If you’re in or around Madison, Wisconsin this weekend, come on out for a free concert.
The Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) is performing Saturday at noon as part of Grace Presents at Grace Episcopal Church on the square at 116 W. Washington Avenue.
The program will be repeated Sunday, August 4, at 12:30 PM in the series Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen, at the Chazen Musum of Art, 750 University Avenue. This concert will be live-streamed at the link above.
Details are also available at The Well-Tempered Ear. The program, entitled “Far From Home” includes works by Haydn (Symphony No 104, the London Symphony), Wagner (Siegfried Idyll), and Barber (Adagio for Strings), written while they were far from home. MAYCO will also feature the World Premiere of “Un Sueño Aplazado” (A Dream Deferred – from the poem “Harlem“, by Langston Hughes ) by Lawren Brianna Ware, which chronicles the emotional trajectory of a migrant’s journey from Central America to the United States.
MAYCO debuted in 2011 as a youth training orchestra – to expose talented high school students to chamber orchestra repertoire (which they don’t often get to play) while pairing them with university-trained musicians as colleagues, mentors, and stand partners; and giving them the opportunity to accompany professional soloists. Central to the vision were exploring classical repertoire and commissioning original works.
Parry Karp with MAYCO Coombs and Rankin Utevsky
The orchestra’s founder and conductor, Mikko Rankin Utevsky, recognized at an early age that he wanted to conduct; seeing the parallels of playwright-director-actor and composer-conductor-musician, and having composed and played chamber music, he saw that conducting was the best avenue through which to recognize his musical vision. Since there are no undergraduate conducting programs in the US, he saw two choices: wait a long time, or start his own orchestra. He chose the latter. In their ninth season, this is your opportunity to see and hear the process and product. Today, Utevsky co-directs the ensemble with concertmaster (and spouse) Thalia Coombs.
Half-fast Cycling Club 
I wish I was going to be in Madison this weekend. I’d attend! Looks like a cool concert. Thanks for posting stuff like this – reminded me that I could do the same. We’re not just cyclists, you know!
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Stick around. One of these days I’ll venture even farther afield. So far it has been mainly bikes and music…Yep, we all do spend some time off our bikes doing other things. Some of us even work! (Though I do miss the job I once had where it was acceptable occasionally to call in well instead of sick – as in, “I’m too well to go to work today; I need to go for a bike ride.”)
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Sounds like a great event BUT I am enjoying Vancouver Island at present.
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Life is hard when you’re retired.
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