Jay Harvey Upstage

Under Matthias Maute' s genial guidance, the festival mood is bound to be uppermost anytime that Ensemble Caprice graces the schedule of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival . Thus it was especially footloose and fancy-free Sunday afternoon as it mounted "Baroque Summits," starting and ending with Antonio Vivaldi in sunny Italy. Janelle Lucyk lent vocal brilliance to the concert. Particularly welcome in this return visit was the participation of Ensemble Caprice's new  soprano, Janelle Lucyk, who was showcased in a cantata and a motet by Vivaldi. In addition to a pure, focused, and resonant tone, easily filling the welcoming acoustic space of the Basile Theater at the Indiana History Center , Lucyk lent particular character to the tortured woes of love in "All'ombra di sospetto" and the equally passionate, but devout, focus of "In furore justissimae irae."  Like Ensemble Caprice, Lucyk is Canadian, and is artistic diretor of an early-music gr...

Mahler in a characteristic mood of intense focus on his work Gustav Mahler was well aware of the fragility of success  and  simple happiness, and that apprehension had to find a place in his music. No more so was it brought forward and sustained than in his Symphony No. 6 in A minor, nicknamed "Tragic," accurately if not with the composer's authority. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra devoted its next-to-last concert in the current Classical Series solely to this work, which it will repeat at 5:30 p.m. today. Music director Jun Mä rkl clearly saw the difficulty of finding a suitable program partner for the piece, whose performance lasts some 80 minutes. Preparation according to his high standards presumably also accounts for the Sixth existing in splendid isolation this weekend at Hilbert Circle Theatre. The score demands extraordinary forces, including eight horns (magnificent to see standing for the section-by-section curtain call at the end) and likewise thorough exp...

The Hampton Sisters made the most durable link with Indianapolis jazz longevity till the end of the last century. Sisters Aletra and Virtue Hampton were the last local remnants of the family band started by their father in Ohio and reflective of the variety-show aspect of regional African-American entertainment, sometimes touring in the Jim Crow South, in the early 1900s. Clark "Deacon" Hampton brought his family to Indianapolis in the 1930s and the city became its home base. Hampton Family Band in its heyday about 80 years ago It seems it was time for an onstage recall of their stature a quarter-century or so past the sisters' prime. So Pharez Whitted, Chicago trumpeter and son of bassist Virtue Hampton-Whitted, took up the center position at the Jazz Kitchen Sunday evening to pay tribute via the Indianapolis Jazz Collective.  That ongoing "house band" for various shows in this case provided the rhythm section: pianist Steve Allee, electric bassist Jonathan Woo...

Round-number anniversaries decorated the pre-season concert of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival Sunday afternoon. The festival's 60th season counted it as an appetizer, and  Mark Cudek was marking his 20th anniversary as artistic director. But wait — that's not all, as the shopworn commercials say. The concert celebrated a half-century since Cudek made his professional debut "to showcase my insecurities," as he modestly told the audience. Mark Cittern had lots to celebrate Sunday. The Basile Opera Center attracted a capacity audience to its resonant space for Mark Cudek and Friends, a rubric that embraced the participation of soprano Mara Jaffee, baritone Michael Manganiello, and lutenist William Simms. The concert's tantalizing title and subtitle cast a wide net over the carefully cultivated repertoire: "Pastime With Good Company: Politics, Substance Abuse, and Improvisation in 17th-century England, France, and Italy." The program's breadth an...

  It's customary that symphony programs will be crowned by a work with a flashy, loud, or at least quite assertive ending, but this weekend's Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra evenings (wrapping up with today's 5:30 concert) come to rest amid phrases that subside at the en d. Moods of calm and hope prevail in two works composed amid the turmoil of World War II: Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony. Plus, the new work, generated amid the unrest of our current political era, wears its optimism unmistakably. Joan Tower, the composer of "Love Returns," a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, was on hand to lend her radiant charm to the ovation on the work's behalf. She justly praised the ISO's performance, as well as that of Steven Banks, the soloist, and guest conductor Robert Spano.  Joan Tower basked in the ISO presentation of "Love Returns."  With luck, she becomes a nonagenarian two yea...

