We hope you enjoy this updated and expanded website. On this site you can look at CD artwork, read booklet essays, listen to samples from all of our recordings, read reviews, look at photos of concerts and the historical instruments featured in the recordings, and find out about all our upcoming concerts. Also it is now possible to purchase CD recordings by credit card at this site.
Until I was in my early twenties I had always played everything on the modern piano. But then—as a graduate student at the University of Illinois—I heard, for the first time in my life, Mozart's music played on a fortepiano. Mozart's effervescence, wit, and theatrical directness came shining through in ways which I found to be beyond the scope of the modern piano; things changed for me in a dramatic fashion. I began playing fortepiano a great deal and went to Cornell University to study fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson and to earn a Doctor of Musical Arts in historical performance of 18th-century music. After moving to Madison, Wisconsin in 1990, I began to investigate ways in which historical temperaments helped bring the music of the past into keener relief. The next avenues to be explored were the wondrous tonal expanses of the harpsichord, followed by the soulfulness and dark, sonorous, veil of the nineteenth century piano. My colleague, Norman Sheppard, and I began building and customizing a series of historical instruments and I also began studying and cultivating methods of capturing the sounds of these instruments and performances in recordings. The project grew from the belief that the greater the control of the entire production process—from first idea to performance night, or CD in hand—the greater the potential for the final product to be a truly artistic statement. I have attempted to integrate to a high degree the diverse disciplines of performance style, instrument construction, tuning, musicological scholarship, and sound engineering. The result is a vital classical music—a true outgrowth of the past—offering listeners a genuinely modern sensibility. It is my pleasure to present these performances and recordings.
Madison Bach Musicians
2009-10 Season
PROGRAM
1
Vivaldi
Autumn & Winter
from The Four Seasons
Bach
Cantata 78, Jesu, der
du meine Seele
October 16, Friday 8 pm, 7:15 pre-concert lecture
First Congregational Church, 1609 University Ave.
October 18, Sunday, 3 pm, 2:15 pre-concert lecture
Trinity Lutheran Church, 1904 Winnebago Ave.
PROGRAM
2
Keyboard Music by Bach, Handel & Scarlatti
Trevor Stephenson, harpsichord
Dedication Concert of a two-manual, 18th-century German style instrument
recently completed by Norman Sheppard of Middleton, WI
March 12, Friday, 8 pm
venue to be announced
PROGRAM
3
Bach
Brandenburg Concertos
#4 in G major
#5 in D major
# 6 in B-flat major
April 10, Sat., 8 pm concert, 7:15 pre-concert
lecture
Trinity Lutheran Church, 1904 Winnebago Ave.
April 24, Sat., 8 pm, 7:15 pre-concert lecture
1st Unitarian Soc., Atrium Auditorium, 900 Univ. Bay Dr.
ticket
information at www.madisonbachmusicians.org
or call (608) 238-6092
_______________________________
Also -- A new CD is out. Harpsichord Music from Italy and Spain sounds really beautiful and I am so glad it is out of my hands and ready for yours! The selections come from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and are by Frescobaldi, Scarlatti, Mudarra, Cabezon, Santa Maria, and others. Check it out on our Recordings page.