9UNP0719SD_Neil_Silva
Neale Silva Young Artists' Winners' Recital  
April 29, 2012 UP719  

>> Good afternoon, and welcome to Sunday Afternoon Live from the Wisconsin Union Theater. I'm Lori Skelton. I am honored today to take part in another concert honoring some of either Wisconsin-born or Wisconsin-nurtured young talent in the field of chamber music. Once again, you are tuned into the Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition Winner's Recital. You're going to be hearing amazing music from amazing performers this afternoon. The wonderful thing is, this is probably not going to be the only time you're hearing these people. They're going to be around, enriching our lives for years to come. Before we begin the actual concert, I would like to welcome to the stage, our coordinator for the Neale-Silva Competition, Wisconsin Public Radio's Ruthanne Bessman [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you, good afternoon, and welcome to the Winner's Recital of Wisconsin Public Radio's 2012 Neale-Silva Young Artist Competition. This afternoon, we recognize outstanding young Wisconsin musicians who demonstrate an exceptionally high level of artistry. 

Auditions were open to all instrumentalists and vocal performers. Participants had to be between the ages of 17 and 26, and residents of Wisconsin or attend a Wisconsin college or university. The competition is made possible by a grant from the estate of the late University of Wisconsin Madison professor, Eduardo Neale-Silva. Neale-Silva was a classical music enthusiast who was born in Talca, Chile, and came to the United States in 1925. A Professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and a dedicated listener to Wisconsin Public Radio, he left a portion of his estate to help fund our community outreach programs. Once again, we were greatly impressed with the talent this year. Five winners were selected to perform this afternoon and each will receive a $400 honorarium. Congratulations to all the contestants. They are wonderful musicians. Wisconsin Public Radio wishes to thank the three final judges: Ian Nie, Professor of Piano at Beloit College; clarinetist Vladislav Gorbich, a member of the KAT Trio; and violinist Victoria Gorbich, also a member of the KAT Trio; and our two preliminary judges, Tom Buchhauser, WYSO Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra; and Dan Lyons, Principal Pianist of the Madison Symphony Orchestra; and our own competition accompanist, Claire Mallory. 

For their generous contributions our gratitude to: the Wisconsin Union Theater; the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music; the Green Lake Music Festival; HotelRED; David R. Beach and Carmen Mercedes Rigau; SprintPrint; and Ward-Brodt. Now back to Lori Skelton, our host for this special program, the Winners' Recital of the 2012 Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition. [applause]  >> Thank you, Ruthann Bessman, and thank you for a year's worth of hard work in bringing us yet another amazing competition and concert. We'll begin this afternoon with pianist Cameron John Pieper, who is originally from Fond du Lac. He is taking a double degree at Lawrence University. He is a piano student of Catherine Kautsky. And he recently had surgery on his right wrist because of an injury from playing on the Lawrence University soccer team. So his performance this afternoon will focus on the left hand. He does hope to become a professor at a conservatory and teach both hands of piano. But today, we will hear first from Scriabin, the "Prelude in c# minor for the Left Hand," his "Op. 9, No. 1," and the "Nocturne in D-flat major for the Left Hand," the "Op. 9, No. 2." Some say Scriabin wrote works for the left hand when a shoulder injury he had sustained as a teenager would occasionally flare up and bother him. 

We'll also hear "Hungary's God," from Franz Liszt. This was originally a song for chorus and piano. It happens to be the only piece for piano, left hand, that Liszt ever wrote. To begin this year's Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition Winners' Recital, please welcome Cameron John Pieper. [applause]  § §  § §  [applause]  § §  [applause]  >> Pianist Cameron John Pieper, our first performer, our first winner for this year's Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition, music for piano, left hand, by Franz Liszt and Alexander Scriabin. Next, we'll meet cellist Chris Peck, who was born into a musical family in Stevens Point. He's currently an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursuing majors in mathematics, as well as cello performance as a student of Parry Karp. He performed Hayden's "C major Cello Concerto" as soloist with the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra when he was all of 17 years old. He is currently the principal cellist of the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra, and is in the cello section of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He brings us this afternoon excerpts from Bach's "Solo Cello Suite VI," in the joyful key of D major. 

We'll hear the "Gavotte" with wide chords and melody over a ground bass. It almost resembles a hurdy-gurdy playing at a peasant celebration. And also, the "Gigue," which actually turns out to be a duet for the solist. Interlocking voices will gradually climb the scale and then sweep us back down. Please welcome cellist Chris Peck. [applause]  § §  [applause]  § §  [applause]  >> With portions of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Solo Cello Suite VI," cellist Chris Peck. The Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition is just the latest accolade for our next performer. A year ago, soprano Rachel Eve Holmes made her Carnegie Hall debut, sponsored by the Associated Music Teachers League, with pianist Jonathan Ware. She received her bachelor of music from the New England Conservatory and was an Apprentice Artist with Opera Fort Collins while completing her master's of music at Colorado State University. She has also sung in China, Italy, and Belgium. 

She now resides in Madison, Wisconsin, and studies with Julia Faulkner. Upcoming engagements include her singing the role of Kid Clementine in Fresco Opera Theater's new pastiche-style opera "The Good, the Bad, and the Divas." You'll hear this at Overture Center this September. She brings us four examples of the soprano's art this afternoon, beginning with "Batti, batti o bel Masetto" from Mozart's "Don Giovanni," where Zerlina has to charm her way back into the good graces of a jealous boyfriend. Next, "Saper Vorreste" from Verdi's "A Masked Ball," where Oscar the page is being pressured to reveal Riccardo's costume for the ball, pressured by the man who plans to murder Riccardo. We turn next to Douglas Moore, "Dearest Mama," from his "The Ballad of Baby Doe," as Elizabeth Doe is writing her mother about her emotional turmoil and that she's fallen in love with a married man. And then "Donizetti," from his "Daughter of the Regiment Chacun le Sait," as the daughter in question, who has been raised by soldiers, sings proudly of these soldiers, saying that everyone knows of the most victorious, most charming men of the handsome 21st. Please welcome soprano Rachel Eve Holmes. [applause]  § §  [applause]  § §  [applause]  § §  [applause]  § §  [applause]  >> With pianist Claire Mallory, soprano Rachel Eve Holmes. UW-Madison's Memorial Union is in the midst of a massive renovation. The next stage of reconstruction and renewal will make this storied performance space dark for the next two years. 

