M$O contract details and three more things

1. In a Scribe column on Dec. 16, I passed along some news on the Milwaukee Symphony‘s new contract with its musicians. To reiterate the essentials: “The original contract called for a raise this season, with the minimum jumping to $58,500, up from $55,185 in 2011-12. Now, that won’t happen; the base rate will stay where it was last season. Presumably, the $63,500 promised for 2013-14 back in 2009 also will not happen, though the MSO and the players have so far said nothing about that publicly.”

Here’s the rest of the story, as reported in the Dec. 10 Settlement Bulletin of the International Conference of Symphony and Orchestra Musicians:

2. Present Music has announced all three venues for its intimate, itinerant In The Chamber program in February: 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 15, at a mansion at 2221 N. Terrace Ave. (across the street from Villa Terrace); 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, 1111 E. Brown Deer Rd.; and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, at The Hamilton, a “wine salon and lounge” at 823 E. Hamilton St.

Because of the variety of dates and places and the relatively small sizes of those venues, even Present Music subscribers must make a choice and contact the group. Call 414 271-0711 ext. 5 to do that or to purchase tickets, or buy tickets through the Present Music website.

3. The winners of the MacDowell Club of Milwaukee’s 2012 Young Composer Competition are Christopher J. Darnieder, 23; Emily Cooley, 22; and Shuying Li, 23. The competition, supported in part by a grant
from the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, is open to musicians 25 or younger; compositions must be classical works of six to eight minutes for three to six instruments.

Darnieder’s woodwind quintet, Introduction and Tarantella, won the $1,200 first prize. The self-taught Darnieder lives in Milwaukee. Members of the MacDowell Club will give the quintet its world premiere on a club concert next season.

Cooley, of Mequon, won the $1,000 second prize for her Variations on a Theme from “Wit,” for violin, cello and piano. The 2012 Yale graduate is currently her studies at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. (Cooley also placed second in the MacDowell Club’s 2009 Young Composer Competition.)

China native Shuying Li, 23, took the $600 third prize for Prejudice and Pride, for violin, cello, piano and percussion. Li holds a BM in piano and composition from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She is pursuing her academics at the University of Hartford Hartt School of Music.

James Crawley, composer and associate professor of music at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside; Eun-Joo Kwak, concert pianist and Associate Professor of Piano at Cardinal Stritch University; Monte Perkins, bassoonist and director of Milwaukee’s Festival City Orchestra; and Roger Ruggeri, well-known program annotator and emeritus principal double bass of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, judged the competition, which attracted a total of 17 entries. Michael Batcho, organist and music director at St. John the Evangelist Cathedral and director of the Concert Choir at Cardinal Stritch University; Wallace McClain Cheatham, organist, scholar and composer; and Sr. Marion Verhaalen, pianist, composer and music faculty member at Cardinal Stritch University reviewed the scores.

4. Finally, just so it’s not lost amid a very busy arts weekend, take note of the annual Winterdances concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  Dance faculty members and guest choreographers contribute works to this concert, and dance students, sometimes supplemented by professionals, perform.

UWM alum Katie Sopoci Drake, now based in Chicago after a few years in Florida, is back with a new work. The other choreographers are New Work Award winner Cynthia Gutierrez-Garner, a recent MFA UWM grad; dance faculty members Luc Vanier and Simone Ferro and Milwaukee Ballet Choreographer-in-Residence Petr Zahradnícek. Edwin Olvera, a former UWM dance student and former member of Pilobolus, will appear as a guest dancer in Ferro’s Magnetic Field. Guest Kamil Tokarksi and alum Joanna Schilling will dance Vanier’s piece, to Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin.

Winterdances open at 7:30 Thursday and repeat at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the MainStage Theater at UWM. Tickets available through the Peck School of the Arts box office, 414 229-4308, and online.