The UW Russian Folk Orchestra will perform a 25th anniversary concert on Saturday.
The UW Russian Folk Orchestra is turning 25. Festival Choir of Madison is celebrating half a century. The chamber ensemble known as con vivo! is marking 20 years. And Madison Jazz Society is wrapping up many decades of entertainment on a high note.
The next three weeks are filled with milestone concerts — special presentations designed to honor years of musical tradition and innovation. They’ll all be particularly meaningful and, likely, very festive.
UW Russian Folk Orchestra
Victor Gorodinsky held the first rehearsals for the all-volunteer UW Russian Folk Orchestra in 1997, shortly after he’d moved to Madison from Champaign, Illinois. Originally from Russia, Gorodinsky had helped lead the Russian folk orchestra at the University of Illinois and wanted to start something similar in his new city.
A quarter-century later (plus a “missing” year due to pandemic-related shutdowns), the nearly 40-member orchestra will perform a wide-ranging concert Saturday, featuring three soloists and traditional stringed Russian instruments such as the long-necked domra and the triangular balalaika, along with guitar, vocals and a percussion section. Musicians will wear traditional costumes special-ordered from Ukraine, Gorodinsky said.
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The music will range from folk tunes to a bit of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” a contemporary piece titled “The Raindrops” and an excerpt from a film score by Dmitri Shostakovich.
“Most of our pieces are short, but it’s a little bit of everything,” said Gorodinsky, who conducts the group and will accompany the award-winning 10-year-old Madison singer Mila Vinogradova on guitar.
“The program is really varied” and will be recorded for DVD and as the orchestra’s ninth CD, he said.
The UW Russian Folk Orchestra performs regularly around Madison, including over the past few months as part of the Grace Presents concert series and at the Overture Center for the Arts’ International Festival. But for this 25th annual celebration, complete with intermission, “We’d like to call this our big gala concert,” Gorodinsky said.
When, where: 7:30 p.m. Saturday at First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive. Tickets $20, $15 students and seniors; cash or check only at the door, or purchase online at rfo.wisc.edu/25th
Madison Jazz Society
After a nearly 40-year run, Madison Jazz Society is concluding its mission of presenting traditional jazz bands with a final concert May 21 that will feature Bob Schulz’s Frisco Jazz Band — plus cake, along with historical displays.
For this last big show, “We might even go into overtime,” said Linda Marty Schmitz, who founded MJS in 1984.
The Bob Schulz Frisco Jazz Band will perform the final concert of the Madison Jazz Society on May 21.
Schulz, a cornetist, railroad fan and Wisconsin native who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, named his band for the Frisco Railroad. He’ll be joined by Kim Cusack on reeds, Tom Bartlett on trombone, Scott Anthony on banjo, Dave Bock on tuba, Ray Skjelbred, piano, and Ray Kelliher, drums.
The concert will be at the East Side Club, a venue that Schulz played back in the 1970s as part of the jazz band the River Boat Ramblers, Schmitz said.
“People are coming out of the woodwork saying they saw him all those years ago and plan to come” to the May 21 concert, she said. “They’ll get a dose of that jazz history.”
MJS no longer has the volunteer power or audience numbers to continue its concerts, Schmitz said, but the group will maintain its long-running grant program for jazz education. Since its founding, MJS has donated $148,000 in scholarships and grants for school jazz programs throughout Wisconsin. It’s also sponsored 217 concerts, 37 year-end parties, 30 Capital City Jazz Fests and 10 artist residencies in schools, she said. Take a bow.
When, where: 1 to 4 p.m. May 21 (doors open at 12:30 p.m.) at the East Side Club, 3735 Monona Drive. $15 MJS members, $20 non-members, 18 and younger free. More information is at www.madisonjazz.com or by phone at 608-850-5400.
Con vivo!
The professional chamber music ensemble con vivo! is promising its upcoming performance will be “the” event of its long history. Marking its 20th anniversary season, the June 3 concert — titled “Celebration!” — will feature 16 musicians conducted by Madison Symphony Orchestra music director John DeMain.
Con vivo! will perform chamber music June 3 with guest conductor John DeMain to celebrate the group’s 20th anniversary.
DeMain will lead the group in Richard Wagner’s symphonic poem “Siegfried Idyll,” composed for Wagner’s wife, followed by Antonin Dvořák’s Serenade for Winds, Op. 44. DeMain has called the chance to perform “Siegfried Idyll” in its original form — for chamber ensemble — a “rare opportunity.”
Composed of top Madison musicians, con vivo! has played at Carnegie Hall and in 2015 represented Dane County in a cultural exchange with sister county Kassel, Germany. And yet “Celebration!” “promises to be the spectacular event in con vivo history,” says artistic director Robert Taylor.
When, where: 7:30 p.m. June 3, First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Ave., across from Camp Randall. Tickets at the door $20, $15 students and seniors. A free reception to discuss the music with the musicians will take place after the concert. More information is at convivomusicwithlife.org.
Festival Choir of Madison
Presenting “artistically challenging choral music.”
Sharing “uplifting musical experiences.”
Both goals are part of the Festival Choir of Madison’s mission statement. That philosophy has led to a half century of music from the choral group, which will celebrate with a 50th anniversary gala on June 3 titled “Journeys and Jubilations.”
Festival Choir of Madison will celebrate its 50th anniversary in concert with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra on June 3.
Perhaps best known as the choral force that performs with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in the annual holiday concert of Handel’s “Messiah,” Festival Choir of Madison is an auditioned choir of some 50 singers from a wide range of backgrounds.
Sergei Pavlov is artistic director of Festival Choir of Madison, which will present its 50th anniversary gala concert on June 3.
Sergei Pavlov, also director of choral activities at Edgewood College, is the choir’s artistic director. His predecessors include the well-known Madison musicians Vernon Sell, founder of Festival Choir in 1972, David Lewis Crosby, Eric Townell, Drew Collins, Bruce Gladstone and Bryson Mortensen.
For “Journeys and Jubilations,” Festival Choir will be joined by the WCO in a program of choral-orchestral works by Händel, Beethoven, Mozart, Rutter, Ola Gjeilo and Verdi.
When, where: 7:30 p.m. June 3, Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave. Tickets $35 at www.festivalchoirmadison.org
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