Jay Harvey Upstage

There's not much you can do to lower Shakespeare's monumental stature, despite the pedestal-toppling  efforts of some great figures in Western literature (Voltaire, Shaw, and Tolstoy among them). Even if you produce such a weak work as "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," there's just enough merit in the text — and foreshadowings of greatness — that a whiz-bang theatrical presentation can lift it. That's what Indiana Repertory Theatre accomplishes in its season-opening production. But lift it to what? the question arises. Certainly not to the level of the mature comedies. Even the early Roman comedy rewrite, "The Comedy of Errors," is more fun on the page,  besides being theatrically irresistible, given its tangles of mistaken identity. IRT just finished its second weekend presenting "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," and the show's entertainment value is immense, far beyond what the material suggests. It looks and sounds great, staged with IR

The unusual scheduling of September's last weekend for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra presumably helped swell the crowd for Saturday's concert in the Hilbert Circle Theatre. It was the only performance of the full program in its home: Thursday morning's curtain-raiser omitted Beethoven's "Coriolan" Overture, and the full program will be repeated only once. Lucky folks Sunday afternoon at Avon High School, if that concert in the ISO's new "317 Series" goes as well as this one did! It was a treat finally to hear Shai Wosner in concert. Among the deprivations of the shortened season in 2012-13 was the cancelllation of Wosner's ISO debut almost exactly two years ago, the victim of the lockout of musicians during contentious contract negotiations. He's on hand this weekend to play Mozart's Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466. From the first solo entrance in the first movement, you could witness a portrait of true concerto partne

"Every community gets the culture it deserves" was a wise saying that used to get heads nodding in agreement when I was active in the Music Critics Association long ago. It's an appropriation of an old quotation about government. Applied to culture, and specifically classical music, it seems to answer complaints about the lack of appreciation that musical organizations often feel they get in metropolitan areas that can't accurately plead poverty. By that standard, Indianapolis must be pretty deserving these days, except for the questionable prospects of professional opera here. Kelly Corcoran has an IU master's degree. That was brought home to me Friday night as I enjoyed an excellent season-opening concert by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, which is deciding among three finalists this season who should be its next music director. At the 2014-15 season debut in Butler University's Schrott Center, it got good results with Kelly Corcoran on the pod

Just as Oscar Wilde described "The Importance of Being Earnest" as "a serious play for trivial people"* Michael McKeever 's "Clark Gable Slept Here" might be said to be a heartless play for people with heart. The heartlessness is amusing, but we are clearly intended to root for values nearly everybody once thought of as enduring. The play's main trouble (it struck me at Thursday's performance at the Phoenix Theatre )  is to plead with us that it has a heart, while the bent of the story line and most of the humor declare otherwise. The Art Deco sun also rises, casting light on Hollywood shadows. "Clark Gable Slept Here" cajoles us into clinging to the sort of moral standard Hollywood's movies used to foster, despite the unreliability of what anyone might say. The milieu that has generated those standards for a century tends to regard any hard fact as a mere plot device and any story only as solid as its effectiveness, not i

Everyone who headed into the Scottish Rite Cathedral Sunday afternoon knew the major results already. The six finalists had been placed in order after their final International Violin Competition of Indianapolis performances Saturday night, and announced about an hour after the concert ended. The purpose was not only to celebrate their achievement, but also to distribute further prizes recognizing excellence in specific performances over the competition's 17-day course. Moreover, there were lots of plaudits to be distributed, mainly by executive director Glen Kwok, to myriad volunteers and a few short-term hires that enabled the three-person full-time staff to bring off the quadrennial competition. Jury president Jaime Laredo saluted the participants, who he said (with slight hyperbole) came "from every corner of the earth," with the admission: "You really made it impossible for us." Nonetheless, the well-established judging procedure, which enjoins jurors n

The moment everyone has been waiting for: the announcement of the awards in the 16-day competition. Names and award titles are followed by age, country, and cash prizes: 2014 IVCI gold medalist Jinjoo Cho Jinjoo Cho , gold medalist, 26, South Korea; $30,000 Tessa Lark , silver medalist, 25, United States; $15,000. (She is the highest-ranking American in nine competitions since Ida Kavafian won the silver medal in 1982, the IVCI's first year.) Ji Young Lim , bronze medalist, 19, South Korea; $10,000 Dami Kim , fourth-place laureate, 25, South Korea, $7,000 Yoo Jin Jang , fiftth-place laureate, 23, South Korea, $6,000 Ji Yoon Lee , sixth-place laureate, 22, South Korea, $5,000  [The following review of Saturday's concert was written before I knew the competition results] The second night  of romantic/modern concerto finals at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis presented three young South Korean women to a large, enthusiastic audience at H

