Jay Harvey Upstage

A concert program two years in the making, pandemic-delayed like so many things since March 2020, came to fruition this weekend:  "Quelle bénédiction!" I might say, unaccustomed as I am to speaking French. James Aikman has a long history with the ICO. What a blessing, indeed, to welcome James Aikman' s "ALARM!" into the slim repertory of concertos for four soloists and orchestra. The Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra commissioned the work from its composer-in-residence of several years' standing.  The PRISM Quartet, which leads the field of contemporary saxophone ensembles, received the work and handled its premiere expertly Saturday night at the  Schrott Center for the Arts . (For the performance, Otis Murphy of Indiana University replaced tenor saxophonist Matthew Levy.) ICO music director Matthew Kraemer fashioned an otherwise all-French program to honor the position of the saxophone in classical music, largely thanks to French composers' interest in ...

Drawn from the streets and plazas and pampas of peoples settled in the larger American neighborhood is plenty of music that salutes European forebears at a safe distance. In the 20th century, composers in the Western Hemisphere drew sustenance from how they applied their training to creating new music. But much of that new music found its wellsprings in popular and folk music. Canadian violinist James Ehnes looked southward. The musical hegemony of Europe, particularly the Austro-German heritage, continues in large part. Yet one way to avoid both the dead ends of modernism and pale continuation of the Romantic past was for them to explore what lay in their own backyards and appropriate it for concert music.  In the case of the young Darius Milhaud, he simply changed backyards to Brazil when he was young and impressionable and came up with "Le Boeuf sur le toit" after returning to his native France. One version of Milhaud's boisterous, lyrical evocation of Brazilian high t...

With a two-trombone front line, supplemented by guiding light Rob Dixon on tenor sax, J.J. Johnson was accorded a posthumous 98th-birthday celebration Saturday night at the Jazz Kitchen . Rob Dixon led; Freddie Mendoza and Ernest Stuart (bottom photo) embodied the legacy. The celebrated trombonist-arranger-bandleader died in his hometown, diminished by illness, in the winter of 2001.  In a long career that began here in the 1940s, he had long since birthed a new generation of jazz trombonists, of whom Freddie Mendoza and Ernest Stuart numbered themselves in remarks from the stage during the first set. A first-rate rhythm section contributed mightily to the tribute: pianist Steve Allee, bassist Nick Tucker, and drummer Chris Parker.  It was no surprise that the band stuck to Johnson originals.  He was a prolific composer, and I'd be surprised to learn Saturday's second set didn't consist entirely of his works as well. My first acquaintance with his excellence as both playe...

William Parker, Enrico Rava, Andrew Cyrille  A well-laid-out program of a trio's tribute to the avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor is also a showcase for spontaneous music-making by surefooted veteran artists. "2 Blues for Cecil" takes its understated title from just two of the tracks on the ten-track disc ( TUM Records Oy ). The compatible musicians are Enrico Rava, flugelhorn; William Parker, bass, and Andrew Cyrille, drums. Recorded last winter in Paris, the program is notable for its sturdy reliance on a minimalist texture that holds up because of the self-assurance with which each member of the trio contributes to the whole.  Rava, an Italian now 82 years old, is an inspiring example of the level of independence European jazz was able to assert starting in the 1970s with respect to advances in the American mainstream. Influenced by Miles Davis, the trumpeter-flugelhornist was poised to take to the outside the American master's much-lauded use of "space...

The striking layout of the program offered by the Balourdet Quartet and pianist Dominic Cheli for their Dominic Cheli and Balourdet Quartet concert January 20 had a clarifying, timely theme behind it. As announced by Cheli from the Carmel Palladium stage, what unified the center's Classical Series event was the working title of "Compassion and Inspiration." With the pandemic as everybody's backdrop, those words have taken on special resonance. When the Balourdet Quartet came on after the pianist's solo segment, violinist Justin DeFilippis added another magnetic note: Friendship. It's in the nature of most composers, even the most distinguished ones, to ground themselves in the music that came before them. Sometimes the linkage is personal. But even when it takes place at a distance, the abstract nature of music allows for feelings and forms to vibrate in new music to earlier emanations of the universal muse. Johannes Brahms, though a lifelong bachelor, had sig...

  Jun Märkl caught spectacle and nuance of Ravel masterpiece. As the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra struggles to figure out what kind of "new normal" it will have, a major focus is the search for a new music director.  Based on the evidence of his past success as a guest conductor, Jun Märkl has superior qualifications for the post of artistic adviser. The job title leaves open the question of how good his advice may be, but his rapport with the ISO after numerous appearances on the Hilbert Circle Theatre podium bodes well. CEO James Johnson, in a welcoming speech to Friday night's audience, noted that the Japanese-German maestro's return conducting engagement marks his performing debut in his transitional position. Märkl delivered magnificently in the program's second half, to be repeated at 5:30 this afternoon, with a scintillating performance of Maurice Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloé." The work was last performed here under the baton of the most rece...

"Sweet Sorrow": Justin Rainey, Emily Dyson Art can have so much resonance with current American anxieties, even when we turn to the arts to provide welcome distractions. Heard on the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the well-known prologue to  "Romeo and Juliet"  rang an eerie alarm. It reminds us that an old feud between the Capulets and the Montagues in long-ago Verona, Italy, presents a "new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."  Though focused on the tragic outcome of one couple's forbidden love, hanging over "Romeo and Juliet" is a story of the breakdown of community. That affair is central to Shakespeare's play, but the peril to civic tranquility is a strong theme. Those words were recited, along with the final couplet of the romantic tragedy,  on Thursday night as Dance Kaleidoscope opened "Star-Crossed Lovers," a program of two works based on the play, one of them a premiere. It was an...