The Triple

January 28, 2022 — 7:30 PM

Madison, Wisconsin

Masterworks I | Director's Notes

Our return home to the Capitol Theater melds new works by the orchestra’s first-ever Composer in Residence Dr. Bill Banfield with his impressive contemporary, Patrice Rushen, to the belated birthday boy himself, Beethoven.

Opening the season is Patrice Rushen’s Sinfonia. Patrice is a Grammy-nominated musician of the highest caliber straddling R&B, jazz, and classical genres as the triple crown of performer, conductor, and composer. She is the first woman music director and the first African American producer of The Grammy Awards.

“Virtuosi as compatible as a hand and glove.”

– Maestro Andrew Sewell, on the Triple Concerto soloists

Beethoven’s Triple Concerto is one for the record books as we celebrate Beethoven’s delayed 250th anniversary. The rarely performed Triple Concerto is a 37-minute feat, the only concerto Beethoven completed for more than one soloist. And ours will be performed by virtuosi as compatible as a hand and glove, WCO concertmaster Suzanne Beia, WCO principal cello Karl Lavine, and UW-Madison professor and Van Cliburn prize winner, pianist Christopher Taylor.

"We have the opportunity to look back on a composer's work; to evaluate its artistic merits and the timeliness of the subject material."

– Maestro Andrew Sewell, on Dr. Bill Banfield's Symphony No. 8

Composer in Residence Dr. Bill Banfield’s Symphony No. 8, Here I Stand, in honor of the work and life of Paul Robeson, will receive its long-awaited world premiere on January 28 in Madison. This piece involves both narrative and multimedia elements, developed in collaboration with UW-Madison School of Education and Communication Arts alum Rigoletto Lopez.

Photo credit: Paulius Musteikis