Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
World Premieres, 1927-2004
compiled by J. Michael Allsen (December 2004)

Nov. 15, 1927
Cecil Burleigh, Evangeline, Tone Poem after Longfellow
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor]
Burleigh was on the faculty at the University, and certainly the most widely-known Madison composer of this period.  Evangeline was apparently quite a success at its first performance--it was repeated "by popular demand" at a subsequent Civic Symphony concert.

May 20, 1931
Laurence Powell, Keltic Legend
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor]
Powell, a Music Theory teacher at the University, wrote this work between 1923 and 1930.  The score is dedicated to Dr. Prager.

May 3, 1932
Alexius Baas, How Fair, How Pure Thy World
[Alexius Baas, conductor; Dorothy Laeser Welch, soprano; Madison Civic Chorus; massed choirs (local organizations participating in this Madison Civic Music Festival)]
Baas was a local music teacher, singer, and conductor (he conducted the venerable Madison Männerchor, and performed with the Grieg Chorus).  A close associate of Dr. Prager, Baas was associated with Civic Music from the beginning, and was the bass soloist at dozens of concerts from the 1920s through the 1940s.  This is only one of several of his choral compostions that were performed at concerts in this period.

October 16, 1932
Sigfrid Prager, The Message of Song
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus; Dane County Civic Chorus]
Text by John Mael.  This work was written for the inauguration of the Dane County Music Festival, and was dedicated to Dane County Civic Chorus.

April 25, 1933
Sigfrid Prager, Symphonic Suite, Op.17
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus]
Prager completed this four-movement suite in 1929, and the first two movements were played on a February 1930 program--this was the premiere of the complete suite.  The third movement featured a backstage chorus, directed by Alexius Baas.

May 1, 1934
Sybil Anne Hanks, Meditation
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor]
Sybil Hanks was a Madison-based composer who had several of her works performed by the Civic Symphony and Chorus during the 1930s and 1940s--most notably the large patriotic choral works Decoration Day Hymn and Our Washington.  She was a composition student of Dr. Prager.  This is the first of four of her premieres presented by the Madison Civic Symphony and/or chorus.

Nov. 29, 1942
Percy Grainger, The Lads of Wamphray
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus; Karl Fischer-Nieman, tenor;  Alexius Baas, bass;  Marshall Strauss, bass; Jonathon Pugh, bass; Mozart Club]
Many of Grainger's works, including this one, survive in multiple versions.  This was the first performance of this version for soloists, chorus, and orchestra.

February, 21, 1942
Sybil Anne Hanks, Concertino in E-flat Major for Three Saxophones and Orchestra
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor; Robert Woollen, Josephine Barbato, and Richard Church, saxophones]
In a later performance note, Hanks said that her intent in this piece was to "show the beauty of the saxophone as a legitimate instrument, rather than just as a medium for jazz."

May 7, 1944
Oskar Hagen, Choral Rhapsody in the Romantic Style
[Dr. Sigfrid Prager, conductor; Madison Symphony Chorus; Frances Prager, soprano; Elizabeth Hunter, alto; Samuel Freeman, tenor;  Alexius Baas, bass]
Hagen, an Art History Professor at the University, had a long and close relationship with Civic Music.  This work was inspired by Civic Music performance of Honegger's King David in 1943, and is dedicated to Dr. Prager.  Later, in 1950, the Civic Symphony gave the first American performance of Hagen's Concerto Grosso.

March 11, 1953
Sybil Anne Hanks, Quiet my Heart
[Walter Heermann, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus]
 Text by Joseph W. Cochran.

April 29, 1955
Sybil Anne Hanks, The Creation (finale)
[Walter Heermann, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus]
Text by James Weldon Johnson (one of the founding members of the NAACP).

November 27, 1962
Gunther Schuller, Fanfare for Brass Instruments
[Gunther Schuller, conductor; MSO brass section]
Commissioned by and dedicated to Roland Johnson.  The Civic Symphony gave early performances of several Schuller works in the 1960s--a relationship based on a longstanding friendship between Maestro Johnson and the composer.  This is the first of three Schuller premieres presented by the orchestra.

December 1, 1965
Franz Schubert, Fantasy for Violin and Piano (arranged for orchestra by René Leibowitz)
[Roland Johnson, conductor; Rudolf Kolisch, violin]
World premiere of Leibowitz's orchestration.

October 14, 1967
Gunther Schuller, Vertige d'Eros
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
 A relatively early work by Schuller, written nearly 20 years earlier, that had never been performed.

March 22, 1969
Robert Crane, Exsequiarum Ordo: In Memoriam Berlioz
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
This is the first of three works that Crane--a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University--wrote for the Civic Symphony in the 1960s and 1970s.

November 22, 1969
Lee Hoiby, The Tides of Sleep
[Roland Johnson, conductor; John Reardon, baritone]
This Wisconsin-born composer and pianist had studied earlier at the University, and maintained connections in Madison  This is the first of two Hoiby works premiered by the Civic Orchestra.

