The Crowning Concert of Three Decades

Token Creek Festival closes its 30th season with two masters of the keyboard   One never lacks for opportunities to praise the latest event from co-founders John and Rose Mary Harbison, but even so it should be said up front that when it comes to concluding the 30th season of the Token Creek Chamber Music…

Madison Symphony Gives Warm Welcome to Two New Guests

Canadian conductor Tania Miller and cellist Zuill Bailey are the latest to discover the joys of the MSO and Overture Hall   Madison Symphony music director doesn’t miss many concerts, but when he does it’s always intriguing to see how the group will respond to a fresh dynamic. This past weekend saw the local debuts…

John DeMain Launches His 25th Madison Symphony Season

Five years have flown; shall we shoot for 30?   I hadn’t thought about it until I sat down to write this review, but five years can really fly by at my age…2013 marked John DeMain’s 20th anniversary as music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and I was favored with penning an article for…

Summer Leftovers, One Last Helping: Token Creek #3

Harbisons offer a potent potpourri   Painful to admit (and hard to believe) that the final program of the 29th Token Creek Chamber Music Festival was given four weeks ago…but in a season when I finally made it to all three offerings, I hope my readers will indulge me with a “better late than never”…

Summer Leftovers: Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, Concert #2

Rare sounds (and sighting) of the Kepler Quartet   It seems absurd that someone who has attended only the last eight years of the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival would suggest that the concert of August29 was the epitome of what the Festival is at its best—and yet such a case could be made. Festival…

An “Enigma” Explored

Madison Symphony’s latest foray into “Beyond the Score” illuminates Elgar’s masterpiece   I’ve come to believe that some riddles don’t need to be solved, or perhaps more accurately, it’s more fun to keep searching than to actually discover the definitive answer. That thought certainly comes to mind when examining the Variations on an Original Theme,…

Olga Kern And DeMain Deliver Again

A touch of new(er) and old classics from Madison Symphony   If the opening concert of John DeMain’s 24th season with the Madison Symphony Orchestra eschewed a major guest soloist (a DeMain tradition—and not a bad one!), it also stayed far away from major warhorse repertoire. The first of three performances of the season’s second…

Rhapsodie Quartet Leaves the Toys at Home

The ensemble best known for its HeartStrings work melts a Promenade Hall crowd The Rhapsodie Quartet can most often be found at places like an Agrace hospice facility, Central Wisconsin Center, or a local school, not just performing, but viscerally impacting people of all ages who are dealing with some profound physical challenges. (You can…