Jay Harvey Upstage

And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written "Man vs. Nature" in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take a step forward.     — "Marginalia," by Billy Collins I don't think I'm entitled to take that step, though a cursory examination of three books I used in Billy Collins: Chummy poet forced me to come to terms with my old marginal self. college courses didn't happen to turn up "Man vs. Nature." I left off my search after browsing the collections of Keats, Tennyson, and Whitman I once pored over as an English major at Kalamazoo College a half-century ago. I sensed  that "Man vs. Nature," if I ever wrote it on some page now inaccessible to me, would look almost brilliant compared to some of the marginalia I discovered, mostly in light pencil. In a half-hour today, I'd learned quite enough about my post-teen self, marginalia division, in addition to the fact that my penmanship was only

The cover of a new release of Gordon Getty compositions Gordon Getty is among the prolific senior composers of a conservative bent who have a steady inclination to make major statements. I find his belief in the social utility of concert music touching, and fortunately its apparent rootedness in his temperament and characteristic musical language usually saves his output from seeming too mission-driven. Some recently recorded examples are glowingly performed in "The Little Match Girl" (Pentatone) , whose title comes from the most substantial work, a setting for chorus and orchestra of Hans Christian Andersen's pathetic tale of an impoverished urban match seller and her desperate visions on a cold New Year's Eve. The Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra perform under the direction of Asher Fisch and Ulf Schirmer. The sound is radiant — close, but with room to blossom. I will take note of vocal soloists in two works I won't review fully here: tenor Nikolai Sc

Gentle People The gentle people seem to float Through life, dispensing gentle balm On turmoil others stir by rote, Their fingers tightening toward the palm. How do the gentle people feel As things ungentle strew their path, Dilute the acid of the real, Put up good wine from grapes of wrath? The public face is rent-to-own, The character is sealed at birth, Gentleness marrow in the bone Sir John Falstaff Of legatees who'll claim the earth. Where do the gentle go to tame The bile that rises in life's throb? When they're at home, and doff their fame, Do they curse peace, "that lousy job"? A rogue too dims his glaring light, Recharges, takes a deeper breath, As late, offstage, the roaring knight, Calmed by Dame Quickly, saluted death Across green fields. He'd time to mull it Amid conclusive groans and winces, Recalling when heart and tongue and gullet Were all congruent with a prince's. The Streetlights in Other Neigh

“Behold the Radiant Token”: An Agnostic Perspective on Incarnation and Revelation (lay sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis, Dec. 27, 2015) I invite you to imagine me as an 8-year-old boy, thrilled to accept my father’s invitation to lead the entire Sunday School in the hymn “When Morning Gilds the Skies.” He was minister of music at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and our family’s life was closely connected to church life there.   Trinity Luthernn Church as I remember it. “When Morning Gilds the Skies” was my absolutely favorite hymn, and, after giving me some elementary conducting instruction – raising my right arm on the upbeat that begins each verse, then moving into the conventional pattern for conducting in common time – he set me loose. I was thrilled. It went well. After all these years, I was surprised to note how little of the hymn I remembered – in fact nothing past the first three phrases: “When

Eric Nathan has a master's from Indiana University Finding musical means for rendering the apprehensiveness of modern life, Eric Nathan — on the evidence of "Multitude Solitude" ( Albany Records ) — is among the new American voices worth hearing in solo and chamber compositions. The title piece, "Multitude, Solitude," is a one-movement string quartet that explores the tension of being in crowds vs. being alone. In the course of a quarter-hour, this deeply urban score balances stasis and forward motion. Social buzz and solitude jostle in  assertive ensemble gestures and tiny lyrical phrases. It's all very controlled, and that's a good thing, since a piece of such a wide expressive range could easily seem scattered and directionless. The Momenta Quartet plays the work's premiere recording with elan, a quality it also brings to two other of the disc's seven compositions. "Four to One" has a more generalized restlessness, but is als

Mike Moreno gets everything right with "Lotus." There's a need for soft-spoken jazz that doesn't drift into the pallid legacy of Windham Hill records. It should be music that connects with the sort of listener who wants to pay attention to what's playing, rather than do something else while being soothed. This is what guitarist Mike Moreno has come up with on "Lotus" ( World Culture Music) , a set of nine works for quartet that manage to be ingratiating and stimulating at the same time. Moreno has confined himself to a few longtime associates and deliberately narrowed the expressive compass in his choice of Eric Harland, drums; Doug Weiss, bass, and Aaron Parks, piano and Rhodes synthesizer. Parks will be familiar to Indianapolis jazz fans as the 2001 Cole Porter Fellow of the American Pianists Association. Among his accomplishments since then, he was a Terence Blanchard sideman for several years, contributing much to the trumpeter's band t

Jolene Mentink Moffatt, John Goodson, and Bill Simmons before reading "The Subject Was Roses,." in which they were much more in focus than this photo. Coming up on its three-year anniversary, the Actors' Playground at Indy Reads Books takes place every third Monday as an outlet for professional actors' interest in plays they love. Getting words off the page and to at least the reading stage is the idea. When good actors are seated before you holding scripts (with someone to one side reading the stage directions) and using their mother wit to realize the drama, it's amazing how much the illusion of real theater can be created. That was quite the case with this reading by Jolene Mentink Moffatt, John Goodson, and Bill Simmons, the series co-founder and this month's play selector. His choice was Frank D. Gilroy's "The Subject Was Roses," a family drama set in post-World War II New York City. The Clearys are of modest middle-class status and

The data-breach kerfuffle on the Democratic side could help the sparks fly in tonight's obscurely scheduled televised debate, but Secretary Clinton, Senator Sanders et al. still have some distance to go to equal the sizzle that's been generated thus far on the Republican side. An anxious public will have to wait till next month for the GOP hopefuls to mix it up again, but Donald Trump is sure to find ways to keep the attention focused on him until then. The flamboyance and irritation factor in his candidacy is off the charts, prompting me to wonder what it would be like for him to have also followed my core career path as a newspaper critic of classical music. This nearly defunct specialty has a history of exhibiting flamboyance and causing irritation, so in some sense it's not difficult to imagine how The Donald might handle a concert reviewing assignment. By Donald J. Trump Tower Music Critic I've got Beethoven's Fifth all up here, and it's perfect.

