Our city's just wrapped up a fortnight of celebrating the opening of Madison's new Overture Center for the Arts. It's a justifiably big deal—an architecturally significant building (as you can see in these great photos from Althouse), covering an entire city block, which will be the permanent home for the city's symphony, opera, ballet, chamber orchestra and repertory theatre, and venue for big-name cultural events. The extended festivities included several opening galas, but also days and evenings of free performances.
Since I'm allergic to crowd scenes, I stayed away from the weekend events, but managed to hit a couple of the free concerts one late afternoon last week. The Madison Early Music Festival Consort gave a 45-minute performance at Overture's Promenade Hall, a smaller venue whose seats were packed. (I got to bask briefly in my 15 seconds of blog fame—the concert's promotional flyer included a few snippets from my post on this past summer's Early Music Festival.) I had half expected some repeat selections from the summer's Italian fare, but instead we were treated to a fresh selection of early English music and songs (Purcell, Byrd, Nicholson) with period instruments (viola da gamba, lute, harpsichord). I enjoyed it all, but I was enraptured by the performance of "Sweeter than Roses," one of my favorite Purcell songs, by Cheryl Bensman Rowe, accompanied on harpsichord. I guess I'd better clear my calendar now for next year's festival, which will be featuring early music of England, Scotland and Ireland.
I moved on to the next performance at the Rotunda stage, an informal-feeling venue where Jazz Jam for the Arts was starting its set. I did a double-take as the band filed onto the stage—am I 800 years old, or are these young kids? Well, it turns out that Jazz Jam is a band of high school and not-too-far-out-of-high-school musicians who, as their bandleader Ryan Meisel explained, play together to raise funds for public school music programs. Once I got over my ageist prejudices, I sat back and took in what they could do. They started out with a rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In" which was perfectly respectable, not too stodgy, not too caricatured; moved onto "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" which swang like it should; then Charlie Parker's "Confirmation" (now we're talking), with particularly thoughtful piano improvisations; and a two saxophone blowfest on Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" that left me shaking my head in admiration.
The big megilla venue at Overture is Overture Hall, which got its first public tryout with the symphony's season opener: Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto and the Saint-Saëns "Organ" Symphony. I didn't go to see the concert, but I listened to it on public radio simulcast while folding the week's laundry. I'll get to experience the hall for myself in a few weeks when I accompany my husband to see "Turandot", his favorite opera, and he'll return the favor when he comes along next spring to see the eagerly-awaited (well, by me, at least) "The End of the Affair".
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