Jay Harvey Upstage

In a position both personally and historically to celebrate Sergei Rachmaninoff's 150th birth anniversary, Olga Kern delivered powerfully her own tribute to the Russian composer Sunday afternoon at Indiana Landmarks Center. American Pianists Association opened its season with a visit from the Russian-American pianist, who in 2001 became the first woman ever awarded the Gold Medal (shared with Stanislav Ioudenitch) in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition .  Olga Kern distinguished herself in competition and now has her own.  Putting a prominent stamp upon everything she played at Indiana Landmarks , including three encores, Kern could be summarized in her choice to give voice to "Sphinxes," a movement of Schumann's "Carnaval" that the authoritative voice of Clara Schumann recommended never be played.   Kern made maximum use of her strong command of the Steinway's bass to make a brief rumble of chords out of what the composer notated as three ...

After a customary and unsolicited compliment to Carmel's Palladium, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields chamber ensemble got down to business as it opened its current North American tour with Carl Nielsen's Serenata in vano . The Danish composer's playful quintet, composed in pre-war 1914 and reflecting the golden twilight of the romantic era, is scored for clarinet, bassoon, horn, double bass, and cello. It made an ingratiating start to Saturday's concert in the Center for the Performing Arts ' Classical Series. Hornist Stephen Stirling's droll introduction from the stage, including that praise for the hall, was also apt for the implied scenario it set behind the three-movement piece. The unusual instrumentation in particular allowed each instrumental voice to stand out and display the Palladium's fine acoustics for unamplified music. The strings and winds frolicked conversationally in the interplay of the finale, a movement that implied the vainly ser...

The issue of whether to segregate new music by dedicating concerts to it has been settled in favor of putting it shoulder to shoulder with acknowledged classics. That seems to reflect a "both-sides-now" marketing at the symphony-orchestra level, the perpetual mainstay of public presentation of classical music. Thus, there are Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra programs like this weekend's "Brahms and the Alexander Shelley was a welcoming host and advocate. American Spirit," which I heard Friday night and will be repeated this afternoon at Hilbert Circle Theatre. It is presided over with the useful attitude of salesmanship by guest conductor Alexander Shelley . Attendance seemed sparse, which might indicate that this sort of blended programming is no guarantee it will draw relatively better than conventional programming without a conspicuous mixture of old and new. Shelley, an affable communicator both in the Words on Music presentation and remarks from the podium...

 "Galore" is one of those odd adjectives that's always used postpositively, instead of in front of the noun it modifies (like "attorneys general," though some no longer consider "attorney generals" a mistake).  "Galore" is from the Irish and it means "abundant" and "plentiful," so let's concede that three quartets making up a full concert program are enough to justify the title "Quartets Galore." It opened the Ronen Chamber Ensemble 's 2023-24 season Monday night at the Indiana History Center. And, if you'll forgive the pun, I intend to post positive thoughts here about the performance I heard. Music-lovers who missed it ought to put a repeat of the program on their schedule: October 30 at Second Presbyterian Church. Gregory Martin talks about Schumann at "Quartets Galore."  In addition to pieces for four players by Schumann and Mozart, there's another quartet involved: Ronen now has fou...

 Bill Frisell  has had decades to confirm his status as an old soul with new wrinkles. The wrinkles are Bill Frisell put his signature on two bands here authentic marks of curiosity and achievement. In recorded repertoire, the range goes from Aaron Copland to Madonna. The electronic extensions have involved widening the jazz atmosphere, finding in overlays of sound and electronically triggered loops ways of not confining himself to what everyone associates with the label "jazz guitarist." The unconventional 72-year-old virtuoso appeared at the Palladium Saturday night with two bands, his own FIVE (a quintet including two each on acoustic bass and percussion) and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire' s trio Owl Song.  Akinmusire's band distributed solo opportunities generously among the three. It was bracing to get in touch with percussionist Herlin Riley since his early days with Wynton Marsalis. His virtuosity in this appearance was astonishing;  combinations of soun...

I took in my first ever trip through "Titus Andronicus" with more predispositions than I might like. Within the Shakespearean canon, I'm familiar with almost everything. But this early tragedy, famous as a gorefest and traditionally questioned as to the Bard's authorship, has been unknown to me, long resisted because of its low reputation. It was time to fill in that blank slate, so off I went Friday night to the premiere of this Indy Bard Fest production.  The two academic Shakespeare essayists I've often relied upon for guidance and insight — Harold Goddard and Harold Bloom — are virtually dismissive of the play, each in his own distinctive manner. My reading of the text chimes in with the consensus that the Shakespearean stamp is firm in the play's language. So Shakespeare-lovers are prone to wonder, shaking their heads: Why, Will? What's the point here? Sly dad Aaron cuddles his infant son. The degree of adaptation that Matt Anderson, director of the...