Simin Ganatra and Sibbi Bernhardsson, violins; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Brandon Vamos, cello The benefit to American culture of the deplorable fact of European anti-Semitism is commonly acknowledged. The Holocaust was foreshadowed by pogroms and other depredations arising from historical mistrust and hatred of European Jewry. Among the reasons for immigration here, many were rooted in persecution, as they are today (if the political winds ever become favorable). One such period was the first decade of the 20th century, when fitful campaigns to harass Russian Jews produced exiles of the kind known best to Americans through the hit musical "Fiddler on the Roof." Such a threat forced the immigration to America of Leo Ornstein and his family in 1906 or 1907. The future composer-pianist-teacher lived a long life in his adopted homeland, dying in 2002 at the age of 108. In his youth a piano prodigy, Ornstein was known mainly as a concert artist into the 1920s, but graduall

It's fun to note how responsive social media is to remarks about language and usage. This morning I encountered in a couple of journalistic sources the phrase "stark contrast" within a mere hour. I then realized the phrase is frequently pressed into service in journalism — like noting ironies that aren't really ironic. So I posted on Facebook and Twitter a comment facetiously wondering how difficult it might be for journalists to give up yoking the two words together. (There are other kinds of contrasts, of course, but journalists seem partial to the stark kind.) The response to my remarks has been lively. That got me thinking of somewhat longer phrases that are hallowed by overuse. I was spurred by a particularly funny "Guy Noir" segment on the Dec. 5 "A Prairie Home Companion."  Garrison Keillor's world-weary detective was tutoring a fictional Wal-Mart heir on term papers for various university classes. What fate awaited too many bab

Image boldly proclaiming a pre-uptalk message Sometimes I hear a public radio interview with someone chosen for their knowledge of a particular subject, and it's a little unsettling when they exhibit a recent tendency to end declarative sentences as if they were questions.  The voice rises, and they go on to the next sentence or clause, concluding that one the same way. "Uptalk" makes the talker seem as if he or she is seeking approval as the discourse progresses. I'm sure you've heard this too? So, in this season when boldly assertive hymns and carols are belted out in churches and elsewhere, I wondered if it would reflect widespread skepticism about the Christmas message to recast such a beloved declaration as "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" in uptalk. Along the way, I thought other contemporary speech habits, including slang and in-vogue colloquialisms, would make suitable partners for uptalk. Stylistic consistency is important. (If you sing wh

Moving haltingly at age 88, Raymond Leppard, upon ascending the podium and lifting his baton, still elicits graceful music from the orchestra he guided here for 14 seasons. Raymond Leppard Music-lovers were able to take in this treat for the last time Saturday evening as Leppard conducted a Classical Christmas concert — that annual respite from Yuletide Celebration on the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra 's schedule. Since 1998, Leppard has kept the core repertoire alive in the minds, hearts and fingers of ISO musicians. Together, they have sustained the ISO's classical fan base through the run of the popular Yuletide Celebration (which accounted for the absence of many members and the presence of many replacements Saturday). For the finale at Butler University's Schrott Center for the Arts , Leppard chose repertoire that (he announced) was inclined to a more spiritual emphasis than some of the series' predecessors. After the limpid flute melodies of Gluck's

So statesmanlike of the former Vice President to distance himself from a candidate's proposal to bar Muslims from the US. Here's a version of the Jim-dandy thoughts that might be running through his head. Posted by Jay Harvey on Thursday, December 10, 2015 Dick Cheney to the Rescue The GOP’s next POTUS also gotta be controlled: Being just vice president soon gets old. So when the Donald says to keep all Muslims out, It makes me grow a conscience, it makes me wanna shout: Dick Cheney to the rescue — Go, Dick Cheney, go! And no one better tell me that I just don’t care: Let the good Muslims enter, kill the others over there. My heart’s in the right place, thanks to my surgeons: We’ll deprive the would-be martyrs of a hundred thousand virgins! [Chorus] Dick Cheney to the rescue, Dick Cheney to the rescue Dick Cheney to the rescue, Go, Dick Cheney, go! Our invasion of Iraq, when Saddam Hussein was hurtin’

Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn at work. Duke Ellington freely acknowledged the help he received from Billy Strayhorn. But the great bandleader had a genius for being the center of attention even while letting the public know how much he valued his closest associates, of whom the composer-arranger was the most crucial. Strayhorn (1915-1967) gave Ellington his theme song, "Take the 'A' Train," with which the University of Indianapolis Collaborative Jazz Orchestra opened a concert Monday night focusing mainly on the two men's recasting of Tchaikovsky's first "Nutcracker" Suite. Thus, a seasonal theme blended nicely with the centennial salute before a near-capacity crowd in UIndy's Ransburg Auditorium. Freddie Mendoza, the director of jazz studies, masterminded the celebration. As helpful as Ellington's professional adoption of him was to his creativity, Strayhorn had showed his gifts well before joining forces with Ellington. Suf