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Presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater

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Blending the worlds of contemporary percussion and movement, a dynamic collaboration between Third Coast Percussion and Movement Art Is, presents “Metamorphosis.” The Third Coast Percussion quartet’s curiosity and eclectic taste have led to a series of unlikely collaborations resulting in exciting new art with meaningful artistic impact.

Combining and celebrating two distinct performance platforms, “Metamorphosis” explores questions that are very relevant today; what does the world look like to you? And how is that shaped by where you come from? Witness the hypnotic power of uniting physical and musical expression, an exquisite collaboration between the dancers and musicians; their movement and sound exposing life’s emotional journey.

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General admission: $13
Students: Free (ticket required)

Mead Witter School of Music Faculty Artist Series

Tom Curry, tuba

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Program 

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Tom Curry has served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music since 2014. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree as well as a Master of Music degree in tuba performance from Northwestern University. He also holds degrees in tuba performance and communication arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Curry is currently the tubist in the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, a faculty ensemble-in-residence at the Mead Witter School of Music, and has performed with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Joffrey Ballet, the Chicago Philharmonic and many other orchestras. He is a Miraphone performing artist.

As a soloist and composer, Curry’s interests include non-traditional performance techniques and settings, the application of electronics and fixed media, and improvisation. He has commissioned, premiered, and composed works for tuba in a wide variety of contexts and has been invited to perform at numerous conferences, festivals and universities, including recent appearances at the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference, the Midwest Tuba Trombone and Euphonium Conference, the New Music Gathering, Northwestern University, Michigan State University, Indiana University and many others.

Curry has released several solo and chamber recordings in recent years, including: water_wind (self released, 2021), a solo EP featuring the premiere recording of Ben Davis’ ☞□❒ □❍ ◆❒❒⍓ for microtonal tuba; Don’t Look Down (self released, 2020), a collaboration with trombonist Mark Hetzler and percussionist Anthony Di Sanza; and Alight (Summit Records, 2018), his first solo recording comprised of modern works for tuba, including Sofia Gubaidulina’s Lamento, Galina Ustvolskaya’s Composition No. 1 “Dona Nobis Pacem,” and Giacinto Scelsi’s Maknongan.

His newest ensemble, Nominal Duo, is a collaboration with euphoniumist Brett Keating. The duo is dedicated to merging brass performance with electro-acoustic practices through their own original compositions, commissions, and improvisations. Established in 2018, Nominal has performed throughout the U.S. and in Canada and was recently featured in the 2021 Virtual Tuba Euphonium Conference. Their debut EP, s.i.p_1 was released in 2020.

In his position at the Mead Witter School of Music, Curry teaches applied tuba and euphonium, coaches brass chamber ensembles and co-conducts the University of Wisconsin Low Brass Ensemble. He presents master classes and clinics throughout the country and teaches tuba and euphonium at the University of Wisconsin Summer Music Clinic. Since 2016, Curry has also served as Director of Brass Choirs for the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras.

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Pro Arte Quartet concerts at the Hamel Music Center are free to attend, but require a ticket.

David Perry, violin
Suzanne Beia, violin
Sally Chisholm, viola
Parry Karp, violoncello

Mead Witter School of Music Faculty Concert Series

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Program

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The Pro Arte Quartet (PAQ) is one of the world’s most distinguished string quartets. Founded by conservatory students in Brussels in 1912, it became one of the most celebrated ensembles in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century and was named Court Quartet to the Queen of Belgium. Its world reputation blossomed in 1919 when the quartet began the first of many tours that enticed notable composers such as Milhaud, Honegger, Martin, and Casella to write new works for the ensemble. In addition, Bartók dedicated his fourth quartet to the PAQ (1927), and in 1936 PAQ premiered Barber’s Op. 11 quartet, with the now-famous “Adagio for Strings” as its slow movement.

The Pro Arte made its New York debut in 1926 and toured the United States frequently under the auspices of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. The quartet was performing in Madison, Wisconsin in May 1940 when Nazi forces invaded Belgium. The University of Wisconsin responded to the emergency by offering the quartet a permanent campus home, the first such arrangement at a major American university. The UW Pro Arte residency became a model of artist residencies that is now widely emulated throughout the country.

As the first and only quartet ever to reach its centennial anniversary (2012), the Pro Arte’s 100th birthday was the occasion for a grand multi-year celebration. At its center was the commission of six new works by some of today’s most important composers: William Bolcom, Paul Schoenfield, John Harbison, Walter Mays, and Pierre Jalbert (United States), along with Benoît Mernier from Belgium. Other initiatives included a lecture series, museum exhibits, recordings on the Albany label, a video documentary broadcast on Wisconsin Public Television and available on DVD, a concert tour to Belgium, and an upcoming book on the storied history of this illustrious quartet.