January 26, 1974
Alec Wilder, Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra
[Roland Johnson, conductor; Glenn Bowen, clarinet]

May 20, 1975
Robert Crane,  Cino
[Roland Johnson, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus]

September 27, 1975
Hoiby, Lee, Music for a Celebration
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
Commissioned for the MSO.

October 18, 1975
Stephen Chatman,  3 A.M. on Capitol Square
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
Commissioned for the Civic Symphony.  Chatman, a composer who grew up in Madison, was a student piano soloist with ethe orchestra in 1967, and had played for a time in the orchestra's percussion section.  He composed two works for the orchestra during the 1970s

December 13, 1975
Robert Crane, Fanfare for Christmas
[Roland Johnson, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus; David Hottman, narrator; Madison Boychoir]
Commissioned for the Civic Symphony and Chorus.

November 18, 1978
Stephen Chatman, Occasions
[Roland Johnson, conductor]

May 23, 1981
Gunnar Johansen, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
[Roland Johnson, conductor; Gunnar Johansen, piano]
The world-renowned pianist Gunnar Johansen taught at the University. He was a frequent soloist at Civic Symphony concerts, appearing some thirteen times beginning in 1945.  This premiere marked his final performance as a soloist with the orchestra.

October 23, 1982
John Harbison, Overture: Michael Kohlhaas
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
Harbison resides near Token Creek.  The orchestra and chorus have presented four of his works over the years, including an early performance of his Violin Concerto that appeared on this same program.

September 18, 1986
Crawford Gates, Lake Songs
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
Commissioned for the MSO and performed at Warner Park, as part of the Festival of the Lakes.  Gates, a Wisconsin-based composer, and longtime conductor of the Beloit-Janesville Symphony, based this work on the names of Madison's lakes.

February 21, 1987
Michael Torke, Verdant Music
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
Joint commision and premiere with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

February 20, 1988
Gunther Schuller, Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra
[Gunther Schuller, conductor; Pro Arte Quartet]

December 4, 1993
Daron Aric Hagen, Joyful Music
[Roland Johnson, conductor; Madison Civic Chorus; Kitt Reuter-Foss, mezzo-soprano]
Daron Hagen (no relationship to Oskar) is a Milwaukee-born composer who maintained a close relationship with Civic Music and the Madison Symphony Orchestra all through the 1990s.  Several of his works were programmed, most prominently the premiere of his opera Shining Brow by the Madison Opera in 1992.  This is the first of three premieres.

September 23, 1995
Daron Aric Hagen, Taliesin: Choruses from "Shining Brow"
[John DeMain, conductor; Madison Symphony Chorus]

December 2, 1995
J. Fred Coots, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (arranged by Kirby Shaw and Frank Mantooth)
[John DeMain, conductor; Madison Boychoir]
World premiere of this Jazz-style arrangement (primarily by Mantooth) of a Christmas standard.  Mantooth later reworked the piece to include a part for the full Madison Symphony Chorus.

February 22, 1997
Wallace, Kaddish for Harvey Milk
[John DeMain, conductor; Madison Symphony Chorus; Jill Grove, mezzo-soprano; Randall Wong, countertenor; Kurt Ollmann, baritone]
Commissioned for the MSO.  This work was derived from Wallace's critically-acclaimed 1995 opera Harvey Milk.

January 31, 1998
David DiChiera, Four Sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay, for Soprano and Orchestra
[John DeMain, conductor; Helen Donath, soprano]
Commissioned for the MSO.  World premiere of the orchestral version.

May 29, 1998
Daron Aric Hagen, Forward!
[Daron Aric Hagen, conductor; MSO brass section]
Commissioned to celebrate the unveiling of the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial postage stamp.

September 19, 1998
Michael Torke, Jasper
[John DeMain, conductor]
Joint commision and premiere with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, in celebration of the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial.

December 5, 1998
Taras Nahirniak, Hodie Christus
[John DeMain, conductor; Madison Boychoir]
Joint premiere with the Madison Boychoir.

August 8, 1999
Arthur Weisberg, Concerto for Oboe, Bassoon, and Strings
[John DeMain, conductor; John Dee, oboe; Arthur Weisberg, bassoon]
Presented at the final concert of a conference of the International Double Reed Society in Madison.

September 23, 2000
John Stevens, Jubilare!
[Roland Johnson, conductor]
Commissioned to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the MSO.  Click here to read program notes.

October 18-19, 2003
Daniel Catán, Suite from "Florencia en al Amazonas"
[John DeMain, conductor]
Commissioned for the MSO - orchestral suite from Catán's successful 1996 opera.  Click here to read program notes.

March 27-28, 2004
Ned Rorem, Mallet Concerto
[John DeMain, conductor;  Evelyn Glennie, percussion]
Joint commission by the MSO and the EOS Orchestra (New York) for performances by Ms. Glennie.  Click here to read program notes.

September 24-25, 2004
Taras Nahirniak, Night Dances
[John DeMain, conductor;  Madison Ballet]
Commissioned by the Madison Ballet, for performance during the gala concerts for the opening of Overture Hall.