Milwaukee Musaik Celebrates America
In honor of nation's 250th anniversary, an all-American lineup of music.
Image courtesy of Milwaukee Musaik.
Milwaukee Musaik will commemorate this year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with a program of chamber compositions expressing the spirit, diversity and innovation that define the American classical music voice. The concert, titled American Soundscapes, will be presented on Monday evening, March 30.
Performing are Alex Ayers and Ji-Yeon Lee, violins; Samantha Rodriguez, viola; Madeleine Kabat, cello; Stefanie Jacob, piano; Heather Zinninger, flute; Margaret Butler, oboe; Jay Shankar, clarinet; Rudi Heinrich, bassoon, and Dawson Hartman, horn.
The program opens with a work written by one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791). A gifted amateur harpsichord player, he served in many government positions and had a hand in designing the American flag. Hopkinson wrote his “Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano” in 1788, dedicating it to George Washington. From that collection, Musaik musicians will perform an orchestral version of “O’er the Hills,” a graceful artifact of American cultural identity in its infancy.
Composing nearly 150 years later, George Gershwin (1898-1937) fused sonic elements from America’s melting pot, believing that “true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today,” he declared. Musaik represents Gershwin’s catalog with “Walking the Dog Promenade,” written in 1937 for Shall We Dance, a film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The sassy interplay of clarinet and piano has a “charming, flirtatious feel,” says flutist Zinninger.
Samuel Barber’s (1910-1981) beloved wind quintet, “Summer Music,” premiered in 1956, played by wind players from the Detroit Symphony. The local Chamber Music Society commissioned the piece, collecting donations from the audience and guaranteeing that Barber would be paid at least $2,000. With tempos marked as “slow and indolent” and “joyous and flowing,” the conversation among the instruments in this single-movement work ranges from melancholy to playful. Barber described the piece as “evocative of summer – summer meaning languid, not killing mosquitoes.”
Amy Beach (1867-1944), whose “Gaelic” Symphony (1896) was the first to be composed and published by an American woman, also wrote art songs, solo piano pieces and chamber music. An accomplished pianist who made her concerto debut at age 16, Beach was largely self-taught as a composer. Her colorful Piano Trio, written in 1938, includes references to earlier compositions: an 1897 art song, “Alone!,” and an Inuit melody from her children’s piano suite “Eskimos.”
“Red Clay and Mississippi Delta,” written by flutist and composer Valerie Coleman (b. 1970), was inspired by family from the Mississippi Delta region. Coleman describes the woodwind quintet as melding “classical technique and orchestration with the blues dialect and charm of the South … from the juke joints and casino boats that line the Mississippi River to the skin tone of kinfolk in the area: a dark skin that looks like it came directly from red clay.” A celebrated flutist and chamber musician, Coleman holds positions at The Juilliard School, Tanglewood Institute and Manhattan School of Music.
Milwaukee Musaik will perform these snapshots of American musical evolution, along with compositions by Philip Glass and Musaik bassoonist Heinrich, at 7 p.m. Monday, March 30, at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 1584 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee. Tickets are available online and at the door.
Existing members must be signed in to see the interactive map. Sign in.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
