Jay Harvey Upstage

 George Bernard Shaw, one of a small handful of readable music critics of stature, once called  Mendelssohn's Symphony no. 3 in A minor "a work which would be great if it were not so confoundedly genteel."  A champion of blood-and-thunder Verdi and the spiritually titanic Wagner, Shaw maybe made such an assessment on the basis of undernourished performances he'd heard of the work nicknamed "Scottish" or "Scotch." The latter word is no longer applied respectably to anything much besides the venerated distilled whiskey from Scotland. In an essay on the composition, the beverage's distinctive flavor encouraged Michael Steinberg, one of the commentators on the "Scottish" symphony, to describe the dark coloration of its first movement as "peaty."  James Ehnes always makes a strong impression here.  Water over the region's peat beds lends the beverage its character — and by extension the kind of orchestration with which the ...

Walking into a packed Jazz Kitchen on a Sunday afternoon to hear a couple of string quartets, I can't Gary Walters and Peter Hansen had a matinee showcase. avoid recalling the old Monty Python introduction: "And now for something completely different." So it was, although the featured composers— Gary Walters and Peter Hansen — have distinguished records as creative and performing artists there, notably together in the early part of the century as members of the Icarus Ensemble. Formerly a contrabass player in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Hansen invited four current members to perform his String Quartet No. 1 in E and Walters' "Bluesberry Jam." Besides its interlocking, punning title, Walters' piece, enjoying its first public performance, showed his high comfort level across several genres. Retired from the jazz faculty of Butler University, Walters keeps his composing and playing schedule judiciously crowded. "Bluesberry Jam," a de...

Programming concerts involves giving shape to a season, not just to individual concerts. As  music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for the past 17 months, Jun M ä rkl has displayed both kinds of skill. He is advancing the orchestra as well as its Classical Series patronage. In his current spate of Hilbert Circle Theatre podium appearances, he is exploring thematic compatibility as well as idealism, technical polish and expressive breadth. Next week he and the orchestra will take us to the Scottish Highlands; other kinds of summitry have been on view this weekend and last. The extraordinary demands of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony gave an extra wow to Valentine's weekend. How do you avoid a feeling of letdown after that? He couldn't have done better than doubling down on Mahler's identity as "the song-symphonist" with songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn , then crowning that exploration with a Beethoven milestone, Symphony No. 3 in E-...

  Sirena Huang and Drew Petersen play Gabriela Lena Frank.  Drew Petersen and Sirena Huang made sure the rare opportunity for a musical reunion would be readily appreciated by a near-capacity audience Thursday evening at Indiana Landmarks Center. The pianist and the violinist, well-acquainted since they were students at the Juilliard School, opened their joint recital with a work they had studied at the New York City institution together: Beethoven's Violin Sonata no. 5 in F, op. 24 ("Spring").  The arrangement by which they could perform as a duo as young professionals was engineered by the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and the American Piano Awards . Each organization holds their achievement at the highest level as competition winners in 2017 (Petersen) and 2022 (Huang). Apart from the Beethoven work and their encore (Sarasate's "Zapateado"), the national significance of 2026 strongly suggested their program have an American cast. And s...

 Can you overdo it with a piece that challenges you to cheer and cry at the same time?  Music-lovers have Gustav Mahler at 5, wondering if life is worth it.  to answer that question for themselves, but the concert experience of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in D minor ("Resurrection") for me works out best with years in between in-person iterations.  My first exposure to joining a big crowd for such a performance was in May 1987, when John Nelson capped off his 11-year tenure as Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra music director with an interpretation that explictly spoke to his  religious orientation: "The sentiments that are in the text are my sentiments," he told the Circle Theatre audience. Certainly the second time I heard "Resurrection" almost effected a match between my sentiments and those of the texts the composer chose — from the folk poetry of Des Knaben Wunderhorn and "Resurrection," an ode by Friedrich Klopstock — plus a huge sup...