In recent releases linked to the consequential sleuthing of Zev Feldman, a fuller picture of pianist Kenny Barron,  often in collaborative roles, has emerged. He is accountable for many of the successful aspects of Yusef Lateef's "Alight Upon the Lake" (Resonance) part of a vast trove of recordings made at Chicago's Jazz Showcase and unearthed by Feldman. The new "Live in Brecon: So Many Lovely Things" ( Elemental Music)  finds him in charge at the high noon of his career, heading a trio before a receptive audience in Brecon, Wales, in August 1995. His simpatico trio mates are two stars of their instruments who have since passed away: bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ben Riley .  The two-disc set, recorded with revealing detail and care, shows off Kenny Barron: Mastery in a lovely setting the trio in a wealth of repertoire drawn mostly from standards freshly interpreted, plus a few originals and three jazz chestnuts by Freddie Hubbard and Thelonious Monk....

Ex-Marine's impulsive act arouses silhouettes. Two recent news events confirm the timeliness of a documentary-style new production by American Lives Theatre: Barney Frank died the other day, remembered mainly for his witty, progressive service in the U.S. Senate and his stature as the first openly gay national political figure. The other current event is among the Trump-initiated proposals for physical changes to Washington, D.C., a triumphal arch near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, a gesture of vaunting personal glory from a noted disparager of military sacrifice. Andrew Kramer's "Arlington, or Your Forgotten American Hero" opened Thursday in spectacular but far from superficial fashion in the Russell Theatre, the main stage at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. The story is steeped in the irony of American heroism, distorted by political agendas, bias, and cultural fashion. Chris Saunders' direction allows the cast to probe the wide range of beha...

  Mozart death mask, 1791 A nobleman's vanity generated the mystery surrounding Mozart's Requiem from its origins in the final, frantic phase of Wolfgang Mozart's career. The Austrian master scrambled to complete promised works and was bedeviled by health problms that were to kill him on December 5, 1791. The scholarly consensus is that an attack of acute rheumatic fever caused his premature death.  The commission to set the Latin Mass for the Dead was attended with secrecy because of an aristocrat's habit of presenting new music in his court as if he had written it. The "ghostwriting" assignment came to be associated with Mozart's declining health and the composer's unfounded suspicion that he was being poisoned.  Such a mixture of fact and fancy shadowed his final weeks and eventually led posthumously to a hit play and movie called "Amadeus," linking  Antonio Salieri to his artistic superior's demise in his mid-30s out of the court comp...

Derrick Gardner's sidelong glance There is a cornucopia of legacy for capable admirers to contribute to a musical celebration of Miles Davis, so my report on the first set of a May 15 tribute is bound to be inadequate. Just over an hour of music the immortal trumpeter-bandleader (1926-1991) made famous offers the merest sampling of his noteworthy achievements. Of course, how can you represent the lengthy discography, often gathered in multi-disc packages during the "electric phase" of his career, starting with the landmark "Bitches Brew"? Two sets might have given this account more balance, so it could be argued I should have stayed till the bar closed at the Jazz Kitchen and two trumpeters, two drummers, a saxophonist, a pianist, and a bassist had left the stage. There were some puzzles in the often excellent set. The climax of the performance was announced as "John McLaughlin," a Davis original from the "Bitches Brew" era. But unless I ha...

An early adopter of Islam among black jazzmen was Yusef Lateef (1920-2013), who went his own way musically as well, sounding slightly exotic even while offering ample evidence of rootedness in the mainstream: playing jazz oboe from time to time helped with suggestions of inspiration from afar.  A 1975 date of his quartet at the time has been unearthed by jazz archaeologist Zev Feldman under the title "Alight Upon the Lake" ( Resonance Records ). As an LP set it was a significant feature on Record Store Day last month; I received the two-CD version for review. The subtitle is "Live at the Jazz Showcase," making it a laudable project issuing tapes the proprietor, Joe Segal, made over the years of the musicians he presented at his Chicago club. Lateef was admired as a musical and lifestyle mentor by younger musicians, such  as Bennie Maupin, who's quoted to that effect in the expansive booklet accompanying the release. As near as I can tell, however, he was rarely ...

Everyone remembers the one spate of really bad winter weather we had in January. Whether or Natalie Debikey Scanio, Ronen guest not you have wiped away that snowy spell from your memory, Ronen Chamber Ensemble is making up for interruption in what has turned out to be its season-ender. "Brilliant Winds" came to fruition Monday and Tuesday at the Jewish Community Center and Indiana History Center , respectively. Two-thirds of Ronen's artistic leadership, Jennifer Christen and Alistair Howlett, play wind instruments in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, so it was fitting that once this season's Ronen showcase for music activated by breath had to be postponed because of inclement weather, it would be rescheduled for a couple of cool, seasonable spring evenings.  The crowning achievement came with Francis Poulenc's droll, sparkling Sextet for wind quintet and piano, which I heard Monday evening in the JCC's Laikin Auditorium. The performance had the sheen of fu...

