New home of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, Madison WI (January 2024 construction site visit)

 

Photos by Retiring Guy

Wisconsin State Journal, 1/31/2024

Just a year ago, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras was split up on three sites: Percussion players rehearsed at McFarland High School, orchestra students practiced at Madison Country Day School, and still other young musicians had their lessons in a Fitchburg church. Gabby Kelly-Schultz with cello at WYSO Gabby Kelly-Schultz, 16, of Madison, warms-up with her cello as she prepares for rehearsal with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the largest rehearsal space at the new Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra building on East Washington Avenue. 

But in mid-January, all those students in this regional music education program came together under one roof, as the 57-year-old nonprofit opened the doors of its new WYSO Center for Music. The exterior of the $33 million, 40,085-square-foot building at 1118 E. Washington Ave. is shaped to resemble the curves of a cello; inside it is bright and bustling, filled with rooms made for music-making.

Rendering:  Madison Plan Commission

WYSO

7/26/2023 update starts here

Photos by Retiring Guy

3/20/2023 update starts here

Photos by Retiring Guy

2/19/2023 update starts here

Photos by Retiring Guy

7/14/2022 update starts here

The Avenue Club.  Gone.

Photos by Retiring Guy

3/2/2022 update starts here

The Avenue Club.  Now a nameless facade.

Photos by Retiring Guy's Digest

Wisconsin State Journal, 6/15/2021

Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras plans to build a $25 million, 40,000-square-foot music center on the 1100 block of East Washington Avenue, the site of the now-closed Avenue Club and Bubble Up Bar. 

The new WYSO Center for Music will be home to rehearsal space for the 500 young musicians, ages 5-18, who receive instrumental music training through the 55-year-old organization. 

Arts philanthropists Pleasant Rowland and Jerry Frautschi have pledged $18 million toward the project, which is expected to open by spring or fall 2023, said WYSO executive director Bridget Fraser.

Renderings of new home of WYSO 

found at Madison Plan Commission

Original 12/16/2020 post, "The Avenue Club holds lots of fond memories behind its temporarily closed doors", starts here.

Retiring Guy's first of many visits to this classic Madison restaurant took place in the early 1980s.  Before moving to Germany, his son worked here, mostly as a bartender, for 2 1/2 years.

 

Photos by Retiring Guy

Wisconsin State Journal

Johnny Delmonico’s and The Avenue Club temporarily closed as of Oct. 30, while Fresco, on the top floor of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, temporarily closed on Oct 9.

New York Times

We can start with the coronavirus itself, which might have been custom-engineered to inflict maximum damage in rooms where strangers talk animatedly in close proximity. (Note to the build-your-own-reality cult: That’s a figure of speech. It wasn’t engineered at all.) But the more we learn about it — including the results of a South Korean study showing that an infected person had passed the virus to somebody sitting more than six feet away after just 10 minutes of exposure — the more we understand that people are unusually vulnerable to infection when they are inside restaurants.

Related reading:
Doug Moe:  Great moments in Avenue Bar history.  (Wisconsin State Journal, 5/23/2011)