Jay Harvey Upstage

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concluded its Indianapolis return visit on the Ensemble Music Society series with Grosse Fuge (op. 133), which was withdrawn as the op. 130 finale at the composer's publisher's request.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...