Jay Harvey Upstage

Mark O'Connor performs with his current group. One of the great things about jazz education at the university level is that accomplished musicians don't have to scramble to make a living. What's more, they have opportunities to share their artistry with the public while the academic gig formalizes their ability to pass what they know on to younger generations. Of course, they have to put extraordinary effort into making their side hustle pay, not just financially but for the boost it provides to the skills they have mastered as they teach.  Mark O'Connor, who directs jazz studies at the University of Indianapolis, is building a long-term reputation with his current quartet: Shawn McGowan, keyboards; Jesse Wittman, bass, and Richard "Sleepy" Floyd, drums. The ensemble presented a fine set of tunes associated with two post-bop saxophonists Tuesday night at the Jazz Kitchen. The open-hearted swinging styles of Stanley Turrentine and Eddie Harris were the focus ...

Cover of SILE's inaugural recording Sean Imboden's years of creative juices flowing into new works for big band (or large ensemble) displayed the harvest for the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble Saturday night at the Jazz Kitchen . Since I've already reviewed "Communal Heart" via download , I will comment sparingly here, mainly to note that Imboden keeps writing and bringing new music to this spectacular band. The bounty is likely to continue, newly evident at the CD release party April 26. The leader took a well-placed solo on tenor sax on "Flowing Currents," whose restless phrases coalesced into a satisfying whole.  T'hat's typical of Imboden compositions and arrangements that seem authentically "certified organic," to borrow the title of the piece with which SILE began the set. "Certified Organic" immediately showed the essential contributions of band members as soloists. Guitarist Joel Tucker and trumpeter Anson Banks injecte...

  A CEO of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra long ago  told me from his point of vantage that, when it comes to buying concert tickets,  Indianapolis responded more to repertoire than guest artists. Familiar composers did better business than soloists, no matter how well publicized. That seemed questionable to me, but I soon decided that the local public's preference must have referred mainly to Beethoven as a guaranteed draw. There's hardly anyone else in the pantheon who comes close to filling the hall for classical concerts.  How keen are Hoosiers on the marvels of the symphonic literature? The turnout for Friday's concert was astonishingly low, given that three acknowledged masterpieces made up the program: Debussy's Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun," Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 23 in A major, K.488, and "Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life) by Richard Strauss. Distinction of repertoire and big-name composers is hardly a magnet, one is ...

Ira Aldridge, subject to the theater world's scrutiny Gradually it's become clear that the most consequential kind of politics is identity politics, especially in the arts. Thinking about who strives to attain or hold on to power in the various arenas of life and how they wield it brings us more and more to the problem of how people choose to identify themselves and how they are identified by others. The discrepancy is huge. T'he arts may well be universal, but they have to address the universe through particular doors.  In Indianapolis theater recently, we've had two striking examples: "Gender Play" at the Phoenix Theatre, thanks to broad thinking by Indy Shakes, and — as of Thursday night — "Red Velvet" in a Southbank Theatre Company production in Butler University's Shelton Auditorium . Both plays muse considerably on the nature of theater itself as their protagonists project to the world their struggles.  In "Red Velvet," that ta...

Expressiveness reached a new level of boldness in Beethoven's late quartets, written when his hearing  was gone and only his internal sense of pitch and formal  relationships could guide what he set down on paper. The apex of this period at his creative height was the "Great Fugue" that was originally designed as the finale of the String Quartet in B-flat major, op. 130. On Wednesday night, the Juilliard String Quartet concluded its Indianapolis return visit on the Ensemble Music Society series with Grosse Fuge (op. 133), which was withdrawn as the op. 130 finale at the composer's publisher's request. The revised op. 130 opened the program. The substitute last movement is in keeping with the  adventurous but more compatible terrain of its first three movements.  The Basile Theater at the Indiana History Center was packed with patrons who also got to hear two contemporary pieces commenting on op. 130 through the 21st-century perspective of J ö rg Widmann , a Ge...

What might hem in an actor and put barriers not only on getting roles, but also on interpreting them with some expression of the actor's identity as part of the performance? Will Wilhelm, a Chicago actor being presented here by Indianapolis Shakespeare Company  through April 27, co-devised "Gender Play, or What You Will" to answer the question with a focus on  nonbinary assertion.  In more provocative terms, Wilhelm calls themself a "gender traitor." How is such an identity congruent with tendencies evident in the Shakespearean canon toward fluidity in sex/gender matters? "Gender Play" turns such a potentially academic investigation into a lavish party atmosphere Will Wilhelm is not willy-nilly. in the Phoenix Theatre' s black-box space. The Frank and Katrina Basile Theatre allows for vaporizing the "fourth wall," as Wilhelm gleefully pointed out in Friday night's performance. The actor's struggle to make a theater career while n...