A major figure in post-bop trumpet- and flugelhorn-playing, Tom Harrell appeared with his quartet at the culminating point of Indy Jazz Fest Friday night. He proved to be well worth waiting for. Tom Harrell, 68, has made his mark on jazz since the '80s. Well-known through several decades for his artistic triumph over day-to-day struggles with incurable schizophrenia, Harrell presents a startling figure on the bandstand — standing stock-still when he's not playing and never lifting his eyes. Not a word issued from him except counting off the tempo to start a program of mostly originals until he introduced the band by name and instrument at the end of his second set. The band consisted of three excellent players, all prominently displayed during the set: Luis Perdomo, keyboards; Ugonna Okegwo, bass, and Johnathan Blake, drums. Though Harrell brought both trumpet and flugelhorn onstage, he stuck to the latter instrument through seven tunes. The last of them, the standard &

With criticism of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis coming from a prominent blogging voice abroad, who then got terse support from former jury member Aaron Rosand , the judging for the finals has been changed. Glen Kwok Executive director Glen Kwok early Saturday morning issued a statement announcing the change: Juror Miriam Fried has been requested to recuse herself from voting in the two stages of finals because half the finalists are or have been her students. Fried, formerly on the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, now teaches at the New England Conservatory. Competition rules already prohibit judges from evaluating their own students, past or present, but allow them to score performances by other participants. The new change essentially reduces the size of the jury from nine to eight for the final stage, which began Wednesday and concludes tonight. In his  statement, Kwok cited the competition's historic commitment to in

The first set by the Grace Kelly Quintet in its Indianapolis debut was spectacular, but after a brief intermission, the group leaned heavily on the rapport it had unmistakably built up at Apparatus , 1401 N. Meridian St. The Indy Jazz Fest made a shrewd move toward the youth market by booking this prodigious musician. Grace Kelly and her music show signs of future stardom. The 22-year-old musician who leads the ensemble was quick to connect with the audience both musically and in remarks from the stage. She's a charmer, no doubt about it. In a program composed largely of originals, Kelly leaned heavily on her vocals. She's got a distinctive voice, I believe, though I'm not an authority on current pop vocalism. Her style is compounded of singer-songwriter intimacy, some pop-diva belting and a country-music heartbreak earnestness that pulls a few tricks off the yodeling shelf. On the alto sax, she has drawn upon the r&b heartiness of Hank Crawford and David Sa

By intermission Wednesday, any fears of a certain sameness to the first night of Classical Concerto Finals had been banished. There was no need to worry about sitting through three performances of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219, based on the first two. By the end of the concert, the audience in Lilly Performance Hall at the University of Indianapolis' DeHaan Fine Arts Center had received three distinct perspectives on the work from Tessa Lark, Jinjoo Cho, and Ji Yoon Lee, accompanied by the East Coast Chamber Orchestra. Participants in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis had the choice of five Mozart concertos, the last four of them written in 1775, and Joseph Haydn's C major concerto. As often happens, certain selections dominate in each of the repertoire categories. This year, that means that among the finalists, four chose K. 219, sometimes called "the Turkish," and two of them prepared the Mozart D major, K. 218. Tessa

With the dust settling from the initial whirlwind of the Ninth Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Tuesday's concert at Butler University's Schrott Center offered more than a few lung-filling breaths of fresh air. A showcase concert by the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, making its Indianapolis debut, whetted the appetite for hearing it in accompaniment duties during two evenings of Mozart concertos, starting tonight at the University of Indianapolis. On Tuesday, the 16-piece conductorless ensemble offered two works on its own: Grieg's Holberg Suite and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. Both are among the great 19th-century works for string orchestra, and the way they were played in this concert seemed entirely fresh and remarkably detailed. The vigor and unity of ECCO in the Praeludium gave a foretaste of the precision evident under particularly demanding circumstances in the concluding Rigaudon. With its episodic nature comprising abrup

Moving cautiously onto the Lilly Performance Hall stage as he recuperates from recent back surgery, Raymond Leppard basked in the warm applause from a full house gathered for the opening of the concert season at the University of Indianapolis. The esteem in which he is held here almost guarantees an enthusiastic reception for anything he adds to the city's musical life at age 87. Raymond Leppard The conductor laureate of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, fulfilling his artist-in-residence duties at UIndy most conspicuously with this appearance, led a professional orchestra made up largely of faculty and ISO members, University of Indianapolis choral ensembles, and vocal and instrumental soloists at the DeHaan Fine Arts Center. The program played to his strengths in 18th-century music and the conservative British tradition.The string-orchestra version of Holst's "St. Paul's Suite" opened the program in a tidy performance. The second-movement ostinato tha