However, the staff of the Wisconsin Union Theater remains committed to bringing wonderful concerts to Madison. Concert Series Coordinator Lindsay Hanson shares their plans next on Wisconsin Public Radio.  ***sure to be edits here***  Lindsay, thank you very much. Now, back to our Neale-Silva broadcast from, for the time being, the Wisconsin Union Theater. The Wisconsin Union Theater's Concert Series Coordinator, Lindsay Hanson. For more information on the upcoming season, please visit their website: uniontheater.wisc.edu Now, as to where we usually are on a Sunday afternoon, don't forget our Chazen Concert Series. It now has its own Facebook page, where we're posting additional concert commentary, photographs of our performers and the occasional YouTube clip. Just search for Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen under concert venue and like us on Facebook. Our next winner in this year's Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition is horn soloist, Austin Larson, who graduated from Neenah High School in 2009. He's performed with the Fox Valley, Green Bay, and Oshkosh Symphonies, and is currently a third-year undergraduate horn performance student at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, studying with Randy Garnder, Elizabeth Freimuth, and Duane Dugger. 

He's received top honors in many competitions, most notably First Place in both the International Horn Society Premier Soloist Competition and the International Horn Competition of America. He's also involved in "Horns a Plenty Christmas," which is a charity organization that brings horn players together to play holiday music and raise money for high school horn player scholarships. What we'll hear this afternoon is the first movment of the "Gliere Concerto for Horn and Orchestra." It was written in 1951 in the Russian Romantic tradition. It's full of long, big, rich, juicy melodies. It's one of the most difficult of all horn concertos. Gliere modeled it after the fiendishly difficult Tchaikovsky "Violin Concerto." Please welcome horn soloist Austin Larson. [applause]  § §  § §  § §  [applause]  >> With pianist Claire Mallory, horn soloist Austin Larson. Our final winners of the Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition are the five musicians that make up a wind quintet from Lawrence University. Originally from Springfield, Virginia, Sam Golter has a flute performance and Gender Studies major, from Lawrence University, or will, when he graduates. His principal teachers have been Ernestine Whitman and Erin Lesser. 

As the winner of the Lawrence Wind Ensemble Concerto Competition, Sam will perform Carl Reinecke's "Flute Concerto" with the Wind Ensemble on May 19. Kinsey Fournier, an Arkansas native, is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree  in clarinet performance, and instrumental and general education. Her primary teachers have been David Bell and Dr. Kelly Johnson. In addition to being principal clarinet in the Lawrence Symphony and the Wind Ensemble, she also teaches part-time for the Lawrence Academy of Music. Kelsey Burk is a senior majoring in oboe performance and mathematics. She studies with Howard Niblock, has performed as principal oboe for the Lawrence Wind Ensemble. She's currently principal oboist with the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra Emma Jane Richart was born and raised in Olympia, Washington, by two, as she calls them, loving bassoon-playing parents, except she chose to play the horn when she was in fifth grade. In high school, she was the principle horn of the All-Northwest Orchestra. She's been studying with James DeCorsey since 2008. She is a DJ at Lawrence's radio station, and plans to pursue a degree in Library Science following her graduation. 

And finally, our horn player in this quintet is Jake Fisher, who grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois-- I'm sorry, not horn, bassoon. Here's my bassoonist. He's a fifth-year student majoring in bassoon performance and also minoring in Russian. He's played with many of the large ensembles, including the Jazz Ensemble, and was recently Grand Master of the 47th Great Midwest Trivia Contest. What we'll hear from the quintet this afternoon, first is the "Persichetti Pastoral for Wind Quintet," a work from 1942, which the composer describes as "free, nostalgic and happy," and then Elliot Carter's "Woodwind Quintet," which was written in 1948, the first movement. We find the composer at tail end of his neoclassical period, looking to bring out individual characteristics of each instrument. We'll have some of that pastorale feeling, of the "Persichetti" in that first movement, although with Carter, the flowing melody is going to be interrupted with some strong outbursts. The second movement has touches of ragtime playfulness. Please welcome our final winners, the Lawrence Conservatory Woodwind Quintet. [applause]  [tuning instruments]  § §  § §  [applause]  § §  § §  [applause]  >> Our Wind Quintet from Lawrence University. 

Samuel Golter, Kinsey Fournier, Kelsey Burk, Emma Richart, and Jake Fisher. Now, next Sunday, we are back in the Chazen Museum of Art in Gallery Three, with the Lawrence Chamber Players performing "String Quintets" by Dmitri Shostakovich and Harold Shapiro. The technical director for this year's Neale-Silva Young Artists' Competition Winners' Recital is Joe Hardtke, with assistance from Kelly, David, and Jeff. In just a moment, our Music from Wisconsin series brings us one of Mahler's monumental symphonies. John DeMain leads the Madison Symphony Orchestra, chorus and soloists in Mahler's "Symphony No. 2," known as the "Resurrection." On behalf of everyone at Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Union Theater, I thank you for supporting young people in the arts. As I say, we're looking forward to hearing more from these performers in the years to come. I'm Lori Skelton. Thank you for joining me on Wisconsin Public Radio. [applause]