Since 1929, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has invited young musicians — middle school students (grades 6-8) and high school students (grades 9-12) — to participate in its Summer Music Clinic (SMC) program. There they can enjoy all forms of music and creativity for a week on the UW–Madison campus. This program is put on by the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies in partnership with the UW–Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
Since 2013, I’ve been hired to take candid photos of the students participating in the various activities offered by the SMC. During the third week of June I photograph middle school students. During the fourth week in June I photograph high school students. In 2020, of course, that activity hit the brick wall that is COVID. Earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from the new SMC director asking if I’d be interested in taking photos for them again. Of course I said yes.
After that long preamble, you’d think this post would show a lot of my images of student musicians. You will see some, but you can see many more on the UW-Madison Summer Music Clinic Facebook Page or Instagram Page. Instead, I thought I would describe and show a variety of the things I encounter while covering events in the haunting old Music Hall, the concrete fortress that is the Humanities Building, the well-menued Gordon Dining and Event Center, the students’ home-sweet-home that is the Ogg Residence Hall and the beautiful new Hamel Music Center, So please join me for …
A Day in the Life of the Summer Music Clinic
Walking on the Park Street pedestrian overpass in the morning, you’d almost think you were going to church. Music Hall sits at the foot of Bascom Hill with a clock tower that could be a steeple. When you enter, you’re confronted with stained glass windows, another church-like design element. This is quite an interesting old place. The UW started building it in 1878 because they needed a building where all 481 of its students could assemble. Appropriately enough, it was originally named Assembly Hall. Today it’s the home of University Opera and it also hosts a variety of solo and chamber performances. In June, Summer Music Clinic students occupy the stage.
In can be quite dark in Music Hall. Fortunately, I’ve photographed there often enough to have discovered all of the places where a person can trip. Sometimes I wander backstage where the windows are covered and it’s even darker. There I can sneak through the curtains at the back of the stage and photograph the students from a different vantage point. That view offers some nice backlighting. From a photographic point of view, the darkness of the concert hall is not a problem because the stage is very well lit. Lowering the ISO and raising the shutter speed is always nice.
Mouse over the small photos in galleries to see captions.
Click on any one to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the rest of the images.
Leaving Music Hall, you can walk back across the Park Street pedestrian overpass (or jaywalk across Park Street for a shorter, faster trip) to reach that homage to concrete, the Humanities Building. It was built in the sixties when I was a UW student. After more than 55 years the ceilings and windows still leak and the dark hallways are as confusing as ever. I first photographed this building in the days when I developed black-and-white film in a closet and made prints in a bathtub. So, I’ll start by showing a couple of those old pictures. By the way, that revolving door no longer revolves; it’s still there for appearances but there’s a new entrance to the Music Department.
If you happen to approach Humanities from the intersection of University and Park, you can see the red and white petunia “W” that’s planted there in the summer. Signs are posted on the building to help students find their way around. Classes range from large — bands, orchestras, choirs — to small — jazz, guitar, rock bands — and take place in concert halls and classrooms. Pianos, drums, risers and other necessary equipment are placed in relevant rooms. Walking down the hallways you catch snippets of sound from all of those groups!
When I first entered Humanities this year I was surprised to see that two display boxes showing old photos of School of Music classes are still in the main entry. Each box contains ten photos, one by Bryce Richter and nine by me. That’s not because my images are better than Bryce Richter’s, it’s because he’s a regular University photographer who visits many events around campus. My job has always been to document the daylights out of music classes and events.
There’s construction taking place all over campus this year. Some work is even being done on Humanities. COVID concerns are also still obvious. While moving around campus, I encountered many non-musical sights. I realize that garbage cans, Pepsi cans and signs may not be the most photogenic things, but they represent a place and a time so I often stop and capture those images as well.
Morning classes end at 12:05 PM and you could set your watch on that. Students start to stream out of the various classroom buildings, cross University Avenue, walk south on East Campus Mall and, after crossing Johnson Street, head for the Gordon Dining and Event Center. There they pile their instruments onto a row of shelves and make their way to the line leading them into the food court that offers a variety of meals. One day during each week I follow the students to Gordon and ask if I can take their photos having lunch. I do this later in the week so that they’ve had time to make friends and feel comfortable. They invariably say yes; sometimes they even come over and ask me to take their photos.
Afternoon classes don’t start until 1:20 PM, so they have a short break to do whatever it is that Middle School and High School students do in their free time. I’ll cover the afternoon in the next blog.
(Although most of the photographs in this blog are from SMC 2022, a few are from previous years.)