Jay Harvey Upstage

Continuing the young tradition of working together once a year, the Indianapolis Ballet and the The iconic swans in this weekend's production of "Swan Lake" Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra joined forces for a production of a major work in Clowes Hall. This time it is "Swan Lake," which survives at the pinnacle of its art form, isolated in appearance and virtuosity from other works of its era and the source of the image of the tutu by which ballet is known to the masses.  Last year's ISO/IB "Romeo and Juliet," set for dance purposes by Sergei Prokofiev, has its own stature, but carries echoes of a well-known Shakespeare play familiar to many from stage and screen versions. Its enduring modern adaptation, "West Side Story," has become emblematic of the theme of tribal and family loyalty overmastering the urgency of romantic love. No magic guides that scenario, but in "Swan Lake," the supernatural is  a core element. Without  en...

We have seen productions of "The Glass Menagerie" in which Tom Wingfield as Tom regales his mother and sister with made-up tales of his dissolute ways character/narrator presents himself in the reflective manner of the Stage Manager in "Our Town." He looks back at familiar events and people in a sharing, confiding  mode. He knows everything. That can be effective, as long as the right sparks are struck in scenes where Tom is fully a character, embedded in the pain of a three-member family and desperate to escape that pain. Indiana Repertory Theatre 's current production, directed by James Still, goes in a fiercer direction. At  his first appearance, Felipe Carrasco makes Tom's declaration that "the play is memory" electrifying, bitter and insistent, far from a soft-spoken guide to what the audience is about to witness.  What happened long ago is still at issue for him, because Tom's memories themselves are still an unsettled issue. The audienc...

  The predecessor to the Jazz Kitchen was aptly named in the case of alto saxophonist Jim Snidero : The Place to Start was where he appeared with organist Brother Jack McDuff 43 years ago, he told the audience at his latest return visit Sunday night. Steve Allee, Peter Washington, Jim Snidero, and Jason Tiemann in action Sunday evening. It was indeed close to the start of his durable career, shortly after he established himself in New York. Being in McDuff's band vaulted him to familiarity among jazz fans when he was starting out. "I was 12," he added drolly. Now in his mid-60s, Snidero has had a number of illustrious associations over the years, and is well-represented in recordings. His latest, "Bird Feathers," lies behind his current tour, which takes him around the Midwest with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Jason Tiemann. Indianapolis stalwart pianist Steve Allee completed the group at the Jazz Kitchen stop. The tribute focus to Charlie "Bird...

Master of intricate but clarifying arrangements for big band, tenor saxophonist-composer   Sean Imboden ranges over a wide emotional and sonic landscape in "Communal Heart." Scheduled for release on April 26, the new recording is hard to summarize briefly, but two neighboring tracks in the middle can be described to give some idea of the music's expanse, and the outstanding quality of the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble (SILE).  Sean Imboden builds his band's fine book. "Certified Organic," whose title suggests both authenticity and unabashed virtue-signaling, moves quickly into attitude with trombone-section moans and edgy, repeated notes. Joel Tucker lays down a scorched-earth guitar solo, and with a key change, the kind of shift Imboden is fond of; John Raymond remains pesticide-free and nurturing in his trumpet solo, yielding finally to an ensemble climax that's lent extra energy by Cassius Goens' drums. Imboden steers clear of sentimentality in the ...

The venerated sixth music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra once gave a Baroque specialist Nicholas McGegan newspaper interview in which he casually labeled what he and the orchestra were up to as "entertainment." Raymond Leppard never hesitated speaking his mind publicly, but after reading that interview I asked him why he labeled the art of classical music a form of entertainment. He shrugged: "It was just to epater le bourgeois," he said, using a phrase connected with decadent art movements in the late 19th century that translates as "to shock the middle class." He knew he was striking a blow against stuffiness. To consider high art as designed to entertain is much more acceptable to me now than it used to be.  The evolutionary cognitive scientist Steven Pinker concluded that music had no adaptive purpose in human development and pungently described it as a treat developed for the purpose of pleasure: "auditory cheesecake." I...

In the cross-hairs of the #MeToo movement is the issue of academic integrity and the special status of higher education under withering 21st-century scrutiny. Peer education: Getting into the sensitive-guy thing. Though most recently the target has been the limits of free speech with respect to the Middle  East conflict, permissible talk slides over into questions of permissible action on American college campuses. That's where "Sensitive Guys" trains its sights.  With the deliberately abrasive casting of women and non-binary actors as college students identifying as men or women, MJ Kaufman's play opened this past weekend in a Theatre Unchained production at the IF Theatre , where it will continue through March 15. The comic potential of such a show is never hidden or obscured by the serious issues of personal identity and autonomy. The long one-act play may have you laughing ruefully at times, but that's because it's so stirring, especially on the matter of...

We can easily dismiss as a matter of coincidence the presence of two Russian masterworks on an Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra program introduced on the day the prospect of the United States becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin's Russia burst onto the scene. So much for world politics, I hope. It does seem unusual, however, that the ISO is returning to Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" in just under three years . Both times have featured female guest conductors, as the ISO joins a trend encouraged by pioneering maestra Marin Alsop. It's no longer rare to see a woman on the podium of a major symphony orchestra. In 2022, Ruth Reinhardt conducted "Scheherazade" here; this weekend it's Valentina Pelegg i, an Italian trained in Europe and now music director of the Richmond (Virginia) Symphony Orchestra .  Valentins Peleggi makes local debut this weekend. Both reconnect the ISO with Rimsky-Korsakov's tone poem inspired by the "Arabian Night...