Julie Russel aloft in the propulsive "Takbuhan."  Dance Kaleidoscope premieres occupy most of the expanse of NOW, Vol. 2 "Arresting Momentum," which opened Friday night before an adoring crowd. The program was introduced by the welcome retrurn of "Restless Ordinary," a piece by Autumn Eckman which debuted last May .  DK's occasional performances in the Tobias Theater at Newfields  always carry a sense of occasion. There's a feeling of maximum wingspread when the company plays there. Upstage and downstage convey a vast perspective.  At the start, the steady front-to-back lineup of the company, with straight arms raising in varied rhythm, conveyed the mastery of space that was to be elaborated across the five works, with movement edge-to-edge as well, like abstract expressionism in painting. The bid for a DK seat at the big table nationally was the staging for DK of "Train" by Robert Battle , Illustrating the title: A "Train" scen...

 The lineup for Tuesday's show at the Jazz Kitchen looked so good it would have been tempting to go even if the event had been designed as a tribute to — oh, say, Guy Lombardo. But of course, the honor was more pertinently accorded Max Roach, a founder of modern jazz drumming. And it was under the direction of one of the reigning masters of the kit in central Indiana: Cassius Goens III. In a rare outing as a bandleader, he had put together a quintet comprising the collegial spirits of Christopher Pitts, Brandon Meeks, Jared Thompson, and Marlin McKay. For several numbers to acknowledge the importance of Abbey Lincoln in Roach's long career, vocalist Akili Ni Mali joined the band onstage. Goens spoke effusively of the role model that Roach (1924-2007) has been for him. It didn't take long to sense the affinity. Sensitivity to tone color and interlocking rhythmic patterns was notable in "Joy Spring," for example. A classic from the pen of Roach's early partne...

  Brad Hughley, St. Paul's organist and director of music. One of the revelatory expressions of faith in the New Testament proclaims the prophetic joy of a blind man in his encounter with the baby Jesus. This provided the theme of a concert at St. Paul's Episcopal Church Sunday afternoon focused on two cantatas by J.S. Bach, presented by St. Paul's Music.  The concert title of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra 's program, "Incomprehensible Light," translates a German phrase from a duet in the more elaborate of them, "Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin" (BWV 125). In Luke's gospel,  Simeon testifies to his readiness to die  as the promise of salvation includes the clarified eyesight that his earthly life has thus far denied him. The opening chorus of BWV 125 traces Simeon's brief hymn of praise. The performing forces of the IBO orchestra, five women from St. Paul's Choir, and three male soloists were under the direction of Brad Hughley. T...

Seth Holly lets wife and residents know the way things should be. The complex verbal music and dark urban rhapsodies of August Wilson carry a variety of appeal to theater companies that can draw upon African-American talent as well as educate and entertain audiences across the racial spectrum, provoking their sense of wonder and highlighting historical truth. Summed up in the ten plays of the Pittsburgh Cycle, the native son's placing each work in a decade of the 20th century gave an evolving focus to his art, as well as a location he knew intimately: the Steel City's Hill District.  Indiana Repertory Theatre opened a new production of "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" this week, to be shared next month with Syracuse Stage. Along with the Phoenix Theatre, the IRT has a long history with August Wilson shows. In Friday's  performance, the strengths and challenges of Wilson's style — verbally flamboyant and thematically spread over a wide swath of Black American...

Mihaela Martin displayed her sustained mastery.   After a late-night arrival as the monumental winter storm hit the city , Mihaela Martin sounded fully up to the task of recalling another monument — her gold-medal victory in the initial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis — with a fresh exhibition of her winning ways in recital Tuesday at the Indiana History Center . I heard it on livestream, an access taken advantage of by many IVCI patrons, according to the organization's executive director, Glen Kwok. Her performance, ably supported by Chih-Yi Chen at the piano, glowed with the stylistic romanticism of the competition's founder, Josef Gingold.                                                                                      The short and the subs...

