Jay Harvey Upstage

Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre 's hallmark values of "louder, faster, funnier"  are well-suited to such an intricate farce, loaded with misunderstandings, door-slamming action and rapid-fire dialogue, as "Lend Me a Tenor." Max and Saunders (Eddie Curry) come up with a ridiculous idea. A comedy without songs (though there are crucial moments of operatic singing in this show) is unusual in a typical B&B schedule. That's evident once again as the season-launching Ken Ludwig play is the exception in a season of musicals . Still, "Lend Me a Tenor" plays to the durable dinner theater's signature strengths. My only concern is that the satisfying opening-night performance played to those strengths almost too much. It was an evening of slam dunks when a few graceful, nothing-but-net three-pointers would have been welcome. Darrin Murrell's direction was in the explicit B&B style from the opening scene, in which we see Maggie Saund...

"The similarity between time and space is limpid enough that we routinely use space to represent time in calendars, hourglasses and other time-keeping devices." -- Steven Pinker, "The Stuff of Thought" "I have always been fascinated by the antithetical temporal and spatial sense of our English 'before.' " — John Hollander , in a statement about his poem "Days of Autumn," which ends: "Here standing at the door / Of the year, staring both in and out, he knows / What lies before him is what has gone before." ( Best American Poetry 1992 , edited by Charles Simic) When I was a boy, "Onward, Christian Soldiers" had not yet fallen out of favor in mainline Protestant churches. Its militarism wasn't considered offensive, but inspiring. And I cherished the slight puzzlement I felt about the meaning of Sabine Baring-Gould's majestic recurring couplet, particularly on the mystery of its last word: Onward, Christian...

The association of Handel's "Messiah" with the Christmas season has more disadvantages than just historical inaccuracy.  It also encourages cuts like those made by guest conductor James Feddeck in the concert presented Dec. 21 at Clowes Hall, with a large chorus (the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir ) and a commensurate accompanying ensemble (the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra).  James Feddeck, 'Messiah' guest conductor Trimming the 1742 Lenten oratorio so that a presentation's overall length doesn't approach three hours is obviously tempting today, particularly if a laudable goal is acquainting new audiences with the work and keeping them interested. Only a snob would deplore substantial numbers of first-timers in a "Messiah" audience. For example, an elderly woman seated near me wondered aloud at intermission if the Hallelujah Chorus was coming up in the second half; if not, she was prepared to demand her money back. "That's what th...

As the father of two sons whose musical training included childhood participation in the Chicago Suzuki Institute, I'm somewhat acquainted with the impressive achievements of string instrumentalists emerging with formative training from "the Second City." Three young star-quality women, string players with Chicago roots, have recent recordings on Cedille Records , an excellent classical label based in their hometown. All of them indicate that the high standard of technical aplomb can be made special with a superior level of insight and feeling. Rachel Barton Pine Violinist Rachel Barton Pine is heard in solo works with orchestra by Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn, and enjoys the sympathetic partnership of the Goettingen Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christoph-Mathias Mueller (CDR 90000 144). As her notes in the booklet indicate, she is particularly eager to make a good case for the Schumann Violin Concerto in D minor. And with sympathetic assistance from ...

Near the start more than seven months ago of JayHarveyUpstage on blogspot.com, I dodged a full explanation of my "Leaving the Star," as I titled the post that has since attracted far more readers than any of the other 146 posts on this site. I sounded hopeful notes that frankly hid a little bit behind what I described as a "budding cliche": "It is what it is." I made a little fun of what I took to be a vogue expression — one that seems to imply guru-on-the-mountaintop wisdom, acceptance, "deal-with-it" practicality, and more than a little "whatever" shoulder-shrugging. Walter Lippmann, who had reason to say "It is what it is." Well, the other day I encountered anew one of the benefits of keeping fit in the word game by reading  the best prose from the recent to the distant past: a deeper acquaintance with how good writers have said things, how writing styles can reflect a personality and the age that birthed and shaped...