The most upside-down scene in IRT's "The Play That Goes Wrong."   The connective tissue of "wrongs" in "The Play That Goes Wrong" is so sturdy that Indiana Repertory Theatre 's production is almost guaranteed to have any actual errors undetectable. Given the madcap helter-skelter of the farcical action, the only exception would be an  actor injury, which of course nobody wants to happen. IRT's imitation of thoroughgoing chaos is orderly and mirth-provoking at every turn.  Skirting real danger, the show presents a wealth of technical and thespian ineptitude, comprising missed cues, substitute portrayals, overacting, inept blocking, and pratfalls and physical perils that bring to mind the film heyday of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton from about a century ago. Some of them seem to involve potential danger, or at least unplanned errors that could interfere with the errors meant to happen. It's hardly a spoiler to say that in a climax of the pro...

Michael Davidman holds fellowship trophy as Chris Williams basks in 2025 APA's successful conclusion.  A feeling of "this is well-deserved" hit me immediately when Michael Davidman was declared the winner of the American Piano Awards Saturday night at Hilbert Circle Theatre. I lack familiarity with his performance at each stage since the five finalists in the classical piano competition were announced last year. But I brought to his appearance in the 2025 competition my favorable impression of his playing as a finalist in the 2021 APA. Now a student of Stanislav Ioudenitch at the Reina Sofia School of Music in Madrid, Spain, the 28-year-old New Yorker has a master's degree from Juilliard and a doctorate at Park University's International Center for Music. He accepted the Christel DeHaan Fellowship in Classical Piano at the end of two nights of finals from Chris Williams, APA's president and CEO. With APA career support, a debut recording, a four-week residency...

The dash and lyricism of Russian mastery dominates the repertoire choices in the concerto round of the 2025 American Piano Awards at Hilbert Circle Theatre. Guest conductor JoAnn Falletta seemed happy to be there.  Three of the five finalists played on opening night of the finals Friday, and the program was neatly divided between Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. Accompanied by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra under the direction of JoAnn Falletta, Angie Zhang, Elliot Wuu, and Michael Davidman displayed their fitness for  the last stage of an abundantly rewarded competition that has covered the whole 2024-25 musical season. Once Avery Gagliano and Sasha Kasman Laude have revealed their concerto interpretations this evening, the jury will announce the latest winner of the Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship. The prize has an estimated value of more than $200,000, including a debut recording, a recital tour, and career support. Long ago, a patron at the city's other major class...

Good teachers sometimes have a stock way of bringing errant pupils up short. For Michael Davidman , he  told a capacity audience at the  Jazz Kitchen  Wednesday night, when he ran athwart a particular teacher's expectations at a lesson, it ran like this: "You can always work in a piano bar." The finalist (for the seccond time) in the American Piano Awards was kidding about the venue, of course. Like his four colleagues, he seemed happy to be there playing short pieces from their repertoires as the 2025 competition approaches its conclusion this weekend.  Michael Davidman was also a 2021 finalist That applied even to Sasha Kasman Laude , the next-to-last pianist whose set was marred by tornado warnings on dozens of i-Phones, though she gamely finished her program of excerpts from Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet." Also inconvenienced by the prudent interruption of the concert was the final player, Angie Zhang , whose i-Pad was missing for a while before she brou...

 "Freddie Hubbard On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco" (Resonance Records) marks a significant addition to the Indianapolis jazz legacy, honoring the one eminent Hoosier player Freddie Hubbard in the time of his early glory who lost no time making a splash on the big scene as a young man. Freddie Hubbard had the confidence and ambition to forge a reputation in New York City in the first stage of his mastery. Within a few years of his ascent into early stardom, in 1967 he brought his group into a short-lived Bronx night spot for a dazzling set that will be made publicly available for the first time April 18 in a two-disc set (a three-LP Record Store Day release emerges April 12).  Of the triumvirate of internationally significant jazzmen from Indianapolis, trombonist J.J. Johnson was engaged with major traveling bands (chiefly Benny Carter) at first; guitarist Wes Montgomery put in lots of quality time on Indiana Avenue before he was famously discovered by the touring Cannon...