Jay Harvey Upstage

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...

The Cook Theater at Indiana Landmarks Center made a welcome home for a visit Tuesday night by the Caswell Sisters, fronting a five-piece group with a rhythm section their equal in rapport and panache. Sara and Rachel Caswell (photo by John Abbott) The International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and Indiana Landmarks Center jointly sponsored the annual "jazz cabaret" in the IVCI's stellar Laureate Series of concerts. Each sister has a style — Rachel as singer, Sara as violinist — that's straightforward but imbued with personality, not bland or cut from common cloth. It was particularly gratifying in Rachel's singing not to be confronted with a clutch of mannerisms too common among jazz vocalists. In two sets brimming with vitality, the quintet entertained a large crowd enjoying food and drink at a number of round tables in the acoustically hospitable room. The initial full-ensemble assault in the first number must have been dialed back, for the thic...

The abstract energy of J.S. Bach's instrumental compositions tends to suggest the cooperative life-force that keeps organisms going. When a master of contemporary dance turns toward the 18th-century Saxon master, something elemental in that energy can be translated into a myriad interactions, gestures and physical self-definition. In the second of two performances Saturday in the Tarkington at the Center for the Performing Arts,  Rioult Dance NY presented founder Pascal Rioult's "Views of the Fleeting World,"  "City"  and "Celestial Tides," accompanied by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. Rioult dancers performed  "Celestial Tides" at the Tarkington. The longest work occupied the first half. "Views of the Fleeting World" is set in nine movements, each using a string-orchestra setting of a Bach fugue.  It's a blend of natural imagery and its interpretation in terms of the human form —  singly, doubly and in compa...

The often-twinned stars of early 20th century French music are showcased in this weekend's Classical Series program — rare in that the I ndianapolis Symphony Orchestra plays three Debussy-Ravel concerts on successive days, concluding with a shortened Sunday afternoon performance in a "Student and Teacher Appreciation" outreach with discounted tickets. The revolutionary musical language of Claude Debussy and its classicizing successor in the output of Maurice Ravel are the focus of the program, with guest conductor Carlo Rizzi conducting works featuring the Indianapolis Children's Choir and two soprano soloists. ISO's "damozel": Isabel Bayrakdarian Debussy's foreground in late French romanticism shows amid firm signs of a burgeoning personal style in "La Damoiselle elue" (The Blessed Damozel), his 1894 cantata on a French translation of Dante Gabriel Rosetti's poem. The work brought to the Hilbert Circle Thearte stage two outsta...

There was everything from the raucous to the ethereal in Third Coast Percussion 's concert Thursday night at the Indianapolis Museum of Art — offering more bang for the Ensemble Music buck. With mallets aforethought: Third Coast Percussion played up a storm. The Chicago-based quartet, currently enjoying a residency at the University of Notre Dame, played three substantial works in the simpatico setting of the Tobias Theater, whose wide, high stage allowed the ensemble's sounds to flower throughout the hall. Lighting was complementary, particularly in the concluding piece, Augusta Read Thomas' "Resounding Earth," which was written last year for the ensemble. Three works were played by the versatile, dead-on-precise foursome of David Skidmore, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and Sean Connors. Thomas's celebration of bell sonorities occupied the second half, its four movements saturated with tintinnabulation, a cosmic and never darkening expansion of  E...

In honor of Third Coast Percussion 's appearance tonight in the Ensemble Music season at the IMA's Tobias Theater,   I've revived for the blog a piece I wrote for fun years ago, blending my interests in music and tennis. Arnold Schoenberg (left) after a mixed-doubles match Two of the composers on tonight's program are among those covered in this gently satirical flight of fancy: John Cage Said to prefer playing with the net down.  Willing, even eager, to take chances — a real scrambler. Sometimes a crowd-pleaser, despite a tendency to forget the rules, or devise his own. May follow a weak second serve to the net just to see what will happen.  His strokes look ungainly, though he is apt to return any ball hit in or out of court.  Also a canny doubles player. Has intense interest in racket vibration dampeners. Igor Stravinsky Never uses the same game plan twice. Thorough knowledge of the game allows him to turn any opponent's style to his advantage. Alwa...

To the Worshipful Company of Taven(idolat)ers: I respect your impulse to mourn the passing of John Tavener .  So, out of respect to musicians I admire who are currently honoring his memory,  I have been listening again to the tiny part of my CD collection devoted to his music. John Tavener (1944-2013) And I am coming up empty.  I find it nearly impossible to listen to a Tavener piece without my mind wandering.  An honest music-lover would admit to that happening from time to time even when hearing music one enjoys.  But the challenge of Tavener's compositions is to train your attention on his procedure and keep it there:  its non-developmental nature, its devotional import, its silences and stasis, its simple-minded phrasing.  I wonder how long such training takes, and whether it is worth it, and whether it has anything to do with music. Any worthwhile music asks the listener to meet the composer halfway. That's a cliche, and to say "halfway"...

