Jay Harvey Upstage

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...

Carrington Clinton, Sophie Faught, Steven Snyder As a tenor saxophonist, Sophie Faught has so many promising directions to go with an instrument in an overcrowded field that still manages to prize distinctive personalities. That she has, and by now is a veteran in adaptability and freshness.  A recent move toward linkage with the Hammond B-3 opens up new avenues. With Steven Snyder on the organ bench, she presened her organ quartet here last summer to launch a brief tour. On Sunday at the Jazz Kitchen,  it was a pleasure to hear the Faught-Snyder pairing hit paydirt again, this time under the leadership of a powerful, astute drummer, Carrington Clinton.  Leadership from the percussion section doesn't always work, but the readiness of drummers to shine in context has a long, rich history in jazz, and this bandleader is also known for his producing chops in the hip-hop genre. For a generous single set on December 28, the Carrington Clinton Organ Trio displayed holiday spa...

The bated-breath response of the audience the last time the Isidore String Quartet was here turned out to be a feature of its return visit Wednesday night at the Indiana History Center . It has to do with the scrupulously laid-out alternation of tension and release of its characteristic playing. In both concerts, it was easy to get the sense that the capacity audience was hanging on every note, unwilling to miss a thing. This time, the patrons' sustained attention got the extra reward of a famous collaborator: Anthony McGill , Waiting for the sunrise: the Isidore String Quartet principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic. McGill played the Brahms Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op. 115, with the Isidore, in addition to "Humanity's Essential Gems," a work for the same instruments by contemporary composer James Lee III.  As I observed then about the Isidore's performance of an early Haydn quartet: "It was evident that the breadth of nuance the Isidore com...