The several guest conductors directing the Madison Symphony Orchestra this season might all be at a very public job interview as its longtime music director, John DeMain, prepares to step down at the end of the 2025-2026 season. “Anybody who is on that podium for the next two years is certainly being looked at as my successor,” says DeMain.
Although DeMain is leaving the MSO after a 32-year tenure, he will continue to be principal conductor of the Madison Opera. “I’m not quitting conducting,” he says.
Valerie Coleman’s Umoja: Anthem of Unity opens the MSO season Sept. 20-22. “Valerie Coleman is an African American composer, and that’s important to me right now,” says DeMain. “Umoja has been heralded as a significant work of our time.” Cellist Tommy Mesa and MSO principal organist Greg Zelek are also featured at this concert.
“Greg is going to play Joseph Jongen’s Symphony Concertante, the concerto we performed when we dedicated the organ 20 years ago,” says DeMain. Mesa will add his technical wizardry to Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, and the concert will close with Manuel de Falla’s Suite No. 2 from The Three-Cornered Hat in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
All MSO concerts take place in Overture Hall. “The significance of this season for us is that it’s the 20th anniversary of Overture Hall and the 20th anniversary of the organ,” says DeMain. “The hall was life-changing and transformative because of its fantastic acoustics, and I want to pay tribute to Jerry [Frautschi] and Pleasant [Rowland] for their extraordinary vision for the city.” Frautschi gave $205 million to establish the Overture Center for the Arts, and Rowland gave $1.1 million for the Overture’s organ-building project.
On Oct. 18-20, award-winning American violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, who appeared with the MSO in 2022, returns with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and Ravel’s Tzigane. “Kelly Hall-Tompkins wowed everyone [in 2022] when she played Wynton Marsalis’ 45-minute Violin Concerto from memory,” says DeMain. The MSO’s premiere of Anna Clyne’s evocative This Midnight Hour will open the concert, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique closes.
Pianist Garrick Ohlsson returns to the MSO with a performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor Nov. 15-17. While Ohlsson is famous for playing heavyweight piano concertos, he also plays as soft as rain. Bookending the concerto are Jonathan Leshnoff’s Rush for Orchestra and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor.
On Nov. 23, MSO at the Movies will present Disney and Pixar’s Coco in Concert, featuring a complete film screening and composer Michael Giacchino’s musical score. Kyle Knox, the MSO’s associate conductor, will conduct. The story focuses on the journey of a young wannabe musician into the magical Land of the Dead.
The MSO ends 2024 with its popular Madison Symphony Christmas on Dec. 6-8.
Organist Zelek also focuses on the organ’s 20th anniversary for the upcoming organ season. The Oct. 3 opener will showcase the artistry of organist Paul Jacobs, the first organist to have ever won a Grammy and Zelek’s teacher at Juilliard. “I can’t think of anyone better to open the 20th anniversary season of the Overture Concert Organ than Paul,” says Zelek.
Jacobs will play a varied program that includes Franz Liszt’s gargantuan Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam, and American composer Charles Ives’ Variations on America.
“Ives’ Variations on America reveals a cheeky yet innovative young composer who delighted in rattling the musical establishment,” says Jacobs. “Ives said, ‘The virtuosity of the final pedal variation is almost as fun as playing baseball.’ But I think it’s much more fun.”
On Nov. 21, the Lyyra ensemble will perform a program featuring vocal music from the Renaissance to the present. Lyyra, an all-female ensemble, sings mainly a cappella, but Zelek will accompany a few selections on the organ. The ensemble was created by the VOCES8 Foundation, a vocal music education charity registered in the UK.
Madison Opera: Counterprogramming
“We never know what people walk into the theater with emotionally — whether they’ve had a great day, if they’re in love, or they’ve had a loss,” says Kathryn Smith, general director of the Madison Opera. “Humanity is such that everyone in the audience will come in from something, and if you’re troubled, our job is to ease that for a few hours.”
The season opening program Nov. 1 and 3 is Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. “Besides the fact that The Barber of Seville is a brilliant opera and I love it, I wanted to give audiences a comedy on the weekend before the election [Nov. 5],” says Smith. “Come in for a few hours, and you don’t need to look at your phone or the news stream,” she says. “Enjoy a comedy and let music do its job.”
Smith describes the Rossini classic as a romcom. “Boy and girl want to get together, and the plot is about overcoming things that prevent them from getting together, like disguises, thunderstorms and shaving cream.”
The Barber of Seville will also have a student matinee performance on Oct. 30. School groups can reserve tickets to the matinee on the Madison Opera website.
Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra: Recorded live in front of a studio audience
Andrew Sewell, music director of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, is excited as he talks about Convergence, the second installment of WCO’s five-year recording project, Musical Landscapes in Color. WCO’s initiative is to record and perform works by present-day American composers who use music to bring us together.
The program features all Black American composers: Patrice Rushen, Valerie Coleman, Andre Myers and Michael Abels.
Convergence happens on Oct. 10 and will be recorded live in the Capitol Theater. “If you’re going to go through the trouble of rehearsing and recording it, let’s make it open to the public,” says Sewell. “We found that to be successful last fall and released the CD [Harmony in Black] in March.”
WCO’s Masterworks season begins on Nov. 8. Masterworks is the WCO’s indoor classical concert series where Sewell often programs less familiar composers like Louise Farrenc, a French composer whose Symphony No. 3 in G minor will be featured on this program.
“Louise Farrenc was teaching at the Paris Conservatoire when she wrote the 1847 symphony,” says Sewell. “She was the first woman to be on the faculty there and was there for 20 years. She was a pioneer and a very good composer.”
The guest artist for this concert is Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska, who returns to the WCO with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G.
Although it’s not this fall, the first Masterworks concert of 2025 on Jan. 24 is of particular interest as it features the recently commissioned violin concerto by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, Fandango. Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who commissioned the work, will perform it. The music is warm, colorful, and passionate — just right for a winter evening in Wisconsin.