 Once again, I present the names of the six finalists (just announced) without revising my final report: Tessa Lark Jinjoo Cho Ji Yoon Lee Ji Young Lim Yoo Jin Jang Dami Kim The last two afternoon sessions of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis' semifinal round shed further light on the richness of the commissioned piece, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's "Fantasy for Solo Violin." The four recitals I heard Sunday and Monday also shed light on participants' personalities and technical aplomb in standard repertoire, of course. But what's become clearest at this point is that the level is so high individual listeners are freer than ever to decide which participants "speak to them" through their  performances. It became a matter of personal appeal as I listened to Ji Young Lim and Kristi Gjezi on Sunday and Suyeon Kang and Ji-Won Song on Monday. And I found I liked most everything that Kang did — it spoke to me. In the Zwili

During Steve Turre's first appearance with his band at the Jazz Kitchen in the 1990s, the audience included a distinguished guest: J.J. Johnson, father-figure to all modern jazz trombonists and an Indianapolis native son who returned home late in life. Shortly before his retirement, Johnson had brought his band into the club, owner David Allee reminded a large audience Sunday evening at the Indiana Landmarks Center, and sold out three nights running. Allee still remembers it as a highlight in the 20-year history of the Jazz Kitchen that helped set its direction. Steve Turre listens, Javon Jackson solos with the rhythm section. Turre was also on hand at Johnson's memorial service here in 2001. The bond between the two musicians clearly went beyond routine professional respect. So Turre came back to town for a centerpiece Indy Jazz Fest concert specifically focused on the Johnson legacy. All the music came from Johnson's pen. And a trombonist full of pep and stami

The family of siblings known for their unprecedented acceptance into Juilliard has built that student prominence into a career that offers five attractive young pianists capable of a simultaneous musical attack — a benign semi-automatic weapon in the culture wars. The 5 Browns went to Juilliard, then things got even better. Ryan, Melody, Gregory, Deondra, and Desirae Brown opened the classical season at the Palladium Saturday night. Their bouncy charm won over a large audience. In the course of a two-hour program, they were arranged in different configurations at the five Steinway grands, so everyone got a look at every one of them. Three solos and a duet (Lutoslawski's Variations on a Theme of Paganini) relieved the focus on the sonorous simultaneity of the five. If this program is typical, the 5 Browns  specialize in music that is certain to make a virtue of dense, busy textures and lots of flashy activity. From the solos on up, an abundance of deft fingerwork was on

 "I had my fiddle under my chin the whole time I was writing the piece," Ellen Taaffe Zwilich told a Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, commissioned composer roomful of composition students at Butler University Thursday afternoon. The composer of "Fantasy for Solo Violin," the commissioned work in the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis , added she was looking forward to the rare opportunity to get 16 world premieres within four days. Having begun her professional career in the 1960s as a violinist, Zwilich the composer has often spotlighted violins in her work, but never before as exclusively as in this one-movement unaccompanied piece. The four performances of "Fantasy" that I heard Friday and Saturday to a considerable extent said something about the musical personalities of Nancy Zhou, Yu-Chien Tsang, Jinjoo Cho, and Stephen Waarts. But they may have just spoken to young artists' interpretation of a piece with no performance tradition

Claire Daly brought her hearty sound on baritone sax to Indianapolis for the first time Friday night, presenting a program largely devoted to Thelonious Monk. The venerated composer-pianist (1917-1982) left behind a body of challenging work — easy to enjoy, hard to play. Formidable instrument (left) and Claire Daly The New York-based quartet Daly travels with is the one that recorded "Baritone Monk" (NCB Jazz). In two sets at the Jazz Kitchen, the band sounded thoroughly imbued with the Monk aesthetic. The humor, assertiveness and occasional tenderness characteristic of Monk had been thoroughly absorbed, and given a fresh direction. That didn't mean unimaginative idolatry, however. Monk has his imitators, but pianist Steve Hudson sported a style all his own. It's compounded of chains of close-order chordal marching interspersed with long, single-note runs to either end of the keyboard, plus cryptic phrases and swinging pauses that evoke the master's quirki

You can dependably bring a diverse crowd of jazz-lovers together with a well-chosen program of classic tunes based in hard bop and reaching into the fusion styles of the 1970s. And that's the kind of approach you need when you're seeking to attract a busy September public to the annual Indy Jazz Fest. Masterly guitarist Bill Lancton was also a genial emcee. Accordingly, Bill Lancton and colleagues took care of business Thursday night in the DeHaan Fine Arts Center at the University of Indianapolis. The guitarist led the Indy Jazz Fest Band in nine tunes of the jazz-party sort, and his own first-class professionalism was upheld by his six sidemen. They were Allen  'Turk" Burke, piano and organ; Rich Dole, trombone; Tom Clark, saxophones and flute; Mark Buselli, trumpet and congas; Scott Pazera, bass, and Vince Jackson, drums. Hits from the 1960s and 1970s were on the menu. Solos were typically crowd-pleasing sojourns unfolding from a few understated phrases