Michael Strauss, violist and series director Celebrate the elan of Dmitri Shostakovich in his music, something which the composer could never manage in his life, lacking personal elan and not prone to celebration. But that's what Michael Strauss' concert series at Congregation Shaarey Tefilla did Monday night, with two works by the most beleaguered great Russian composer of the 20th century. The nervous, diffident, unhealthy Shostakovich only rarely appears in his music, despite its deep streaks of anxiety, pathos and sardonic humor. All such emotions and defensive maneuvers, as expressed in his compositions, dependably indicate what he faced as the most conspicuous genius in Soviet musical life. The well-knit program opened with Lev Atovmian's representation of Shostakovich's salon-music side through themes the master composed over a 20-year period — a gathering titled Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano. The music has little in the way of Shostakovich's ...

Paraphrasing one of the evening's songs,  the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra was home at the Jazz Kitchen for Christmas — but fortunately not only in our dreams. The real thing, soon to celebrate 20 years under the co-leadership of Brent Wallarab and Mark Buselli, played two sets Sunday evening at the Northside jazz club, which also in 2014 will celebrate 20 years of taking care of business. Everett Greene enhanced BWJO Christmas show. The second set featured one new arrangement, Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride," with cameo solos by Randy Salman and Rob Dixon on tenor sax. Otherwise the program was drawn from the BWJO's 2006 Owl Studios CD, "Carol of the Bells."  Everything was arranged by the insightful, technically adept Wallarab, who emceed the program as well. As on that recording, the featured soloist was the durable vocalist Everett Greene.  Some rawness has crept into his resonant bass voice with age, but he's still the stylish gen...

It's not the season for "Messiah" that George Frideric Handel knew, but well before his death 18 years after he dashed off the oratorio in 24 days, the composer already had the satisfaction of knowing the work had become an institution in English musical life. Well-received even in America before the Revolution that separated the colonies from the composition's country of origin, "Messiah" quickly became institutionalized in musical life here as well. And its loyal American public is responsible for finding Christmastime more appropriate for its annual performance, though the 1742 premiere established the initial pattern of Eastertide presentation. So the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra entered the local "Messiah" lists once again Friday night, presenting the first of two performances this weekend at Tabernacle Presbyterian Church . Kirk Trevor, soon-to-retire music director of the ICO, led the performance, with Encore Vocal Arts supplemented b...

Whether your idea of a seasonal story involves Hanukkah, the Nativity narrative, or "A Visit From St. Nicholas,"  as the year nears its end you are never far from being reminded of your connection to beloved stories. The Ronen Chamber Ensemble got into that spirit in the second concert of its 30th season Tuesday evening with "'Once Upon a Time," featuring three contrasting compositions, all calling upon the storytelling imagination. The sources ranged from a Hans Christian Andersen adaptation to one composer's  recollections of boyhood to a third composer's purely abstract evocation of how fairy tales make us feel. David Bellman, clarinet The Indiana Landmarks Center's Grand Hall made a perfect setting for the concert, particularly in the festive nostalgia of Leos Janacek's "Mladi" (Youth),  a wind sextet that blossomed in  this setting. Co-founder and co-artistic director David Bellman, clarinet, was joined onstage by Rebecca A...

Alto saxophonist Rudresh Maranthappa makes creative use of his Indian heritage in jazz that owes nothing to the blues or the 32-bar song form. He's evolved a personal language that, in the band he brought to Indianapolis Saturday as well as in other contexts, is grounded in the reconciliation of vastly different musical traditions from East and West. Rudresh Maranthappa The twain meet, contrary to Rudyard Kipling. And the syncretism — to borrow a word from religion and philosophy indicating the fusion of opposing principles — is instantly engaging. Accompanied by a tight, energetic band consisting of guitarist David Fiuczynski, bassist Francois Moutin and drummer Jordan Perlson, Maranthappa planted his feet in front of the microphone at the Jazz Kitchen,  closed his eyes, and unleashed a torrent of controlled bellowing through his horn, keyed to patterns derived from the music of his ancestral homeland but fully tradition-free. Maranthappa's articulation was as amazin...

Even skeptics become broad-minded about miracles around Christmastime, especially when they are so attractively packaged as the one that climaxes Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors," which opened Friday night in an Indianapolis Opera production at the Basile Opera Center. The show, designed and directed by Joachim Schamberger, is in its second year at the company's relatively new performance home. Most of the 2012 cast has returned, but opening night featured a new boy soprano, Aiden Arnold, who made the role of Amahl his own, vocally and dramatically. (He will divide the six scheduled performances with last year's Amahl, Cody Lile; the run ends Dec. 15.) Apart from too much checking of the monitor during the first scene, Aiden seemed thoroughly immersed in putting across the plight of a crippled shepherd boy living with his widowed mother in poverty around  the time of the first Christmas. Framing this story is a modern-day counterpart of this...

