Huron St. in downtown Chicago.

Recording projects are often understood as a major collaborative effort between composer and musician. This project, however, was collaborative in the fullest sense by engaging the community to help fund the various costs involved in producing an album. Using the increasingly popular fundraising platform, Kickstarter, Wurtz and the ensemble raised just over $3,000 from individual donations, surpassing their goal. Take a closer look at their campaign here .

The ensemble considers this recording to be part of the ongoing effort to bring awareness to the music of women composers. Chicago Q Ensemble violinist Ellen McSweeney shares, “We immediately felt that we wanted to help share Amy’s music with the world. The two quartets were head and shoulders above other contemporary works that we'd read. They are full of challenging harmonies, textures, and techniques found in most 21^st century music, but also have the qualities of great traditional string quartet works.” McSweeney continues, "We saw this not only as an opportunity to premiere two outstanding pieces, but also to help change the under-representation of women in new music."

CD Release Party - Amy Wurtz String Quartets

Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 3pm

Jennifer Norback Fine Art | 217 W. Huron St. Chicago, IL 60654

Reception with Live performances by Chicago Q Ensemble

Free Admission

To hear samples and learn more about Amy Wurtz String Quartets, visit the Chicago Q Press Page.

You can also learn more about Amy by visiting her website www.amywurtz.com.

For artist interviews or CD copy requests, contact Stephanie Photakis at (815) 342-7666 or email stephanie@littlelightmarketing.com.

Madison Opera Appoints Anthony Cao as Chorus Master

Madison, Wis. – When the Madison Opera Chorus began music rehearsals for their upcoming performances of Rossini’s Cinderella on March 12, they had a happy surprise: Anthony Cao, who has been interim chorus master since fall 2010, has been officially appointed to the position, effective withCinderella. As interim chorus master, Cao has conducted the chorus in The Marriage of Figaro, La Traviata, Opera in the Park 2011, and Eugene Onegin. He also sang the role of the Messenger in La Traviata. Cao succeeds Andy Abrams, who resigned to pursue his career as a composer.

“Anthony is an enormously gifted musician, with a beautiful singing voice of his own,” says John DeMain, Madison Opera Artistic Director. “The chorus will be in superb hands, and I look forward to a long and productive relationship with him.”

Cao received his Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree in Music Education from U.W.-Madison, where he was named winner of the annual student concerto competition. He also won the National Association for the Teachers of Singing auditions in 2000 and 2001. Cao has worked as a guest clinician and composer with choirs throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest and also stays active as a pianist /vocalist, including his all-request show every Saturday at The Ivory Room in downtown Madison. Cao has been director of choirs at Madison West High School since 2004 and artistic director of Madison Chamber choir since 2007.

General Director Kathryn Smith says, “I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Anthony this year. It’s a pleasure to watch him conduct the chorus, and I know that he will continue to build on their excellence as we go forward.”

Rossini’s Cinderella, set in 1930s Hollywood, will have performances on April 27 and 29, 2012 at Overture Hall. Opera in the Park will be held on July 21, 2012.

For more information, please contact Manager of Marketing and Community Engagement Ronia Holmes at holmes@madisonopera.org or 608.238.8085.

http://ourlivesmadison.com/categoryblog/310-madison-opera-appoints-anthony-cao-as-chorus-master.html

Jerry Hui: composer, conductor, teacher, and lover of music

Jerry Hui talks about music with a pal­pa­ble joy. Utterly down to earth in the face of remark­able suc­cess, Hui—an adjunct instruc­tor for Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies music pro­grams—sim­ply loves shar­ing many kinds of music with the widest pos­si­ble audience.

Hui’s devel­op­ment into a com­poser and choral con­duc­tor has taken a some­what unusual path in that he had no for­mal train­ing in music as a child or teenager. “In high school in Hong Kong I started writ­ing music for some video games that my friends and I were design­ing, which led me to read sev­eral music-theory and music-history books on my own.”

Still, when Hui moved to Wis­con­sin in 1999 it was to study not music but com­puter engi­neer­ing. But under the guid­ance of Jim Aagaard, pro­fes­sor of music at UW-Richland, he quickly found him­self drawn to UW-Madison’s renowned School of Music.

