Jay Harvey Upstage

Born in 1685 a month apart in the same region of Germany, J.S. Bach and George Frideric Handel (to use Concert-concluding "Hallelujah!" The sopranos (left) are about to make their entry, joining the other three sections, on "And he shall reign forever and ever." the latter version of his name as a naturalized Briton) offer a wealth of biographical and musical contrasts. When substantial excerpts of their Christmas-related major works are presented in the same concert, the comparisons are especially piquant and rewarding. Matthew Kraemer conducted the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra 's "Classical Christmas" concert Saturday night at Indiana Landmarks Center . Four vocal soloists and a chorus of two dozen, prepared by Eric Schmidt, shed light on the manner and meaning of each composer's approach to the biblical Nativity story. Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" is actually a set of cantatas designed for Lutheran church performance from Christm...

Pavel Haas Quartet: multiple award-winner Identity politics and nationalism — so prominent recently in worldly matters — have left prominent monuments in the arts as well.  In music, some of this has to do with nationalities that tend to be overshadowed by forces of control, reputation, and the fight for freedom. Central Europe has been a focal point of such cultural and military conflicts for centuries.  The struggle for self-assertion, as well as preservation of their cultural roots, plays a large role in the lives and careers of two Czech composers played here Wednesday by the Pavel Haas Quartet,  a group of Czech musicians conspicuously honored in the outside world, chiefly via the UK's Gramophone magazine. The Ensemble Music Society presented the group at the Indiana History Center in a program that opened with some late-period Mozart, the String Quartet in B-flat major, K. 589. I was immediately impressed with the bold, almost hard-charging feeling the quartet showe...

  Unaccustomed as I am to weighing in on competition outcomes, I made clear in 2021 how much I liked Michael Davidman delivered on promise he showed in 2021. Michael Davidman's playing and expected great things from him in the crowded firmament of young classical pianists. Now after three years he's back to vie again for the top prize in the American Piano Awards . At the Indiana History Center Sunday afternoon he played his Premiere Series program. The format for all five 2025 finalists is one-half solo recital, one-half concerto performance with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra . In the chamber-music segment of the 2021 competition, Davidman enchanted me with the way he played the Cesar Franck piano quintet with the Dover String Quartet. The centerpiece of his recital yesterday was Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, another masterpiece conspicuously indebted to the composer's mastery of the church organ, specifically Paris' Sainte-Clotilde, where Franck serve...

Taylor Eigsti sat in with the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble. Building on  a reputation and a history that goes back to a muddy day eight years ago in Broad Ripple Park, the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble is on the verge of releasing its debut recording come spring.  Having gathered  $21,000 through a KickStarter campaign, the bandleader told a capacity audience Saturday night at the Jazz Kitchen that the 17-piece band will have a document of its achievement ready to supplement its successful live appearances featuring original music. The December 7 engagement had a special feature: guest pianist Taylor Eigsti,  a several-times Grammy nominee who's just returned from a tour of Europe with his trio. Eigsti has a flowing style with a gift for melodic improvisation, displayed especially in "Balcony," one of Imboden's original charts from 2016.  The bandleader took a well-articulated soprano-sax solo there, while most of his occasional solo turns were on tenor. Otherwise ...

We've long been accustomed to the commercialization of Christmas, which has been denounced from Kids hail top-hatted Frosty before the day heats up. pulpits so often that many of us could cobble together a suitable sermon on the topic as rapidly as AI might. Naturally, there's long been the spread of money to be made with the very imagery of the holiday, its meaning drummed into us by repetition. Through stage and screen and Coca-Cola ads, visions of merchandised sugarplums dance in our heads.  The latest production of "A Very Phoenix Xmas" packages the overload into "It's a Wonderful Die Hard Life Story Actually." It's seasonal carry-on baggage stuffed into the overhead compartment for the flight home. Expect some turbulence. Entertainment rituals rub shoulders with the religious kind. "The Christmas Story" in demonic TV repetition is the basis of one of "A Very Phoenix Xmas"s most haunting skits. As a culture, we have an obsess...

