Jay Harvey Upstage

The most surprising of major-composer interactions, judging from the contrast of their mature styles,  temperaments and the genres they practiced, may be  Ralph Vaughan Williams' study with Maurice Ravel in 1907-08. Those lessons in Paris seem to have spurred an advance in the English composer's forging of his mature style. The association amounts to a milestone in the long history of artistic interaction across the Channel between the ancient political and cultural foes. David Sadlier came from Texas to sing "On Wenlock Edge" One of Vaughan Williams' signature accomplishments in his immediate post-Ravel phase was the song cycle "On Wenlock Edge," an insightful setting of six poems by A.E. Housman from his milestone collection of gemlike lyrics, "A Shropshire Lad."  Completed in 1909, the piece was the crown jewel of Ronen Chamber Ensemble 's second concert of the 2025-26 season, titled "Across the English Channel," which will be ...

  Roland Barber plays big horn, and is big with the spoken word as well.  Of all the brassmen-bandleaders I've seen over the years at the Jazz Kitchen , I've never come across one so fond of talking as Roland Barber , who played last night fronting his current quintet  — almost putting the music to the side as illustration of what he had to say. No question that he engaged the capacity audience during the first set. He bantered with the crowd about how they viewed relations between the sexes as well as what moods they wanted the group's music to express. Everyone ate it up, right down to agreeing that the set had plenty of appeal to both jazz newbies and seasoned fans.  Tenor saxophonist Greg Tardy joined the trombonist in the front line, holding his own with his forceful tone and compact improvisational ideas. The rhythm section worked as a cohesive unit and distinguished itself in solos: Clay Perry, piano; Jack Aylor, bass; Joshua Cook, drums. Of the half-dozen tu...

Rebecca Tong leads an inspired ISO program. The European wars of the 20th century, with the rise of Nazism between them, fed immigration to the  United States, sometimes of distinguished artists glad to escape and re-establish their careers.  The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra this weekend concentrates on three of them, adding a young countrywoman of the guest conductor, Rebecca Tong of Indonesia.  All four can claim substantial parts of their lives in America: Eunike Tanzil is a 27-year-old resident of Los Angeles, the metropolis that earlier attracted Erich Korngold and Igor Stravinsky. The latter shares a Russian origin with Sergei Rachmaninoff, and both were already well-known before they settled here. Korngold, a native of Austria, was a wunderkind in his homeland until forced into exile by the Nazi ascent. Here he hit his stride in Hollywood as a major film composer. His Overture to "The Sea Hawk" opened Friday's concert. "The Sea Hawk" is an Errol Fl...

Long celebrated for its blend of history with contemporary issues, "The Crucible" is one of Arthur Miller's most enduring plays. It occupies a position of timeliness in Southbank Theatre Company' s current schedule.  Betty Parris cries out from sickbed as influencer Abigail Williams looks on. It does so in two respects: It echoes a national political crisis of the era when it was first produced (1953), summed up in the term McCarthyism, when credulity about Communist infiltration of society was at its height. Today's widespread fear and anxiety in the face of a more centralized move toward autocracy makes a 2025 production especially relevant. The other benefit is that staging a play in which the supernatural is a crucial element fits the Halloween season like frost on a pumpkin. Believing their values to be threatened by evil forces, most centrally Satan himself, the late 17th-century town of Salem, Massachusetts, gives in to mass hysteria. Before the present tim...

The well-traveled Rosamunde String Quartet Internationally involved through orchestra employment in the United States and Europe, the  Rosamunde String Quartet has been together for a decade, traveling and performing as a unit. On Tuesday evening at Indiana Landmarks Center , the ensemble made a stop on a brief tour presented by the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and  Ensemble Music Society .   It was more than a highly anticipated continuation of the two organizations' annual collaborative concert. It was also a homecoming for Indianapolis native Nathan Vickery, the Rosamunde's cellist and a member of the New York Philharmonic. (Brother Peter is associate concertmaster of the I ndianapolis Symphony Orchestra. )  String quartets are a regular feature with Ensemble Music, whose concerts date from 1945. IVCI laureates have been brought back under the collaborative aegis of recent years: The connection this time is through the competition-j...

Nearly everybody has gone through crises in earning a living that shout the unwelcome message: "You are all wrong for this line of work." To an actor seeking security in a highly competitive field, being "true to yourself" can lead you down false paths. Under consideration must be the possibility that maybe you're just a jerk. Told-you-so moment: Jeff (Tyler Belo) drops F-bombs on Michael as Act Two opens Michael Dorsey (Jonathan Cobrda), the lead character of "Tootsie," the new show  at   Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre ,   is such a practiced, self-wounding  loser. He's the despair of his agent, Stan (Jeff Stockberger), who fires him after another audition failure. When he discovers a ruse that might save his career, Michael must be prepared for upending his personal life as well. That desperate swerve turns the actor into Dorothy Michaels, and Dorsey lands a female role his neurotic girlfriend Sandy (Payton Reilly) wants badly. Dorothy turns ou...

After the "wow" factor of a series opener featuring a popular favorite, Dvorak's "New World" 'Symphony, followed by the annual gala concert with the much-lauded violinist Augustin Hadelich in the spotlight, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra turns its attention to music probing inner resources and spiritual striving this weekend. Human mortality, still holding steady at 100 percent, is the focus of "Transformations of the Spirit," a program whose second performance at Hilbert Circle Theatre is at 5:30 p.m. today. The title aims to direct the audience's attention to the possibility of the life beyond this one.  The theology is mostly implied rather than explicit as reflected in three much different works: Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, Olivier Messiaen's "L'Ascension," and Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration." Clearly, music director Jun Märkl intends to put the orchestra through its paces and challen...