It’s a big year for classical music fans in Madison. This is John DeMain’s 32nd and final year as music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He has a new book, “Working With My Heroes: A Life in Music,” available today, and he’ll talk about it on March 24 at Madison Central Library for a Wisconsin Book Festival event.
DeMain came on the City Cast Madison podcast to talk to host Bianca Martin about his long career, and what he wants to accomplish before he finally sets down the baton.
The MSO is just one part of a symphony of classical music performances in Madison that take place in the biggest concert halls to the most intimate rooms. Here’s where to hear some of the most beautiful music the city has to offer.
Now in its centennial year, the MSO is one of the best-regarded regional orchestras in the country. DeMain is world-renowned for his contributions to classical music, and the acoustics of the MSO’s home base in Overture Hall is the envy of many orchestras.
While the WCO is best known for its wildly popular “Concerts on the Square” series every summer, the orchestra conducted by Andrew Sewell (now in his 25th season as conductor) performs year-round in the Capitol Theater and elsewhere.
Madison’s long-running professional opera company is staging three productions a year in Overture Hall (including last month’s world premiere of “Everlasting Faint”), as well as bringing opera to the masses with the free “Opera in the Park” in the summer.
For over a century the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Performing Arts Committee has been booking touring classical and opera music acts into the theater, from masterpieces by Bach and Beethoven to new classical music.
This long-running summer festival aims to make classical music accessible and just plain fun for audiences, such as last summer’s “fire”-themed series of concerts at Hamel Music Center.
WYSO has been instilling a lifelong love of classical music early in the lives of young Madisonians for decades. It’s expanded to include three full orchestras, two string orchestras, a percussion ensemble, and more.
The UW-Madison music school is dedicated not only to educating and elevating its students, but bringing classical music to the community with free performances by its faculty ensembles, student ensembles, and prestigious artists-in-residence.
This six-member group is the resident chamber ensemble for Oakwood Village Senior Living Center, blending wind and string instruments to explore a variety of styles.
Classical music is an essential part of this arts space’s eclectic cultural diet, such as a contemporary classical concert featuring Lia Kohl and and Zachary Good on March 19.
The origins of this quartet date back to Europe over a century ago. When the touring European musicians were stranded in Madison at the onset of World War II and unable to return home, they put down roots here and became one of the city’s longest-running ensembles.
