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Article Roundup: Wisconsin Bands You Should Hear, New Arcade Fire Coming

September 5, 2013 - 2:55pm

Paste magazine recently compiled a list of 10 Wisconsin underground bands everyone should hear.

Although he wrote a sublime German Requiem , Johannes Brahms knew all about the earthly–and earthy--side of music. Brahms grew up in Hamburg in the 1840s in a family so poor that he had to go to work at the age of thirteen. Because he had remarkable talent, young Brahms...

Excuses

September 3, 2013 - 11:00am

In 1886 American composer Horatio Parker had been hoping for a performance of his string quartet by an important Boston ensemble. When the performance fell through, his colleague George Whitefield Chadwick wrote a cheerful letter explaining what had gone wrong: In the first place, Kneisel gave me an excuse for...

First Impressions

September 2, 2013 - 11:00am

Russian pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff would eventually become an American citizen, but his first impression of America and America’s first impression of him were not entirely promising. By 1909 Rachmaninoff was enough of an international celebrity to follow in the path of many famous performers who had done well...

The Subversive

September 1, 2013 - 11:00am

Eugene Luening had come through some hard times, and in 1908 he accepted a one-year appointment as director of the Music Department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He soon found that he would have to give up some of his freedom, but he never gave up his sense...

Review: Dylan's 'Another Self-Portrait' Obscures True Gems

August 27, 2013 - 4:56pm

For Bob Dylan, his famous lyric of "She's an artist/She don't look back" might as well as be a professional mission statement. For the last 20-plus years, however, his management team has taken a different approach, releasing albums of hidden gems from Dylan's back pages that offer fans plenty of...

Power Of Programming Music: Each Piece Has A Story

August 1, 2013 - 7:34pm

We all need stories. Stories captivate us as children, imparting life lessons, morality, discovery, and invigorate creativity and imagination.

As adults, stories inform us, shape how we view the world, tell us what’s important, they bring other places to life and ask us to explore our humanity.

It should come as no surprise that the same is true about our favorite pieces of music. Each has its own unique origin, and knowing the emotion and energy that went into the melody’s creation brings it to life in new and exciting ways. Martha Gilmer, vice president of artistic planning and audience development...

Folk Music Archives Being Cared For In U.K., Wisconsin

August 1, 2013 - 5:35pm

"Staggering" is the word being used to describe a massive folk music archive placed online recently in the United Kingdom.

Billed as the largest digital archive of traditional English folk and dance music, "The Full English," contains more than 44,000 records and 58,000 images -- now all accessible with the click of a mouse.

The Brits aren't the only ones with archives on the mind. Here at Wisconsin Public Radio, we are the stewards of a substantial collection of folk field recordings dating back to the 1970s.

Whether setting up at summer festivals or competing with an espresso...

Expert: While Summer Starts Winding Down, There’s Still A Lot to Do In Wisconsin

August 1, 2013 - 5:32pm

Milwaukee is known as the “City of Festivals” and for good reason. With the city's lakefront as the backdrop, there is Summerfest and all of the ethnic festivals that follow, but that location isn't the only place to go to a good festival in the city or in state of Wisconsin.

While the summer is just beginning to wind down in Wisconsin, travel writer Garry Knowles said there's still plenty more to do, see and experience around the state. There is the Baylake Bank Tall Ship festival in Green Bay on Aug. 16- 18, along with the two Blue Berry...

Historically-Informed Performance: Why 'HIP' Is So Hip

July 31, 2013 - 6:15pm

During the first half of the 20th Century, performances of Bach or Handel typically involved huge forces of musicians. This emitted an enormous, penetrating sound that was cloaked in an unrelenting, wide vibrato at a stately, or even stodgy tempo. The music’s contrapuntal complexity and soulful fire were often drowned in a wash of blurry sonority.

Starting after World War II, with the Concentus Musicus Wien, proponents of the historically informed performance, or HIP, seek to use original instruments, tunings and performance techniques. The style provided a crisp, more transparent and flexible sonority, allowing the wonderfully polyphonic lines...