Soon after enrolling at UW-Madison in 2000, he switched from com­puter engi­neer­ing to com­puter sci­ence so he could com­plete a dou­ble major within the Col­lege of Let­ters and Sci­ence. After com­plet­ing his BA, Hui enrolled one sum­mer in the Madi­son Early Music Fes­ti­val.

“Finally I had a sum­mer when I didn’t have to worry about a job or a course sched­ule, and I could find out what early music was all about.” Hui’s approach to music would never be the same.

“Early music has some­thing for every­one. If you like sacred music, you can find some of the most serene music ever writ­ten. If your tastes lean toward the sec­u­lar, early music has plenty of bawdy songs, too.”

Hui later attended the Uni­ver­sity of Oregon’s grad­u­ate pro­gram in com­po­si­tion and choral con­duct­ing, return­ing from Eugene to Madi­son every sum­mer for the festival.

“Over the years I’ve played a num­ber of roles for the fes­ti­val, includ­ing stage man­ager, house man­ager, and audio-video tech­ni­cian. This year for the first time I’ll serve as assis­tant conductor.”

After com­plet­ing his master’s, he moved back to Madi­son to begin the doc­tor of musi­cal arts (DMA) pro­gram. In 2008 Hui, whose own voice can range from bass all the way to alto, founded his own early music ensem­ble on cam­pus, Eliza’s Toyes. The group’s cur­rent con­fig­u­ra­tion fea­tures eight voices, three recorders, and a lute.

“We’ve per­formed in some rather unusual venues,” Hui notes, “includ­ing the stacks of Memo­r­ial Library. And in one of my Schola Can­to­rum: Singing Gre­go­rian Chant classes the stu­dents and I sang chant in a stair­well of the Human­i­ties Build­ing, which gave a won­der­fully res­o­nant sound.”

Eliza’s Toyes is one of the fea­tured groups at a spe­cial pre­view of the Early Music Fes­ti­val set for the evening of April 26 at the Chazen Museum of Art. The pre­view includes a lec­ture on the Chazen’s early Amer­i­can col­lec­tion and a recep­tion with per­for­mances by sev­eral School of Music fac­ulty as well as Eliza’s Toyes.

Hui began teach­ing for Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies in 2010 and com­pleted his DMA last year. Along the way he also used his com­puter exper­tise to help Prof. Chelcy Bowles—director of music pro­grams for Con­tin­u­ing Studies—design and develop an online por­tal for the North Amer­i­can Coali­tion for Com­mu­nity Music.

Intended for peo­ple who work with com­mu­nity music groups—from munic­i­pal orches­tras to prison choirs to eth­nic ensembles—the por­tal will make avail­able a wide range of resources on start­ing a group, work­ing with peo­ple who don’t read music, build­ing an audi­ence, and many other top­ics. It goes live this spring.

This win­ter Hui real­ized the dream of many a clas­si­cal com­poser when his opera, Wired for Love, had its world pre­miere. Per­formed in Jan­u­ary at the Carol Ren­nebohm Audi­to­rium of Music Hall, the work allowed Hui to bring together many of the “extremes” of his musi­cal study, from early forms to the most con­tem­po­rary. This com­ing week­end brings yet another mile­stone in Hui’s career: Wired for Love will be recorded for com­pact disc.

Mean­while, Hui con­tin­ues to pre­pare for this year’s Early Music Fes­ti­val. Set for July 7–14, “Wel­come Home Again! An Amer­i­can Cel­e­bra­tion” focuses on early music of our nation and Canada. The musi­cians in res­i­dence will include Anony­mous 4, the most famous early-music ensem­ble in the world, as well as such other nota­bles as The Rose Ensem­ble and New­berry Concert.

“One of the inter­est­ing changes this sum­mer is that all the vocal music will be in Eng­lish,” says Hui. “Well, unless we intro­duce some French songs from colo­nial Quebec!”

http://news.continuingstudies.wisc.edu/?p=739

UW Alumni in Concert at UW!

Greetings from the Concert Office!

