From Downtown to Oconomowoc, arts gone wild
The Milwaukee Symphony will travel from Downtown’s Marcus Center to the Basilica of St. Josaphat to perform Mozart’s Requiem at 7:30 p.m. (NOTE: NOT the usual 8 p.m.) at 6th and Lincoln. (More on this coming soon, at This Week at the MSO. Meanwhile, details here.)
Out west, the erstwhile Waukesha Symphony, now renamed the Wisconsin Philharmonic, has made the short-haul road a way of life. Music director Alexander Platt and crew will play at Carroll College, the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy and the Oconomowoc Arts Center.
Platt and the Wisconsin Phils will open its season at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17 in the Oconomowoc Arts Center, an impressive hall at 641 E. Forest St. Tickets are $25-$35, $15-$25 for students and children. Call the Philharmonic ticket line, 262-547-1858. The program includes Daron Hagen‘s recent revision of his Symphony No. 3. Hagen is a New Berlin native long established in New York. (Click here for a TV interview I did with Daron for MPTV’s Arts Digest.) Platt went for the Thirds in a program that also includes Beethoven’s 3rd and Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto. (No pressure, Daron. You’re as good as those guys.)
Pianist-composer Ludovico Einaudi, at Marcus Center Vogel Hall Saturday, Oct. 16.
Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi will play his own music in his Milwaukee debut at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16, at Marcus Center Vogel Hall. Einaudi has a long list of chamber, orchestral and dance scores on his résumé, and he has scored many films and television shows. He’s amid a major tour, from Seattle to Milwaukee to London to Berlin to Milan, with many stops in between. Einaudi, 54, has serious credits — he studied with Luciano Berio, for example. His own music sounds a little too new-age for my taste, but lots of people like it. Einaudi’s audio page at last.fm has attracted some 286,096 listeners. Tickets are $22-$32 at the Marcus Center box office, 414-273-7206 and at the center’s website.
The Trio Antigo, comprising pianist Jeannie Yu, cellist Stefan Kartman and violinist Felicia Moye — will perform trios by Beethoven, Ravel and Arensky at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17, at the UWM Recital Hall, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. Kartman is on the UWM music faculty, and Yu, his spouse, is a busy and talented pianist about town. Moye is on the music faculty at UW-Madison. Walk right in, sit right down; admission is free.
Theater
Can I resist the temptation to call the Milwaukee Chamber Theater‘s show Main-Travelled Rhodes? (Dang! Too late!) Anyway, the real title of the local-color musical that opens Friday, Oct. 15 (preview Thursday) is Main-Travelled Roads. But the Rhode sisters, director Molly and music director Alissa, are in charge. This tale of rural Wisconsin romance, by Paul Libman (music) and Dave Hudson (book and lyrics), is based on the short stories of Hamlin Garland and set in the 1880s. It runs through Oct. 31 at the Broadway Theatre Center Cabot Theatre. Tickets are $15-$38; click here for details and links.
The “Deer Camp” hunters.
When will the gritty play about the ritual of deer hunting and its true meaning for the American male finally appear on our serious dramatic stages? Not this week. But Deer Camp: The Musical is coming to the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center at 7:30 Thursday, Oct. 14. Tickets $6-$25. Details and links here.
Dance
Germaine Acogny starts with the traditional dance of Senegal and takes it to a startling, modern place. The Alverno Presents series is bringing Acogny’s Compagnie Jant-Bi to the Pitman Theater at Alverno College at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $35. Order here. Enough said; now, just look and listen:
Ongoing
Milwaukee Rep: Cabaret, through Oct. 24; Laurel and Hardy, through Nov. 14; My Name Is Asher Lev, through Nov. 14.
Alchemist Theater: Murder Castle, the Chronicle of H.H. Holmes, through Oct.30.
Renaissance Theaterworks: Reasons to Be Pretty, through Oct. 24.