Steve Allee has shown his mettle in various contexts. It's surprised me a bit for 30 years now that I still enjoy "The Magic Hour," the CD that Steve Allee co-produced with Tom Borton in California. It may be the only music approaching "smooth jazz" that I've ever been attracted to repeatedly. I didn't know that as leader of the contemporary Magic Hour Band, the veteran pianist-composer was not all about re-creating that music with new personnel. What I heard Friday night at the Jazz Kitchen was a top-flight exhibition of jazz on the cusp between the mellow, plugged-in sounds of the old CD and the more aggressive contemporary acoustic mainstream that Allee has occupied with many other musicians. The second set allowed me to set aside my residual discomfort with smooth jazz while allowing some of its vibes to resonate. The extra keyboard sounds provided by Shawn McGowan provided a lot of that, in addition to the leader's having a small electronic key...

Charles Ives: Visionary Connecticut Yankee Opportunities to sample the music of Charles Ives in concert on his 150th birth anniversary have been rare in these parts. So I was immediately interested to learn the Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis had scheduled a performance of his Symphony No. 2 as centerpiece of a program excitedly titled "America! America! Music of Change!" Taking in a concert of Indianapolis' adult volunteer orchestra was itself rare for me, as I had not heard the Philharmonic since shortly after moving to Indianapolis 38 years ago, when the orchestra's home was Caleb Mills Hall at Shortridge Middle School . Sunday afternoon at the Pike Performing Arts Center, longtime music director Orcenith Smith paid Ives the honor that professional Hoosier musical organizations seem to have passed up this year.  The Second Symphony is the product of Ives' post-university formative years. He was building restively on the tutelage of the conservative Ya...

The woodwind principals of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra are among its current glories under the music directorship of Matthew Kraemer. Leonid Sirotkin shone in Vaughan Williams. On Saturday night, it was the turn of the Russian-American oboist Leonid Sirotkin to occupy the spotlight, soloing in the oboe concerto of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The orchestral repertoire is loaded with oboe solos, often vivid sketches of sorts. There has been ample opportunity to appreciate Sirotkin's  playing as ICO's first-chair player over several years. Thus, his expansive solo opportunity in this concerto conveyed a gentle irony, given the concert title of "Autumn Sketches," no doubt suggested by the work chosen to open the second half, Esquisse (Sketch), by the Swiss composer Frank Martin. This uniquely laid-out concerto — with movements labeled Rondo pastorale, Minuet and Musette, and Finale (Scherzo) — places the solo instrument against strings. Thus, the oboe is responsible ...

Hadelich's career launched here 18 years ago. Devotees of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis are used to hearing the six solo violin sonatas by Eugene Ysaye (1858-1931), the Belgian virtuoso and teacher of IVCI founder Josef Gingold , so what was bound to stand out in Augustin Hadelich's program Friday night at Indiana Landmarks Center was Ysaÿe's Op. 27, No. 3, "Ballade." What a standout it was! The 2006 competition gold medalist's performance provoked an instant standing ovation in the middle of his recital for the capacity audience. It was preordained that the inclusion of "Ballade" would generate an extraordinary reception. The well-defined progress of the piece, with its Romantic-inflected evocation of J.S. Bach, was so unified in concept that it seemed to mimic visual art. The impression of all-at-onceness, with which we take in paintings, made the fiendishly demanding coda less a virtuosic afterthought than an episode nece...

Young jazz musicians seeking composing and arranging exposure can usefully apply their skills to small Saxophonist-composer-arranger Harvey groups. Eight players on the bandstand or recording studio get multiple opportunities to display their skills. What the leader brings to the bandstand with his charts is transparently appreciable. The rapport among individuals requires a huge amount of shared focus. At the same time, good arrangements blend seamlessly with solo episodes, since the one-against-many dynamic tends to vanish. Stephen Philip Harvey is a saxophonist in his early 30s who heads a compatible group of eight associates mostly in his own compositions, working in front of a small audience through  https://www.radioartifact.com .  In Wayne Shorter's "Witch Hunt," which showcases the tight ensemble plus soloists Dan Bruce (guitar) and Reggie Watkins (trombone), the listener to this selection  from a Cincinnati gig gets initial acquaintance with Harvey's arrang...

Even though it originated as the instrumental introduction to a forgotten opera seria , the A barber of quality: Gabe Preisser as Figaro Overture to "The Barber of Seville" is likely Gioacchino Rossini's best-known instrumental composition (along with the Lone Ranger-boosted Overture to "William Tell").  It's perfect for its permanent position in the repertoire. It seems to lift up both the comedy and the intrigue that shapes the opera. Its stops and starts, its turns from mystery and tension to pure effervescence and back again, signal what's to come. Indianapolis Opera 's latest production, which concluded a weekend run Sunday afternoon at the Tarkington Theater, privileges the comedy, which is quite appropriate. But the intrigue, which is so characteristic of the playwright Beaumarchais who concocted both Figaro stories immortalized here and by Wolfgang Mozart (in "The Marriage of Figaro"), seems to tag along for the ride in this conce...