 With the musical warmth making the Hilbert Circle Theatre cozy and welcoming, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra patrons at Friday's first concert of the weekend could shrug off the frigid weather they had just escaped from temporarily. The contrast stirred memories of one of Robert Frost's most famous poems, "Fire and Ice." Courtney Lewis worked this week with the ISO.  The New England poet's lines pose the eventual triumph of both elements on equal terms, with fire being linked to desire, ice to hate. Without stretching that metaphorical breadth to the news from the Twin Cities (it's hard to resist entirely), there's a plausible application to the two works on the program, their significance, and how they were played under the skillful baton of guest conductor Courtney Lewis . Hate as a force lies behind the difficult attractiveness of Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" Symphony, op. 58. Inspired by a Lord Byron poem well-known in the early 19th century...

Violinist Marleen Wester and violist Marie-Louise de Jong predominate in this group portrait.  John Failey's impeccable stewardship of the Ensemble Music Society includes his cultivated acquaintance with chamber-music groups online. It culminates repeatedly whenever he is able to schedule a visit here by an ensemble, whether a return engagement or a local debut. Wednesday night was a sterling example of the latter sort of husbandry. The Dudok Quartet Amsterdam, with its alluring representation online, became eligible for inclusion on the EMS schedule when it acquired North American representation by Maestro Arts .  So a large audience gathered at the Indiana History Center to become acquainted with the far-sighted Dutch string quartet in a program of Schubert, Shostakovich, and Bushra El-Turk, a contemporary British composer of Lebanese extraction. "The music we play is never old or new, but always relevant and present," the group proclaims on its website. El-Turk's...

Friday night was the first opportunity I've taken to see and hear Rob Dixon again revisit John Coltrane's epic suite, "A Love Supreme." Of all the recorded landmarks in the saxophonist's prematurely ended career, "A Love Supreme" is the most ambitious and the top seller. Like many saxophonists since Coltrane's time (1926-1967), Dixon has built his apprehension of the music on the master's example of stamina and technical knowledge. The suite's triumph always carries the surprising element of being a popular long-form composition in a musical genre familiar for more compact pieces. But Coltrane was famous for going long in his solos, extending a given form spontaneously. When he was a member of Miles Davis' group in the 1950s, he gently complained that he didn't know how to end his solos. The trumpeter-bandleader said something like, "You take the horn out of your mouth, John." Part of what makes the four-movement suite signi...

The highlighted style of ensemble performance typical of Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre works to manic Trotter has assembled the snowbound residents for interrogation.   perfection in its season-opening production of "The Mousetrap," the famous Agatha Christie whodunit known for its continuous London run since 1952. Eddie Curry's direction of the eight-member cast allows for thrilling individualism in portrayals of characters drawn to a rural guest house as British life settles down after the Second World War. Seen Saturday night at the durable Northwestside institution, "The Mousetrap" maintains a nimble pace among the refurbished rooms of Monkswell Manor, a vacation haven under the recent management of newlyweds Giles and Mollie Ralston. Newlyweds, in business together, have a wee spat.  The couple, played with adorable eagerness to please by Jae Woo and Malia Munley, find their inexperience as hoteliers challenged to the utmost, first by a severe snowstor...

Kevin John Edusei first appeared as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra 's podium guest twice in 2022. It was an unusual kind of double debut for an invited conductor, fueling speculation that he might be on the short list for the ISO's next music director. That turned out to be Jun Märkl, a fellow German who had gone over well for many years as guest conductor here and official adviser near the end of a long interim period. Kevin John Edusei has triumphed in recent ISO engagements.  Edusei is back to launch the resumption of the 2025-26 Classical Series this weekend. The program has just two works, representing two of the most popular Russian composers (the other being Tchaikovsky, whom we'll hear from in two weeks): Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor  and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 in E minor. On Friday night, Hilbert Circle Theatre welcomed a significant youth contingent to the audience: about 150 members of the concert band a...