Whatcha doin’ this weekend?

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.

To Michigan…and beyond!

Sunday, July 29, Ludington, MI

We’re in a junior high school. We have internet access but much of the internet is blocked. WordPress is blocked, YouTube is blocked, MAYCO is blocked. I’m not sure how or when this will be posted. (Hah! I found a workaround!)

I rode into town for breakfast at the only cafe I could find open (besides the one where dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow are scheduled).

I ran into Porter, one of our mechanics, and asked him about plans after the ride. He said he might return to the west coast to wrench for another coast-to-coast tour starting a couple of days after this one ends; or he might ride self-supported down the eastern seaboard and back home.

After one week of riding the question was how to sustain this level of activity for eight more weeks. After six weeks, it is how to give it up after only three more weeks.

Will I have to ride the long way to work, going around the lake? Yesterday’s 40 miles felt like a warmup; we were all ready for more. My riding style has changed; in the distance of my normal commute to work, I am now just getting warmed up and ready to get up to speed for the day. Since riding hours correspond with my normal working hours, will I want to go for a long ride after work, or will I be done for the day?

The Door County Century is in September and on a day off; maybe I’ll ride that this year if I can still find a campsite this late. A Century Ride used to be a Big Deal; now it’s just another day at the office.

After breakfast I rode back to camp and walked to the laundromat, where there was a steady stream of cyclists. Back at camp, the dew still isn’t off the grass, so I can’t spread things out to dry yet after packing up wet on Saturday morning.

In the midst of writing this, Robin and Wendy invited me to join them to see a movie. They didn’t mention that it was three miles out of town on a five lane expressway.  I needed the exercise. We saw the new “Mission: Impossible” film and the theatre manager invited us to stash our bikes in the box office. There were six of us all together.

Cycle America lingo

A few weeks ago at dinner Ed referred to me as an EFI. I had no clue what he was talking about, but it seemed complimentary so I smiled and nodded. A few minutes later he called me an ELK. That also seemed complimentary, but my ignorance must have been more obvious this time, so he explained that it meant “Every Last Kilometer” (as in, that’s what I’m going to ride). EFI suddenly became clear.

Terry refers to those who sleep on gym floors in lieu of camping as “floor floppers”.

About ½-⅔ of us (in any given week) are riding coast-to-coast. Beth refers to the others as “weeklings”.

Thanks

Thanks again to Mikko, Rosebud, Tim, Jeremy, and Sarah, who all came out to see me during the Wisconsin week. I understand special thanks are due to Noreen, for a heroic but failed effort to find Cytomax for Sarah to bring to me. Thanks again to Tyler for taking on my duties, and to everyone else for picking up the slack (and for caring enough about what I’m up to to read this). Deb, if you lack for ideas for the Friday song, I’ve left enough links to keep you in music for more than nine weeks. I hope the new residents are learning the ropes.

Next week

The first half of the week we’ll be crossing Michigan. On Thursday we cross the border into Ontario and continue across it to Niagara Falls. We’ll have our next day off there before crossing back into the US on Monday, August 6.

Also next week: If you’re in Madison, WI, go hear MAYCO (the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra) on Saturday night at First United Methodist Church, 203 Wisconsin Avenue, at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $10, students by donation.

If you can’t make it Saturday, you can go to the Chazen Museum Sunday. Concert starts at 12:30. Be there by noon to get a seat. It is live-streamed, so they don’t like to seat people late.

If you’re anywhere else you can go to https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen-8-5-18/ to find the live-stream link.

MAYCO

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2018/06/12/classical-music-the-madison-area-youth-orchestra-performs-works-by-bach-elgar-and-shostakovich-as-well-as-a-world-premiere-by-zachary-green-this-saturday-night/

More music!

Since I’ve been away from bicycling as a topic for two days, let’s keep it up. The topic is still “what I will miss in Madison this week because I’ll be in Seattle”.

On Saturday night, June 16, please go see MAYCO, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra. This “remarkable institution” (in the words of critic John Barker) was founded by Mikko Rankin Utevsky in 2011.

You can hear a previous world premiere by the group here:

This will be the first MAYCO concert I have ever missed. I usually print the tickets, put up

rehearsal 2017

posters, sell tickets at the door, record (video and audio) the concert, take stills, help set the stage, and do whatever else is needed. Any volunteers?

There will probably be a preview of the concert in the Well-Tempered Ear this week, or a review next week. Take a look.

 

It looks like I picked the wrong week to leave Madison.

Not available when I wrote this:

The concert is at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street, Madison WI at 7:30 PM on Saturday, June 16.