Music

Tune up your ears, Milwaukee. Hear that sound? That’s the sound of the city getting ready for a spring full of marvelous music, courtesy of its orchestras, operas and ensembles of all shapes and sizes.

Want details? Read on:

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra features over a dozen classical and pops concerts this spring, so it’s hard to pull any number of great selections out from the crowd. It’s worth noting that MSO music director Edo de Waart is returning his attention to Rachmaninoff for the third year running, bringing back Joyce Yang to perform his famous Second Piano Concerto (Feb. 3-5). Also eyecatching is a concert May 4 and 5 featuring Qigang Chen’s Iris dévoilée, which brings in guest artists on traditional Chinese instruments like the pipa and erhu.

The Skylight Opera will begin 2012 with a revival of last year’s Gershwin and Friends (Jan. 27-Feb. 12), replacing the postponed Edith Piaf Onstage. Much buzzier is their next show: Daddy Long Legs, appearing March 9 to April 1 as part of a rolling world premiere. Written and directed by John Caird, the man who adapted and co-directed the original London premiere of Les Miserables, the musical centers on an orphaned girl who acquires a mysterious benefactor, and has already earned awards and high praise from prior stagings.

Not to be outdone, the Florentine Opera opens three shows between now and summer, including Susannah, a 20th-century American opera set in 1950s Tennessee (March 16 and 18) and Mozart’s powerful Idomeneo (May 18 and 20), which reunites the creative team from the Florentine’s production of Semele in 2009, considered one of the best productions in the company’s history.

Present Music has already performed its first concert of 2012, but they still have three more shows left in their season, including two world premieres. The earlier premiere, Buffalo Nation (bison bison), is one of Present Music’s largest commissions ever, and tells the history of the American bison through music with textual accompaniment (April 14-15). Their season finale, Love, centers around Love Songs, a 20-minute piece by Grammy-winning composer Michael Daugherty featuring Milwaukee chanteuse Robin Pluer.

You can find an artist from basically every art medium at the Marcus Center in a given year, but there’s two in the realm of music that deserve special attention. The St. Olaf Choir arrives first, on Feb. 1: a 75-voice-strong a cappella group that has been an established force for more than 90 years. But the marquee name is Tony Bennett, who’ll visit March 6 along with his daughter, Antonia Bennett.

Also onstage at the Marcus Center this spring is Unruly Music, the semiannual music festival for cutting-edge, contemporary performances. The three concerts, March 8-10, feature unconventional electronic percussion, a tribute to John Cage on his 100th birthday, and the return of Dal Niente, who performed in last fall’s festival and will be premiering new piece The Brightest Form of Absence for the first time in the U.S.

Better still, Unruly Music is only one of the many groups/performances under the umbrella of UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, which also envelops the Fine Arts Quartet — now with new cellist Robert Cohen — and Chamber Music Milwaukee, the latter of which will perform with the American Brass Quintet March 29.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.There’s shows from Frankly Music, including a celebration of Franz Liszt’s 200th birthday Jan. 30, performances by the Wisconsin Conservatory’s Philomusica Quartet and Prometheus Trio, a series of gifted guests at Early Music Now, the continuation of the incredibly talented Milwaukee Choral Artists‘ compass rose-themed season … The list could go on and on.

And technically, it will, as we here at TCD continue to cast our eyes and ears over the musical landscape of Milwaukee in the days and weeks to come. If there’s anything big I’ve missed, add it in the comments section below, but also check out our 2011-2012 Performing Arts Guide, which I’ll be updating later this week to accurately reflect the remainder of the year. And don’t forget to check out our spring guides for dance and theater, to get a more complete view of what’s coming up in Milwaukee this spring.