Music

WPR’s Ava Kuredjian interviews bassoonist Catherine Van Handel on her role as soloist in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s newest release, David Ludwig’s “Pictures of the Floating World.”

This week’s new album comes from the Pacifica Quartet, the ensemble in residence at the University of Indiana, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a collection of chamber works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. 

“We want to be a sanctuary for people who are overwhelmed with whatever it is that’s consuming their lives, whether it be family, relationship, the news, a job,” Whiskey said. “We’re  just a couple of cats who play some music.”

For 20 consecutive years, Greendale High School won the Wisconsin School Music Association State Marching Band Championship in their division. The band makes up nearly 25 percent of the student body. It recently performed before the Rose Bowl and has participated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade twice.

So I was just realizing that people mostly just know the story of what I went through and the songs that I wrote and everything after I left Wisconsin, from my Los Angeles move when I was 17 forward, working with Eminem and all that. That’s just not the core of who I am. So…

“Piano Book 2” features 32 more piano miniatures, from the familiar etudes and preludes many of us first learned as youngsters to more recent discoveries. It even includes a few pieces that were suggested by Lang Lang’s many fans around the world.

The Mark Hembree Band is well-known in Wisconsin’s bluegrass music scene. Its upright bass playing leader, Mark Hembree of Oconomowoc, has been playing music professionally for decades. He reflects on his early days with another bluegrass legend, Bill Monroe.

The album includes delicate instrumentals and field recordings of birdsong, making it a standout.

In “Song Sung Blue,” Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson play Lightning & Thunder, a legendary Neil Diamond tribute band from Milwaukee with a remarkable love story. Real-life Claire “Thunder” Sardina joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” to talk about what it’s like to see her story told on the big screen.

Wisconsin musician Rökker is marking the one-year anniversary of his cardiac arrest with another show at the same club. And he’s using his experience to encourage people to get trained in CPR and to advocate for more access to emergency defibrillators at performance venues.