Jay Harvey Upstage

A touch of modernism — self-consciousness about what a stage play is — helps redeem for today the topical tangle of Shakespeare's early comedy "Love's Labour's Lost." Indy Bard Fest negotiates the obscure aspects of a work that was probably intended for court performance, allowing for endless word play and larded with expressions that have disappeared from the mainstream. It's a style that would have baffled even the groundlings at Shakespeare's Globe. But reminders of the play's artificiality are relentless, and the implausible is no obstacle to making the action believable over the short term. Amateur archers:Rosaline and the Princess chat. Seen at the Cat Theatre Friday night near the end of its run, the production embraces the nonsensical premise on which the play is based — and everything that ensues from that: a royal whim to gather lusty, highly placed men around the monarch to abjure the company of women in favor of three years' worth of s...

Alex Norris plays the pandemic. Never being of the opinion that old ways of doing things need to remain set in the forms of their originators, I don't take what Alex Norris and his quintet do on "Fleet from the Heat" ( SteepleChase ) to be a retread of the Blue Note heydays of Art Blakey and Horace Silver. What use is genuine inspiration if the only result is to do something entirely different? The trumpeter-flugelhornist pays explicit tribute to those bandleaders and their styles in the booklet notes. Not that making his debt clear would excuse him if the music were lame. But "Fleet from the Heat" is fresh and avoids running merely in the well-worn tracks of his illustrious predecessors.  The main proof of this accomplishment is a suite straight out of the COVID crisis that won't seem to let go of us. "The Famous Original Pandemic Suite" in the middle of "Fleet from the Heat" comprises four pieces with distinct personalities. The entire ...

 Clown and sage, pixie and guru, loyal frontline Horatio to a thousand jazz Hamlets, the trombone has led a protean existence in the music's century-plus history. Those several personas — except the farfetched Shakespearean one — are suggested by veteran trombonist Ed Neumeister in his quizzically titled new CD, "What Have I Done?" ( MeisteroMusic ). The question resonates in common usage as an expression of regret and remorse, but also as a way of probing the mystery of our acts, particularly in creative fields. One answer to the question in this case is that Neumeister has given his quirks and splendid imaginings prismatic emphasis through his choice of sidemen. The disc displays pianist Gary Versace, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Tom Rainey as vital participants in the leader's self-portrait as a composer; it also gives everyone brief cameos tucked in between the eight major statements in the form of six  showcases titled "Pickled Ginger." That's j...

Cleopatra in a moment of tender devotion to Antony Trimming Shakespeare, a customary practice, works toward producing a playable reduction of the original, sensitive to modern attention spans and the wish to privilege dramatic flow above all. Casting may force the combination of some minor roles, the elimination of others.  It's also a way of putting a director's vision  of the play in the foreground. Ryan T. Shelton, who directed the Improbable Fiction Theater Company's production of "Antony and Cleopatra" for the 2021 I ndy Bard Fest, says in a program note that "the idea of romance" took precedence. Several performances remain in the schedule at the Cat Theatre in Carmel. It's hard to imagine a version of this unique tragedy that didn't privilege the romance between the title characters, but what becomes of secondary interest in this show is the political matter of Roman imperial security after the assassination of Julius Caesar. The triumvir...

The Harlem Quartet, with an assertive mission of expanding string-quartet repertoire and audiences, gave a bright, energetic sample of its work Wednesday night in a program divided between a romantic masterpiece and a group of new works by a guest pianist, brother of its first violinist. Aldo Lopez-Gavilan writes music of florid surfaces and emotional depths. The five pieces that he and his string-quartet colleagues played after intermission at the Ensemble Music Society concert fill wide canvases with color and rhythm. Often they elaborate on repeated figures, resembling jazz improvisation over a hypnotic riff. The pulsating energy of dance music is never far from the surface. Harlem Quartet with pianist Aldo Lopez-Gavilan (second from left) Lopez-Gavilan's music often makes pictorial points, suggesting scoring for movies running only in the composer's mind. Such was the impression given by the first of the set that the ensemble offered a near-capacity audience at the Glick In...

Notes of triumph without the kind of exaltation that came more easily to Beethoven than it does now still prevailed in Michael Schelle' s "Resilience," a three-movement concerto for the unusual duo combination of viola and cello in the solo roles. A Schelle-Beethoven polarity was bracingly established in the first half of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra 's return to the concert stage Saturday night at Butler University's Schrott Center. Butler's longtime composer-in-residence has engaged with Beethoven directly in his prolific career, most memorably in the 1995 solo piano piece "Hammerstein," both a send-up of and a salute to the creator of 32 immortal piano sonatas. There is a wealth of parody, pop-culture commentary of edginess and charm, and unbuttoned cleverness throughout Schelle's music. "Resilience" puts aside mere cleverness (which Schelle will probably never abandon, and would never consider "mere") to wax autobiog...

The second installment of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra 's thematic programming in its 2021-22 Classical Series takes audiences to Hungary this weekend. Kristof Barati played two pieces inspired by Gypsy music associated with Hungary. Of course the travel theme has to be interpreted liberally to take in music merely  inspired by that of the destination, as is the case with two violin showpieces featured on the program. And composers have always moved around from time to time: you have many instances like the masterwork that concludes "Greetings from Hungary." It's music which comes as much from wartime New York City, especially given how touching a story there is behind the creation of Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. The Hungarian master, one of a broad spectrum of European artists and intellectuals displaced by World War II and fleeing to the United States, was slowly dying and in need of artistic and personal validation in the country to which he had...