Concert Preview: Concord Chamber Orchestra

The Concord Chamber Orchestra will present its final concert of the season on Saturday May 12.  It is entitled A New Day, and will be performed at the Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church, one block north of North Avenue on 80th Street. 

The concert will begin at 7 PM and will celebrate the heroes who have lived and worked in our own lifetimes.  These heroes are the ones who help us to embrace humanity and remind us that, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

The program includes:

• Fanfare for the Common Man - Aaron Copland
• Lt. Kijé Suite - Sergei Prokofiev
• JFK - A Profile - Steven Rosenhaus
• Fanfare for An Uncommon Woman - Joan Tower
• Selections from Porgy & Bess - George Gershwin (arr. by Robert Russell Bennett)

For more information or to reserve your tickets, please see the CCO web site.

And a note from the Kettle Moraine Symphony.  They, along with the Moraine Chorus, will perform Hayden's The Creation on Sunday May 6 at 3 PM at the Basilica at Holy Hill.  For a complete description of the concert and the soloists, please see the KMSO web site.

Waukesha Area Symphonic Band concert

The Nationally recognized Waukesha Area Symphonic Band will perform in concert on Friday May 4 at 7:30 PM in Shattuck Auditorium on the campus of Carroll University.  The concert is their first since being honored by the John Phillip Sousa Foundation as a winner of the Sudler Silver Scroll.  The Scroll is awarded to top North American community bands and is the highest award a community band can receive.

The program, entitled Flights of Fancy and Fantasy,  will feature works by Vaughan Williams, Frank Ticheli, Phillip Sparke, Erica Svanoe and Jaromir Weinberger.  The program will also feature trumpeter Matthew Kellen, winner of the WASB Concerto Competition.  Matthew will be performing a Donald Hunsberger arrangement of Le Carnival de Venise. 

The concert will benefit Waukesha's Adaptive Community Approach Program.  See their web site for the good things they do for the Waukesha Community. 

For more information on the concert, please see the WASB web site.

Sing Along Messiah for Spring

The Menominee Falls Symphony is bringing back the Sing Along Messiah on Sunday May 6, at 2PM, at Mount Carmel Lutheran Church at 84th and Center Streets.  They will be performing the “Easter” portion of this large oratorio, featuring four local vocal soloists. 

While the “audience” is invited (expected) to sing, non-singing audience members are also welcome! Even non-singers will have a tough time staying silent during the Hallelujah Chorus.  And if you do not have a vocal score, they will be available for purchase at the door.  

Best of all, the concert is free.  Just show up and sing, or enjoy the music.

For more information, see the MFSO web site.  

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Festival Brass

The Milwaukee Festival Brass competed in the North American Brass Band Association Championships recently.  While they were not able to defend their title as champions of the Third Section, they did score well. 

And congratulations to Al Floeter of MFB who placed first in the Senior Low Brass Melody competition.  Also congratulations go out to MFB members David Grace and Darrel Stachelski for placing first and third respectively in the Senior High Brass Technical competition. 

And don't forget the upcoming MFB concert, Festival City Postcards, Sunday May 20 at 3 PM at the Pius XI High School Arts Center.  See the MFB web site for more information.

Concert Preview - Menomonee Falls Symphony

The Menomonee Falls Symphony will present The British...Just Smashing, on Saturday evening April 14.  The concert begins at 7:30 in the Fine Arts Center at Sussex Hamilton High School.

Featured on the program is the Vaughn Williams Symphony number 5 in D.  Many of the musical themes in the Fifth Symphony stem from Vaughan Williams' then-unfinished operatic work, The Pilgrim's Progress. This opera, or "morality" as Vaughan Williams preferred to call it, had been in gestation for decades, and the composer had temporarily abandoned it at the time the symphony was conceived. Despite its origins, the symphony is without programmatic context, and is in the form of an extended development of musical themes taken from the morality rather than an attempt to cast it directly into symphonic form.

Also featured is pianist Elena Abend performing the Mozart Piano Concerto #24.  Ms. Abend currently serves on the piano and chamber music faculty at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee and the Lakeside Chamber Music Workshop.

For more information or to order tickets, see the MFSO web site.

Good Luck to MFB

Let's wish good luck to the Milwaukee Festival Brass as they defend their Championship at the North American Brass Band Association Championships in Fort Wayne, Indiana this weekend. 

I will publish the (hopefully) great results as soon as they are posted.