Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra launches a new era with IVCI medalist and the formal debut of only its third music director

-
The air of celebration was bright at the Schrott Center Sunday afternoon, despite the shadow over the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra concert due to the recent death of longtime hornist Kent Leslie, to whose memory the concert was dedicated.

ICO music director Matthew Kraemer
The celebratory air was immediately established as new music director Matthew Kraemer mounted the podium to lead the 31-year-old orchestra in Maurice Ravel's arrangement of Claude Debussy's "Danse (Tarantelle Styrienne)." It established the dance theme of the ICO's first concert of the 2015-16 season. In the second half, which a previous engagement didn't allow me to hear, the theme was reinforced by performances of Dvorakk's Czech Suite, op. 39, and Ligeti's "Concerto Romanesc" (Romanian Concerto).

The remainder of the first half — after the Debussy/Ravel had set the upbeat mood and showed off the ICO's nicely honed ensemble sound in the hall's fine acoustics — focused on the guest soloist, Tessa Lark. Lark won the silver medal at last year's International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, standing out not only for her captivating performances but also for being the only finalist not of South Korean origin or heritage.

Tessa Lark shoulders her prizewinning responsibilities well.
She had enchanted the near-capacity audience long before she shook off her concert slippers and played a barefoot encore — a brief, effervescent fiddle tune drawn upon her Kentucky roots — that had everybody smiling. When shod, she performed the Belgian composer Henri Vieuxtemps' Violin Concerto No. 5 in A minor, following it up with Beethoven's Romance No. 2 in F major.

The concerto features a demanding cadenza loaded with double stops that redeems the superficiality of much of the first-movement material. The slow movement is in the tender but not very deep-seated manner of the French tradition of lyricism. In the outer movements, the vigor and firm coordination of the orchestral tuttis buoyed up Lark's solo playing.

The Beethoven Romance displayed a soaring, more consistent, better founded lyricism of which Lark showed herself to be a master. The IVCI connection to Indianapolis continues to provide the area's orchestras with return appearances by excellent young concert artists. Lark's engagement to help launch the ICO season was an admirable continuation of that legacy. And Kraemer seems poised to extend the orchestra's own legacy of refined, emotionally involving performances.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Actors Theatre Indiana romps through a farce — unusually, without a founder in the cast

-
Image
"Don't you love farce?" runs a memorable rhetorical question in Stephen Sondheim's "Send In the Clowns." There's lots to watch on the screen for characters in "Unnecessary Farce." Desiree's bitter song points to the conditions that underlie farce: Misunderstandings, false assumptions, confused or deceptive identities, upsets, personal disasters. None of that is any fun when you're  living it. If relatively minor, the conditions of farce may seem risible shortly after the dust has settled. If more serious, they will be permanently unsettling. As a literary or dramatic genre, however, most people do indeed love farce. But, frankly, the whole bag may seem unnecessary —  and not just as part of the pun in the last line of Paul Slade Smith's "Unnecessary Farce."  Actors Theatre Indiana opened the show Wednesday night in the Studio Theater at the Center for the Performing Arts . The premise is a police sting operatio...
Read more

Indianapolis Opera presents 'A Little Night Music,' a sexy comedy of Scandinavian manners

-
Image
"Send In the Clowns" is a rarity among modern musical-theater hits in being selectively lifted from the show by singers who simply want to do it, even though Stephen Sondheim's most popular song is thoroughly nestled in, and essential to, "A Little Night Music." A production of the sometimes blithe, sometimes sentimental operetta by Indianapolis Opera runs through today at the Toby at Newfields . Predictably, "Send In the Clowns" went over superbly as delivered by the aging actress Desiree Armfeldt in the second act. The song can best be understood in context, despite the way it has been put across by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Renata Scotto. Desiree and Frederik refresh their bond.  Here it was beautifully set up by the orchestra, under the sensitive direction of Alfred Savia, and performed within an aura of Desiree's cherished memories and indelible regret by Heather Hertling Narducci. In the reprise, she was joined by Daniel Narducci (her hu...
Read more

DK's 'Divas A-New': What's past is prologue (so is what's present)

-
Image
  Ensemble exuberance in "Stories from the Corner Bar" Joshua Blake Carter's curtain speech gave Dance Kaleidoscope 's opening-night audience Thursday a concise, graceful indication of how the transition from his illustrious predecessor as artistic director, David Hochoy, is settling in. Before "Divas A-New" took the stage, the audience at Schrott Center for the Arts (a new venue for the company) got brief exposure to DK's educational wing as two student troupes performed. That was a charming showcase for what's been possible since DK moved into a new permanent rehearsal and educational home in 2020. The solidity of the professional company no longer had to pose questions as to whether its growing profile was anything more than a castle in the air.  Setting aside what the hyphen in the program title must mean (since "anew" would seem to convey the idea), it's clear the "divas" idea builds upon the popular focus in earlier pr...
Read more