Mike Clark takes care of business here. He didn't announce the set list as promised, but star drummer Mike Clark  conveyed his vocal troubles hoarsely, so that is a readily acceptable excuse. The music was a top-drawer exhibition of his influential style, nonetheless. And the 78-year-old drummer was supported by three star-quality younger men: saxophonist Rob Dixon, organist Mike LeDonne, and guitarist Dave Stryker. I heard the first of two sets by this eminently compatible group Friday night at the Jazz Kitchen. I'm sorry to say just one tune was familiar to me, though the capacity audience recognized another with its applause after the first couple of phrases — part of the legacy of his time with Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters band of the 1970s. [Here's Wikipedia's concise summary:  The Headhunters band (with  Mike Clark  replacing Harvey Mason) worked with Hancock on a number of other albums, including  Thrust  (1974),  Man-Child  (1975), ...

When a long-established concert series can make a smooth transition and gradually personalize new artistic leadership, the prospect for continued success becomes brighter. "Celebrating Connections" is thus an apt title for one group's current season.  Alistair Howlett drew upon friendship for a new work.  The latest sign was the modest novelty that opened the second program of Ronen Chamber Ensemble' s season.  Alistair Howlett, one of Ronen's four artistic directors, reached back toward his roots in Australia and his friendship with a former orchestra colleague, a bassoonist-composer named Ben Hoadley. Howlett engineered the commissioning of  a piece for the artistic leadership, and so "Porch Music" received its first and second performances over the weekend. I heard the second of them, which opened a sparsely attended but well-received concert Monday evening at Indiana History Center. Howlett, playing alto flute, was joined by Jennifer Christen, oboe; ...

Sasha Kasman Laude performed with distinction. More than most young pianists vying for distinction along the competition path, Sasha Kasman Laude seems more explicit about juxtaposing her creative and interpretive sides. This was evident Sunday afternoon when the 29-year-old pianist, now on the faculty of Utah State University, showed her claim to coming out on top of the 2025 American Piano Awards. She made excerpted and even arranged scores ask to be accepted as core repertoire.  Her advocacy of Nicolai Medtner, which she traced  to a recital she gave at the age of 13, is no longer so much of an outlier as it must have appeared then. APA events have recently made that Russian composer more familiar here. Setting Joseph Haydn and Sergei Rachmaninoff side by side in the same recital was certainly arresting. And if, to launch a recital,  honoring J.S. Bach on the piano has long been conventional, her choice of an arrangement of the Largo from an organ sonata, followed by ...

  The title of this play may seem to trivialize a serious issue, considering decades of intense  division among Americans over it. But "Funny, Like an Abortion" turns out to strike deep into whether carrying a fetus to term is an obligation or a matter of choice.  Jade (Racbel Kelso) tries to calm Monroe (Alicia Ana Hernandez-Roulet). The "funny" part is the decision of one woman to make a game of a do-it-yourself approach, bringing in a close friend to the choice under the cover of staging a surprise birthday party for her. Rachel Bublitz' s "dark comedy in one scene" opened Friday evening at IF Theatre , co-produced by Theatre Unchained and American Lives Theatre.  It will continue through Nov. 23. The collaboration involves Megan Ann Jacobs and Chris Saunders as co-directors, with contributions threading both organizations throughout the realization of the show. Alicia Ana Hernandez-Roulet plays Monroe, a pregnant preschool teacher who feels force...

Barrymore ghost and TV star's Hollywood link pose conflict for him. My only visit to a traditional Broadway theater was in 1992, and it stands out not only for its uniqueness in my experience, but also for the buzz surrounding its star, Nicol Williamson. "I Hate Hamlet," by Paul Rudnick, featured the British actor as the ghost of the American matinee idol John Barrymore. Williamson, a kind of loose cannon on the order of Richard Burton, had a fondness for drink on a par with the character he played. The brilliance in the performance I saw was a blend of his offstage naughtiness and his uudoubted skill as an actor, folded into each other.  I was laughing so freely and so often that I was scolded by the man sitting in front of me. It seems that, thanks to the narrow space between the rows, my knees were vibrating his seat back each time I laughed. Thus, my enjoyment took on a physical form that intruded on my neighbor's experience.  I was chastened, but also figured, wi...