Three concerts are coming up that feature School of Music alumni. All should be awesome! And all are free :)

This Sunday, February 26 at 12:30 pm in the Chazen Museum: Kangwon Lee Kim, violin (DMA 05) and Eli Kalman (MM 03, DMA 06), in Sonata for piano and violin in D major, Op. 12, No. 1 by Beethoven; Sonata for violin and piano by Ravel; and Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 1 by Dohnanyi, with violinist David Rubin, violist Matthew Michelic and cellist Janet Anthony.

Saturday, March 10 at 3 pm in Morphy Hall: Hein Jung, soprano (MM 03, DMA 07) and Grigorios Zamparas, piano, in works by Handel, Liszt, Chopin and Mozart.

Monday, April 9 at 7:30 pm in Morphy Hall: Mark Carlson, euphonium (MM 05, DMA 08) and Kirstin Ihde, piano; program TBA.

For More information please go to the UW School of Music Website:
www.music.wisc.edu

2010 Alum Jennifer Sims writes for Opera Pulse

A native of Lockport, NY, Jennifer Sams recently received her DMA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Voice Performance and a minor in Opera Production. She completed her Master’s Degree as a member of the Knoxville Opera Studio with the University of Tennessee and her Bachelor’s Degree from Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music. Equally at home in opera and musical theater, Jennifer has performed a wide variety of roles - 'Mrs. Lovett' in Sweeney Todd to directing and starring in the role of ‘Ethyl Wormvarnish’ in the world premiere of Jerry Hui’s opera Wired for Love. Last summer, Mrs. Sams studied baroque gesture and performance as a participant in Early Music Vancouver’s Compleat Singer Baroque Vocal Programme. She has been a participant, soloist and teacher with the Madison Early Music Festival for the past 3 consecutive years, and as a soloist with the Madison Early Music Festival’s performance of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610. Mrs. Sams teaches privately in Madison, Wisconsin and at Beloit College.

Jennifer wrote an article "Grammy Worthy: Why We Love Joyce DiDonato" for the online opera magazine, Opera Pulse. To view the article, please click here:

Grammy Worthy: Why We Love Joyce DiDonato

St. Norbert's Faculty Focus - Dr. Yi-Lan (Elaine) Niu

Dr. Yi-Lan (Elaine) Niu completed her master's degree in voice at the Eastman School of Music and her doctoral degree in vocal performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Niu has been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the Joyce and William Wartmann Scholarship, UW-Madison Opera Props Award, and scholarships to the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Madison Early Music Festival, and the Vancouver Early Music Festival.

Dr. Niu joined the music faculty at SNC in 2007. During the past five years, she has taught applied voice, vocal diction and pedagogy, vocal literature and the general education class Introduction to Opera. Dr. Niu is a passionate educator and enjoys preparing courses and helping students. In addition to teaching, Dr. Niu performs both nationally and internationally; her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio in both the United States and Taiwan. She actively premieres new works written for her and regularly collaborates with professionals in different artistic fields to create unique performance experiences.

Dr. Niu just recently completed her faculty collaborative project "The Shape of Words" with Professor April Beiswenger from Theater Studies in which they combined the art of vocal music and costume design. Past projects have included "Image & Sound: A Reproduction" (2011) in which Dr. Niu and Professor Brian Pirman explored the possibilities of using photography to add meaning to musical text, and "Turning Old Pages, Singing New Notes" (2009) in which Dr. Niu collaborated with Norbertine priest Father James Neilson in the presentation of new music and book art.

As an advocate of new music, Dr. Niu has premiered the epic "Requiem" for solo voice and orchestra and "A Star" for voice and guitar by Alexander Nohai-Seaman and the Chinese "Yuan Songs" for soprano and guitar by Jerry (Chi-Wei) Hui. As an early music enthusiast, Niu has performed masterworks by J.S. Bach, J. Dowland, H. Schütz, C. Monterverdi, B. Strozzi, and A. Scarlatti. Her numerous operatic roles have included Clorinda in "Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda," Costanza in "La Griselda," Serpina in "La Serva Padrona," and Papagena in "The Magic Flute."

Dr. Niu is very happy to be part of the SNC family, a place she calls "her second home." In addition to her busy teaching schedule, Dr. Niu's scholarship activities and projects include two recitals in Iowa and South Dakota this spring, an early music concert in the fall, and a New York concert series during the spring of 2013.

