WCO launches The Musician Sessions digital concerts November 12-15

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra continues to expand the medium of musician-forward classical performances. The WCO’s Musician Sessions are short-format, intimate, up-close ensemble performances and interviews created in collaboration with WCO Music Director Andrew Sewell and recorded in October 2021 at the new Madison Youth Arts Center. The WCO is the first arts organization to perform at MYArts.

The first concert, Bach to Banfield, airs this Friday, November 12 at 7:30 PM through November 15 on the WCO’s website, wcoconcerts.org. On-demand ticket access costs $30 for this single concert or $75 for the 3-concert series. Tickets can be purchased at wcoconcerts.org and overture.org. The concerts can be viewed Friday through Monday nights for 72 hours. Concerts II and III are February 18-21, 2022, and March 18-21, 2022, respectively.

Bach to Banfield is a 40-minute performance that features both contemporary and traditional classical chamber works, curated and performed by the musicians of the WCO in collaboration with WCO Music Director, Andrew Sewell.

“The Musician Sessions grew out of a need during the COVID pandemic to find a way to let the musicians communicate to us, the audience, and to have the opportunity of playing music that perhaps stretches them,” explains Andrew Sewell. “We like to keep performing. It's what turns our cranks as musicians. And in addition to our live concerts, we’re finding opportunities to present the music in new ways.”

Get closer to the musicians with interviews of core orchestra members, Lana Wordel and Madison’s own Diedre Buckley, and meet the WCO’s new Composer in Residence Dr. Bill Banfield, whose woodwind quintet Dance Like the Wind is performed.

ABOUT THE REPERTOIRE

The first concert Bach to Banfield takes the audience on a journey from the Baroque period to the present day. The series opens with the third of Bach’s six famous Brandenburg Concerti Grossi from 1722. Nineteenth century French composer Louise Farrenc’s Nonet is steeped in the Romantic style, with beautiful melodies and long phrases. In between is a unique combination of four instruments, a quartet by early 20th century composer, Bohuslav Martinů, for clarinet, horn, cello, and snare drum.

Works from the early twenty-first century by our Composer in Residence Dr. Bill Banfield’s woodwind quintet, entitled Dance Like the Wind from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with some jazz influences, is performed as is a commissioned work for steel drums by steelpan icon, Cliff Alexis, Many Faces, written specifically for WCO’s principal percussionist Lana Wordel.

BACH | Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
ALEXIS | Many Faces
BANFIELD | Dance Like the Wind from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
MARTINŮ | Quartet, H. 139
FARRENC | Piano Quintet No. 1