Deeply rooted acquaintance with rising stars can pay off in ongoing collaborations that might not have happened if somebody hadn't gotten in on the ground floor. David Bowden continues to benefit from getting to know Di Wu shortly after she made her first splash in this hemisphere by winning the Hilton Head International Piano Competition in 2005. So the Chinese native's growing prominence internationally is apparently no obstacle to her re-engagement with the orchestras Bowden conducts, most recently the Carmel Symphony Orchestra, with which she appeared as guest artist for the third time Saturday night at the Palladium. She gave extra brilliance to both halves of the program, her fashion consciousness showing as well in striking dresses that suited each of the two composers she played. Before intermission she performed George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" Variations. The American songwriter's last concert piece expounds on the popularity of the tune that ha...

The resonant acoustics of Sweeney Chapel suited the program. Amid so much joyous music, it may sound a little perverse to say I was particularly excited to hear William Schuman's "Carols of Death" in a concert Friday night by Northminster Presbyterian Church's Chancel Choir and Chamber Ensemble. The environment of Sweeney Chapel at Christian Theological Seminary was ideal for most of the pieces John Wright programmed for his two choirs, and especially suitable for the well-knit lines and piercing harmonies of the Schuman work. The a cappella setting of poetry by Walt Whitman, imbued with the poet's mystical embrace of death, is oddly life-affirming in Schuman's vivid setting.  The harmonies posed for well-trained choral voices are assertive, keenly placed and given a momentum that adds up to a thrilling experience. It was a good test of the 11-voice Chamber Ensemble, which was fit for the challenge. Whitman's boldness of statement, even when expr...

James Galway played 3 solo encores after filling concert's first half in the spotlight The golden flute of James Galway brings more than musical riches to musicians he travels with, because it's a certainty the Irish Chamber Orchestra wouldn't have the kind of tour it's now on without a marquee soloist who's an Emerald Isle native to boot. Galway, his flutist wife Jeanne, and the Irish ensemble (conducted by JoAnn Falletta) drew a huge crowd to the Palladium Wednesday night. It's certain that Sir James' elfin humor is part of the atttraction, and there's undoubtedly plenty of shtick brought into play at this point to supplement his undeniable musical gifts. Galway, who turns 74 next month, is a showman with a twinkly personality, in addition to being a superlative flutist. Galway played with panache the character piece "In Ireland" by Hamilton Harty by way of introduction. Then he moved through Mozart, choosing the attractive but less...

Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) made some of the grandest, most detailed paintings of French romanticism, yet he often took up the cudgels for simplicity in art.  He deplored showy complexity and grandstanding. Eugene Delacroix, who knew what he liked. A devotee of music and a friend of Chopin in Paris of the 1840s, Delacroix in his fascinating journal casts scorn upon Berlioz and Meyerbeer, major figures in the French capital,  and holds up as exemplary the music of Mozart and (up to a point) Beethoven.  "The so-called geniuses of the present day are nothing but the ghosts of earlier writers, painters, and musicians," he wrote in 1855. "Full of affectations and absurdity, their bad taste matches their pretentiousness." Ronen Chamber Ensemble collaborated with the Faculty Artist series at the University of Indianapolis Monday night on a program called "From the Journal of Delacroix."  Musical selections, generally excerpted from longer works, came ...

Alexander Schimpf, a 32-year-old German pianist whose ascending career received a big boost with his victory in the 2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition, played a recital for the American Pianists Association Sunday afternoon, launching its "Grand Encounters" series in the Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall at Butler University. His program focused on composers central to his cultural homeland's legacy — Brahms, Schubert and Beethoven — with the refreshing exception of a world premiere: "Lepesben" (Strides), five marches for piano by Andras Hamary, a Hungarian composer born in 1950. Alexander Schimpf  opened "Grand  Encounters" Sunday. From the opening work, Schubert's Sonata in A minor, D. 784, Schimpf's special qualities were clear. He has the patience needed for Schubert, a feeling for the music's extenuated interior drama, its startling contrasts of tone and dynamics. His instinct for momentary silences was unfailingly apt....

The transition of Owl Studios to something other than a boutique jazz label is a slow process requiring, in the view of proprietors Kenny Phelps and Bill Mallers, its reinvention as a community resource with charitable appearances in culturally underserved neighborhoods. That is being wedded to artistic outreach to musical expressions on the edge of jazz and beyond, which seemed to be the point of the " Owl Music Group Showcase" Saturday night at the Indiana History Center. Steve Allee solos in "Dragonfly" Saturday night.The bassist is Jesse Wittman. As vocalist Pam Westbrook put it  with gusto in the opening number: "Jazz ain't nothin' but soul." If "soul" (that desirable, undefinable quality) is present, everything essential about jazz is there as well, according to this expansive view. So, restrictive definitions need not apply when it comes to the new orientation of the not-for-profit organization that Phelps and Mallers are...

Standing ovations have become all too automatic at the end of performances, and they are sometimes oddly brief. So it was a mark of special regard that the audience at Friday night's Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra concert was on its feet applauding Mario Venzago at both beginning and end. The sustained ovations rang the rafters of Hilbert Circle Theatre at a level seldom heard there, laced with whoops, whistles and cheering. Mario Venzago never seems to conduct a meaningless phrase. The ISO's sixth music director (2002-2009) is in town this weekend to conduct the ensemble for the first time since before negotiations on a new contract broke down, apparently as the result of the previous administration's refusal to respond to Venzago's proposals to extend his stay at the artistic helm of the 83-year-old orchestra. The program of music by Glazunov, Mahler and Schumann was capped by a private champagne party in  the Wood Room to unveil a new portrait of the 65-y...