When those of us scolded for sedentary lifestyles get up and decide to do something about it, there's nothing like going outside and bringing a new horizon into view. No screen! The freshness of a previously unknown or generally ignored landscape, even surveyed with binoculars, lingers on unfamiliar objects and scenes, teasing us with distance, yet also welcoming our scrutiny. "New Horizon" is a predictable title for the first Dance Kaleidoscope program under the direction of Joshua Blake Carter. But as seen on opening night Thursday at Indiana Repertory Theatre, the show is stuffed with aspects of newness there's little chance of figuring out immediately. And that's stimulating. The comic Steven Wright said he was writing a story about a photographer who went crazy trying to get a close-up of the horizon. I will avoid pursuing such a close-up in words here, and I appreciate Wright's quirky wisdom.  We may well be entering a continuation of DK's excellence...

When I interviewed David Harrington before the Kronos Quartet 's first Indianapolis appearance in 1989, he laid out the multimedia vision of the ensemble he had founded 16 years before: "Over the years we've added different kinds of theatrical elements — from light shows to singing robots," he told me for the Indianapolis Star. "That will definitely continue." And so it has, with most of the expanse of a typically varied concert Wednesday night taken up by works with strong visual appeal, with a screen lowered into place and prerecorded spoken narrative. The host Ensemble Music Society changed venues with Butler University accommodating the move to the technically up-to-date Schrott Center for the Arts. Kronos has adhered to different styles of musical presentation for 50 years, always anchored in a quest for Kronos: Hank Dutt, John Sherba, David Harrington, Paul Wiancko new ways of connecting to its audiences. "We're looking for an evening of mus...

Distinguishing herself as a teenager in the 2018 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis , Risa Hokamura came back to the scene of that triumph Tuesday evening for a recital titled "Quintessential Paganini and Ysaye."  Risa Hokamura opened IVCI's Laureate Series. The Japanese violinist's performances of several pieces each by those two titans captured that quintessence. The program's bookends were a Fritz Kreisler arrangement of Paganini's "La campanella" and, to start with, Paganini's rare foray into composing for violin with piano accompaniment, "Cantabile." Otherwise, Hokamura's playing was boldly exposed unaccompanied by Melivia Raharjo , an IVCI Official Pianist. Now the 2018 Silver Medalist is a bachelor's-degree candidate at the Manhattan School of Music, but she is already well-established beyond the academic world. Appearing onstage at the Indiana History Center in a spectacular, glittering red dress, Hokamur...

My interest was piqued to make a rare visit to the Carmel Symphony Orchestra by the strength of the program and getting to experience it on the cusp of a transition.  Janna Hymes has just resigned the music directorship to accept a position in Sedona, Arizona, with that city's symphony orchestra, whose season opens a week from today .  On Saturday at the Palladium, the Carmel Symphony opened its season with a guest conductor on the program, a notable rarity. David Commanday , a widely experienced conductor-cellist based in Illinois, conducted the orchestra in music by Mozart, Beethoven, and the Korean-born composer Caroline Kyunga Ahn , a professor at Anderson University commissioned to write for the CSO. "Take Me Home Clouds, Take Me..." is the Carmel resident's musical response to an unsettling episode of "horrible airplane turbulence" on her return from a family vacation. The unusual style of the title, part of a series Ahn is composing, reflects the inco...

Back when I was a wee lad, almost beyond recoverable memory (though I was allowed to put those heavy early LPs on my parents' turntable by myself), just about the most exciting music I knew was a brief moment in Bedrich Smetana's "cycle of symphonic poems" titled Ma Vlast (My Country). The symphonic poem in question was of course "Vltava," the Czech composer's evocation of his homeland river that's best known by its German name, the Moldau. The moment was the episode where the river is depicted gaining rapidity and becoming a torrent as it flows (geographically, at the St. John Rapids). The crucial capping of that depiction is a repeated five-note piccolo phrase, riding the crest of the turmoil underneath. In the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's performance of "The Moldau" Friday night, that moment thrilled again, as I knew it would, and with the greater context it has long had for me in one of the symphonic repertoire's most capti...

  Aaron Diehl interprets Mary Lou Williams When he was on his way to winning the 2011 Cole Porter Fellowship from the American Pianists   Association, Aaron Diehl displayed his fresh absorption of the jazz-piano tradition. On Saturday night, he shared with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra one of the most consequential fruits of his labors, Mary Lou Williams' "Zodiac Suite." In addition to focusing on the styles of past African-American pianists, Diehl has been a particular advocate for the Georgia native's masterpiece, including the need to edit it to correct and clarify the orchestra parts. The 12-part composition follows the astrological year, with each section linked to at least one important musician in the composer's experience. The suite's second edition seemed to be in apple-pie order, judging from the compatibility of Diehl and his trio with the ICO, conducted by its music director, Matthew Kraemer. "Zodiac Suite" went over well with the n...