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra 's partnership with the forward-looking artist-services organization and record label New Amsterdam will continue to bear fruit just after the turn of the year. Through New Amsterdam, ISO will present vocalist-composer Juliana Barwick and the sextet yMusic in concert at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 at Hilbert Circle Theatre. The orchestra does not play in this program. The ensemble yMusic cultivates new repertoire for rare combination. Barwick is a specialist in looped vocal compositions and has collaborated with Sigur Ros and children's choirs in Spain and Poland, among others. The six instrumentalists in yMusic (string trio, clarinet, flute, trumpet) have helped to generate new works from Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Ryan Lott (Son Lux) and other young  composers. Its debut album, "Beautiful Mechanical," has garnered favorable critical attention. I can certainly recommend further acquaintance with the sextet's music ba...

Several outstanding sketches and some well-staged borrowed songs combine to make "A Very Phoenix Xmas 8: Angels We Have Heard While High" a worthy extension of the Phoenix Theatre's traditional variety show. Chiefly a showcase for playlets by writers from around the country, "A Very Phoenix Xmas" is the company's annual staged gathering of stocking-stuffers, directed by Bryan Fonseca and hung by the chimney with lots of care from the production team. The set was a marvel, flexibly lit to suit each segment: Great, suspended ornament globes (one of which doubled as an image screen) were counterpointed against diagonal candy-cane lines and, to the rear, a giant beribboned gift box. Tom Horan's credit as curator speaks to what must have been much head-scratching work winnowing submissions to get the bits that would fit comfortably into the same show and make a modicum of sense in two acts. His glory is a behind-the-scenes matter, though: As contributor o...

So much has been done with large ensembles in jazz since the "big bands" faded (or yielded their books and styles to repertory orchestras) that the format has by now spread out into the broad plain of post-modernist modes of expression. Some of what's reflected along that wide horizon are mirage visions, but there are surely a few oases beckoning under the sun. Elements of the allure include a loosened notion of "swing," a kaleidoscopic reshuffling of the traditional reeds-trumpets-saxes "choir" division, and a stretching of structure, leaving the 32-bar song form and the blues behind while alluding to the sensibility of both. Tempo shifts, sometimes introducing a new theme, sometimes kicking the same theme into a higher gear, recall the legacy of Charles Mingus. Marty Ehrlich as an instrumentalist has had a fruitful career on the edge, abjuring the confines of "style," and his compositional gift has followed suit. I've often found h...

Jeremy Denk, who presents himself onstage in a charmingly offhand way — kind of an "anti-maestro," is nonetheless a pianist of almost alarming focus and intense engagement with whatever he's playing. He seems so secure coming at music from within that he easily jettisons a major concert artist's stereotypical need to impress audiences with his "ownership" of the repertoire at hand. I had heard him in concert just twice before catching a Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra program this past Thanksgiving weekend in St. Paul's well-designed Ordway Hall. As a recital partner with Joshua Bell, he gave immense stature to the violin-centered program I attended in Alice Tully Hall several years ago.  And in April 2011, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra brought him to the Hilbert Circle Theatre for a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467. Like many music-lovers, I have found his "Think Denk" blog worth a permanent place...

Among the guest conductors who can be counted on to get good things out of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is the Japanese-German maestro Jun Märkl . It happened again Friday night at the Hilbert Circle Theatre, particularly after intermission, when  Märkl led the ISO in Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 36.  There was something in the air in this performance, perhaps a tinge of regret from the stage that the musicians were playing the last classical program in their home hall until January.    Märkl worked wonders with the ISO and Beethoven. So they may have felt it was incumbent upon them to give all they had for a conductor they clearly respect and respond to. All right, so there were moments in the Scherzo and the finale when the violins could have been more together, and there was too much trumpet in the first movement's exposition. But let me hang out the "CLOSED" sign on the Quibble Department door for no...