The Pro Arte Quartet performs throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia and continues to champion equally both standard repertoire and new music. The group is an ensemble in residence at the UW-Madison School of Music and resident quartet of the Chazen Museum of Art, performing regularly on the concert series of both institutions. The quartet has performed at the White House and, during the centennial celebration, played for the King’s Counselor in Belgium. Recent projects include the complete quartets of Bartók and Shostakovich and, in collaboration with the Orion and Emerson String Quartets, the complete quartets of Beethoven. Regular chamber music collaborators that perform with Pro Arte include Samuel Rhodes, viola; Bonnie Hampton, cello; and Leon Fleischer and Christopher Taylor, piano.

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General admission: $13
Students: Free (ticket required)

Mead Witter School of Music Faculty Artist Series

Christopher Taylor, piano

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Program

Etude in C# minor, op. 2 no. 1 (1887)    Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Andante

8 Etudes, op. 42 (1903)      Alexander Scriabin
1. Presto – D major
2. F# minor
3. Prestissimo – F# major 4. Andante – F# major
5. Affanato – C# minor 6. Esaltato – D major
7. Agitato – F minor
8. Allegro – E major

Etude in E major, op. 49, no. 1 (1905)      Alexander Scriabin

Etude op. 56, no. 4 (1908)      Alexander Scriabin

3 Etudes, op. 65 (1911-12)     Alexander Scriabin
1. Allegro fantastico – Meno vivo
2. Allegretto – Presto volando
3. Molto vivace – Impérieux

Intermission

Sonata in B major, D. 960      Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
I. Molto moderato
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezza
IV. Allegro ma non troppo

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Hailed by critics as “frighteningly talented” (The New York Times) and “a great pianist” (The Los Angeles Times), Christopher Taylor has distinguished himself throughout his career as an innovative musician with a diverse array of talents and interests.  He is known for a passionate advocacy of music written in the past 100 years — Messiaen, Ligeti, and Bolcom figure prominently in his performances — but his repertoire spans four centuries and includes the complete Beethoven sonatas, the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and a multitude of other familiar masterworks. Whatever the genre or era of the composition, Mr. Taylor brings to it an active imagination and intellect coupled with heartfelt intensity and grace.

Mr. Taylor has concertized around the globe, with international tours taking him to Russia, Western Europe, East Asia, and the Carribean. At home in the U.S. he has appeared with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic,  Detroit Symphony, and the Milwaukee Symphony.  As a soloist he has performed in New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, in Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Ravinia and Aspen festivals, and dozens of other venues. In chamber settings, he has collaborated with many eminent musicians, including Robert McDuffie and the Borromeo, Shanghai, Pro Arte, and Ying Quartets. His recordings have featured works by Liszt, Messiaen, and present-day Americans William Bolcom and Derek Bermel. Throughout his career Mr. Taylor has become known for undertaking memorable and unusual projects.  Examples include: an upcoming tour in which he will perform, from memory, the complete transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies by Liszt;  performances and lectures on the complete etudes of György Ligeti; and a series of performances of the Goldberg Variations on the unique double-manual Steinway piano in the collection of the University of Wisconsin.  He has actively promoted the rediscovery and refurbishment of the latter instrument; in recent years he has also been building a reinvented and modernized version of it, a project that relies on his computer and engineering skills and was unveiled in a demonstration recital in 2016.

Numerous awards have confirmed Mr. Taylor’s high standing in the musical world. He was named an American Pianists’ Association Fellow for 2000, before which he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1996 and the Bronze Medal in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In 1990 he took first prize in the William Kapell International Piano Competition, and also became one of the first recipients of the Irving Gilmore Young Artists’ Award.

Mr. Taylor owes much of his success to several outstanding teachers, including Russell Sherman, Maria Curcio-Diamand, Francisco Aybar, and Julie Bees. In addition to his busy concert schedule, he currently serves as Paul Collins Associate Professor of Piano Performance at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He pursues a variety of other interests, including: mathematics (he received a summa cum laude degree from Harvard University in this field in 1992); philosophy (an article he coauthored with the leading scholar Daniel Dennett appears in the Oxford Free Will Handbook); computing; linguistics; and biking, which is his primary means of commuting. Mr. Taylor lives in Middleton, Wisconsin, with his wife and two daughters. Christopher Taylor is a Steinway artist.