Jay Harvey Upstage

Mike Clark takes care of business here. He didn't announce the set list as promised, but star drummer Mike Clark  conveyed his vocal troubles hoarsely, so that is a readily acceptable excuse. The music was a top-drawer exhibition of his influential style, nonetheless. And the 78-year-old drummer was supported by three star-quality younger men: saxophonist Rob Dixon, organist Mike LeDonne, and guitarist Dave Stryker. I heard the first of two sets by this eminently compatible group Friday night at the Jazz Kitchen. I'm sorry to say just one tune was familiar to me, though the capacity audience recognized another with its applause after the first couple of phrases — part of the legacy of his time with Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters band of the 1970s. [Here's Wikipedia's concise summary:  The Headhunters band (with  Mike Clark  replacing Harvey Mason) worked with Hancock on a number of other albums, including  Thrust  (1974),  Man-Child  (1975), and  Flood  (1975), the

When a long-established concert series can make a smooth transition and gradually personalize new artistic leadership, the prospect for continued success becomes brighter. "Celebrating Connections" is thus an apt title for one group's current season.  Alistair Howlett drew upon friendship for a new work.  The latest sign was the modest novelty that opened the second program of Ronen Chamber Ensemble' s season.  Alistair Howlett, one of Ronen's four artistic directors, reached back toward his roots in Australia and his friendship with a former orchestra colleague, a bassoonist-composer named Ben Hoadley. Howlett engineered the commissioning of  a piece for the artistic leadership, and so "Porch Music" received its first and second performances over the weekend. I heard the second of them, which opened a sparsely attended but well-received concert Monday evening at Indiana History Center. Howlett, playing alto flute, was joined by Jennifer Christen, oboe;

Sasha Kasman Laude performed with distinction. More than most young pianists vying for distinction along the competition path, Sasha Kasman Laude seems more explicit about juxtaposing her creative and interpretive sides. This was evident Sunday afternoon when the 29-year-old pianist, now on the faculty of Utah State University, showed her claim to coming out on top of the 2025 American Piano Awards. She made excerpted and even arranged scores ask to be accepted as core repertoire.  Her advocacy of Nicolai Medtner, which she traced  to a recital she gave at the age of 13, is no longer so much of an outlier as it must have appeared then. APA events have recently made that Russian composer more familiar here. Setting Joseph Haydn and Sergei Rachmaninoff side by side in the same recital was certainly arresting. And if, to launch a recital,  honoring J.S. Bach on the piano has long been conventional, her choice of an arrangement of the Largo from an organ sonata, followed by a Bach-related

  The title of this play may seem to trivialize a serious issue, considering decades of intense  division among Americans over it. But "Funny, Like an Abortion" turns out to strike deep into whether carrying a fetus to term is an obligation or a matter of choice.  Jade (Racbek Jelso) tries to calm Monroe (Alicia Ana Hernandez-Roulet). The "funny" part is the decision of one woman to make a game of a do-it-yourself approach, bringing in a close friend to the choice under the cover of staging a surprise birthday party for her. Rachel Bublitz' s "dark comedy in one scene" opened Friday evening at IF Theatre , co-produced by Theatre Unchained and American Lives Theatre.  It will continue through Nov. 23. The collaboration involves Megan Ann Jacobs and Chris Saunders as co-directors, with contributions threading both organizations throughout the realization of the show. Alicia Ana Hernandez-Roulet plays Monroe, a pregnant preschool teacher who feels force

Barrymore ghost and TV star's Hollywood link pose conflict for him. My only visit to a traditional Broadway theater was in 1992, and it stands out not only for its uniqueness in my experience, but also for the buzz surrounding its star, Nicol Williamson. "I Hate Hamlet," by Paul Rudnick, featured the British actor as the ghost of the American matinee idol John Barrymore. Williamson, a kind of loose cannon on the order of Richard Burton, had a fondness for drink on a par with the character he played. The brilliance in the performance I saw was a blend of his offstage naughtiness and his uudoubted skill as an actor, folded into each other.  I was laughing so freely and so often that I was scolded by the man sitting in front of me. It seems that, thanks to the narrow space between the rows, my knees were vibrating his seat back each time I laughed. Thus, my enjoyment took on a physical form that intruded on my neighbor's experience.  I was chastened, but also figured, wi

Based in the UK, the Castalian just started a North American tour.  The string quartet as an expansive genre established itself from the start. In addition to its obvious attractions of intimacy, the new medium for two violins, viola, and cello benefited from Joseph Haydn's adventurous resourcefulness. The Austrian composer famously said that due to his remote position under aristocratic patronage, "I was forced to become original." What the Castalian String Quartet presented under Ensemble Music Society auspices Wednesday night privileged the mainstream and tucked into the middle a work commissioned from the contemporary British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. In all three works, the ensemble displayed a thorough command of delicacy, when needed, and a practiced attention to blended sound. Responsiveness to how the three composers apprehended their compositional tasks was honored in the quartet's interpretations.  The first movement of Haydn's String Quartet in G