Another joke, perhaps? A way to signal the misdirections the play itself cultivates repeatedly? Probably a simple mistake, insofar as the printed programs for "Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B" tell us that the production, which opened Friday night, runs "March 8-24,  2026."  We are probably all somewhat date-challenged in an era whose broad, dire scope has us wishing for its conclusion. In the real world of local performing arts, the public has until May 24 to see the Summit Performance Indianapolis show at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. Believe you me, it has an all-star cast and a production team operating at their best. Holmes in a moment of endless sleuthing Kate Hamill 's script is loaded with quotations from and allusions to high and low culture as it sends up the icon of fictional sleuthing. Shirley, sometimes Sherlock, Holmes (Frankie Jo Bolda) is shadowed by the trappings of female marginalization, personified by both title characters and neg...

 The glory of brass instruments fits well into an expansive definition of Eastertide, so Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and the Second Presbyterian Church Sanctuary Choir joined forces Sunday afternoon for "O Radiant Dawn," a program of sacred music by J.S. Bach and Jan Dismas Zelenka. Three trumpets for Bach, four for Zelenka helped make sure there would be plenty of splendor in movements of both works where glory was being proclaimed. Michelle Louer, director of music and fine arts at Second Presbyterian, conducted the concert in the church's spacious sanctuary, which is acoustically sumptuous as well. The Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra revealed its historically informed performing acumen with Ingrid Matthews, a professor at Indiana University, as guest concertmaster. The spotlight turned on her to fine effect in the alto aria "Benedictus" of Zelenka's "Missa Paschalis," which revealed soprano soloist Madeline Apple Healey at her best level of t...

Though some of opera's loftiest achievements fit under the genre of tragedy, the art form had to escape the 18th-century strictures of opera seria   and set aside ancient gods for sad, stately operas to attract the public's esteem. It's more than sentimentality that reinforces our love for happy endings; it's also the perennial gift of music to raise our spirits uniquely.  Mozart is chief among the examples of comic genius in music, and "The Marriage of Figaro" stands at the summit, partly for skill at illuminating the emotions of real people without overstatement.  Indianapolis Opera opened a production worthy of this masterpiece Friday evening in the Tobias Theater at Newfields. Resourcefully put together from an original production at Northern Lights Music Festival  with stage direction here by Jessica Burton, the show has the special advantage of guest conductor Bernard McDonald. Director of Opera at Florida State University, McDonald brings a vast resum é...

 Influential as composer and pianist from his early eminence on the Prestige label, Mal Waldron (1925- Mal Waldron's career had a mental-health break.  2002) came through a nervous breakdown in the 1960s to launch a successful second phase of his career, gaining a sustained reputation internationally.  On the path to his late harvest he appeared with a trio at Chicago's Jazz Showcase. From the archives of club owner Joe Segal, the eminent "jazz detective" Zev Feldman has made a recording of Waldron's appearance in 1979 publicly available under the title "Stardust & Starlight at the Jazz Showcase" (Resonance Records ). It's part of an '"open sesame" effect Feldman's friendship with the late Joe Segal and his son Wayne is having, yielding more results for Resonance. Waldron's playing, supported by bassist Steve Rodby and drummer Wilbur Campbell, has the depth and careful consideration of the songs, most of them standards, tha...

To sort out my positive response to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra' s April 24 concert, let me bring to the forefront two aspects of Jun Märkl's leadership that deserve more consideration: his uncanny insight into accompaniment and his rapport with the audience. The music director has the orchestra in ready-responsive shape, to start with. If there's something subordinate to a soloist worth bringing out, he knows how to do it.  When the violas dig into their prominent line in the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor and the tempo increases, everyone is instantly on board. I had wondered at first if the "Allegro moderato" tempo was too moderate to start with, but very soon it was evident the launch was just right.  Near the end of that movement, there are some tender cello phrases that the ISO section produced with unanimity. In the second movement, with its prominent clarinet, nothing seemed incidental. When first-chair players...