To view original story:

http://www.snctimes.com/features/faculty-in-focus-dr-yi-lan-elaine-niu-1.2791209#.T1OFLZi4LzI

SCHOOL OF MUSIC ALUMNA TO PLAY GALILEO’S DAUGHTER IN PHILIP GLASS’S ‘GALILEO GALILEI’ --- JAMIE-ROSE GUARRINE REFLECTS ON CAREER SINCE GRADUATION

When the Madison Opera http://www.madisonopera.org/ presents Philip Glass’s “Galileo Galilei” in four performances, January 26-29, the role of Galileo’s daughter will be performed by soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine. Guarrine received both the M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in voice performance from the UW-Madison School of Music, where she was one of the first group of six graduate students honored with the Paul Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. Her teacher was James Doing, professor of voice.
Since graduating with her doctoral degree in 2005, Guarrine has appeared on the stages of Santa Fe Opera, Minnesota Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Utah Opera, Kentucky Opera and the Chicago Opera Theater. She has been a guest soloist with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Madison Symphony, where she appeared last month in the “Christmas Spectacular” program. She was a first-place winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2005 (Wisconsin district) and 2007 (Minnesota District).
The Concert Office at the School of Music asked Guarrine about her role in “Galileo,” highlights of her career to date and a few words of advice for current music students.

Q: Your thoughts (so far) about the character you play in “Galileo” or about the opera in general.
A: I have enjoyed preparing the role of Galileo’s daughter Maria Celeste very much. She is a kind and loving character to play and I’m moved each time I sing her beautiful soaring lines.
I’ve enjoyed researching her short but meaningful life that is well presented in Glass’s score. From the convent in which she lived Maria Celeste wrote many letters of support and encouragement to her father (which still exist in the Vatican Library today) throughout his trial and imprisonment.

Q: The musical activities you’ve done since leaving UW that you’ve particularly enjoyed or felt were highlights/challenges that were particularly fulfilling.
A: The first engagement after leaving UW I particularly enjoyed was my Santa Fe Opera debut. My first contract was singing Barbarina in “Le nozze di Figaro.” The opera house’s location is wrapped in natural beauty. Each night as I waited to make my first entrance, with the sunset, mountains and stars at my back, I had a sense of awe and appreciation that we were participating in something truly greater than ourselves.
The gig that was the greatest challenge was my Opera Company of Philadelphia debut. Halfway through my performance run as Susanna (also “Le nozze di Figaro”) at Utah Opera I got a call from my manager that the artist singing the soprano roles in “L’enfant et les sortilèges” as well as Nella in “Gianni Schicchi” had to pull out due to health troubles. Could I learn and memorize both operas in two weeks? Well, I said yes, and it was a very intense time accompanied by sleeping with scores under my pillow, but I showed up at the first rehearsal totally prepared. I learned that I am capable of learning music quickly under pressure and this has opened many doors.

Q: A couple of upcoming engagements that you’re looking forward to.
A: I’m very fortunate that I have a great season in spite of the economic difficulty the arts are facing in this country. After singing with Madison Opera I head straight to
L. A. for my Los Angeles Opera debut in “Albert Herring” as well as a recital at USC; sing my first Brahms “Requiem” with the Santa Fe Symphony; and then am off to Fort Worth for Mark Adamo’s “Lysistrata.” Then I’ll be ready for a break back in Fairbanks!

Q: Handling the demands of career and family, with a professional musician-spouse.
A: While making the aforementioned debut at Santa Fe, my husband [cellist Karl Knapp] called me from Minneapolis where we were living as starving artists, saying that he had won a tenure-track job at the University of Alaska Fairbanks! We made the difficult decision to uproot from the lower 48 (as we’ve come to call the contiguous U. S.) and move to Alaska. This has presented its own challenges, since coming home in between engagements is now a luxury. But as my job takes me out of state, this gives my husband a chance to visit me in warmer places!

Q: Advice for current students at the School of Music.
A: Practice. Have faith in yourself and your abilities. Know that if you want to be an opera singer in America, you’re going to be away from home a lot. Learn to love auditioning because you’re going to do it A LOT. Everyone has their own career path, and some singers rise faster than others, so surround yourself with people who believe in you and give you the best advice to hone your craft.