tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84035685897573949652024-03-18T15:53:15.106-07:00Jay Harvey UpstageCommentary on jazz, classical music, theater, and dance in Indiana and beyondJames Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.comBlogger1850125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-77913005035693486832024-03-18T03:48:00.000-07:002024-03-18T03:48:20.109-07:00Neal Kirkwood Big Band: 'Night City' paints an open-ended ensemble landscape<p> All sorts of jazz statements can be folded within the contemporary big band, and composer-pianist <a href="https://nealkirkwood.bandcamp.com/">Neal</a></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9Qr4nJG2CBeS5sv-G-hMqh_pkWhU_NqL2oPYZMGz09WnV08QhxiHrSM2olT-WRD8KY0FfwvptMqCZmezImgoF72JptOqKz1PKbjkPOPt7ESj5uQk945qHfvktyZnX6thG1oAQQVvKmC5CpbDOYoCXw1xF5Jt1APvXn7R6OL5e5c2cPnWTKCov1QJtt7h/s1200/NealKirkwood.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1090" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9Qr4nJG2CBeS5sv-G-hMqh_pkWhU_NqL2oPYZMGz09WnV08QhxiHrSM2olT-WRD8KY0FfwvptMqCZmezImgoF72JptOqKz1PKbjkPOPt7ESj5uQk945qHfvktyZnX6thG1oAQQVvKmC5CpbDOYoCXw1xF5Jt1APvXn7R6OL5e5c2cPnWTKCov1QJtt7h/s320/NealKirkwood.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neal Kirkwood shows zest for personalizing big-band sound.</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://nealkirkwood.bandcamp.com/"><br /> Kirkwood </a>displays much of the variety of texture, tempo, structure and expanse possible in this veteran musician's first big-band album. "Night City" (<a href="https://www.bjurecords.com/">BJU Records)</a> <p></p><p>The new disc brings together compositions he's written for large ensembles over several decades. His sense of jazz history, with some evident roots in Duke Ellington and Gil Evans, is of a high order, as is his penchant for borderline "classical" orchestration and tone poems such as "The Light of Birds," which concludes the disc.</p><p>Of the several long cuts, I was struck by his evocation of urban sensory overload in the title track, which evokes a couple of firends meandering together around the city. The surface randomness turns out to be tightly constructed, with bits and pieces sensitively juxtaposed. </p><p>But my favorite was "Paddy Harmon's Dreamland Ballroom," named for a famous Chicago nightspot of the Prohibition Era. In "Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904-1930," William Howland Kenney sums up Harmon's success as blending a guarded acceptance of jazz within a dance-hall business format, especially attracting working-class clientele. Kirkwood's take on that scene covers a wide range of moods, evoking old musical styles that lent themselves to social dancing, with a certain amount of swing, but not too much. Kirkwood reminds us in a program note that Harmon paid for the development of the trumpet mute that carries his name. (Played without its stem, this mute was a major aspect of Miles Davis' sound.)</p><p>Soloing is quite apt for the setting, as it tends to be for however Kirkwood places his soloists. In "Dreamland Ballroom" they are clarinetist Dan Block and trumpeter David Smith. In "Night City," the roaming buddies are James Rogers, bass trombone, and Ed Neumeister, tenor trombone. Kirkwood is an infrequent soloist on this disc, but always makes a distinctive impression: His piano intro on "Alaskan Serenade" sounds Ellingtonian, which is fitting since the piece was written for a Duke trombonist, Britt Woodman, a characterization here executed with mastery by Art Baron.</p><p> "When I Hear That Serenade in Blue," which Kirkwood wrote for a jazz vocal ensemble, in this version has the vocal line enunciated by vibraphonist Diane Herold, behind whom the band places a sliding, smoky backdrop. The only adaptation of a piece originally designed for other purposes that doesn't quite work, even though it swings with abandon, is "Skywalkers," which makes the groove do too much work. Yet again, however, it displays Kirkwood's competence in the multifaceted personality an expert big band is capable of projecting.</p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-42784960390094136542024-03-17T06:34:00.000-07:002024-03-18T15:52:43.614-07:00Indianapolis Opera: Placing Bird, alive or dead, while genius flies free<p> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Parker%27s_Yardbird">"Charlie Parker's Yardbird" </a>has moved around the country since its premiere in 2015 in Philadelphia. Last night it was time for the opera to make a one-night stand in Indianapolis, the hometown of star soprano <a href="https://angelambrown.com/about-angela">Angela Brown,</a> who has made a specialty of the role of Addie, the musician's mother.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.indyopera.org/">Indianapolis Opera </a>performance was placed at the architectural crown jewel of the historic center of Indianapolis night entertainment and black social life, <a href="https://madamwalkerlegacycenter.com/">Madam Walker Theatre</a>. And among the visiting stars who used to play in the clubs in and around Indiana Avenue was Charlie Parker, one of the founding fathers of bebop.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUL_-vJ5L92uAyj0LXcOrUgSiaUbVN4-J1VB9XmKMOrbIPHq5WvdO0b4izHiCqJJxearrOUXflKFMOwAdThrMaXO0H3Z6kTFp4e6yBQO5_YKBH1kzZUaVFCxRLEUAN0wd8WUhvMUrNaF59xHxzTPvua_fcqC1sE5n-RBpiCn9NXa6nF1wXjVA0H51QXwYk/s692/0-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="509" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUL_-vJ5L92uAyj0LXcOrUgSiaUbVN4-J1VB9XmKMOrbIPHq5WvdO0b4izHiCqJJxearrOUXflKFMOwAdThrMaXO0H3Z6kTFp4e6yBQO5_YKBH1kzZUaVFCxRLEUAN0wd8WUhvMUrNaF59xHxzTPvua_fcqC1sE5n-RBpiCn9NXa6nF1wXjVA0H51QXwYk/s320/0-2.png" width="235" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charlie Parker sings of his devotion to his sax. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br />Parker's life featured moments of triumph and recognition by fellow musicians who saw that bebop swept the cobwebs away from the Swing Era, while at the same time narrowing jazz's public approval by removing the genre from its crucial link to social dancing. Harmonies were thrust away from their base and rhythms unsettled. But Parker's achievement was restricted by ill health occasioned by drug and alcohol addiction, and his death at 34 boosted his "Yardbird" nickname, usually shortened, to the graffiti declaration "Bird Lives!"</p><p>That suggestion of immortality prevails in Bridgette Wimberley's libretto, in which Parker appears in ghostly form, revisiting the New York jazz club named for him, <a href="https://www.birdlandjazz.com/about/">Birdland</a>. His youthful development and ambition in his hometown of Kansas City are recalled in action that's carried forward to just before and just after his death in 1955. A screen as backdrop provides surtitles, which are so prominent they're hard to get used to, as well as slide projections of newspaper clippings, gig advertisements, and historic photos of the main characters. Jessica Burton provided the fluid production coordination, with the cast seated as Birdland patrons until they are called upon to sing, and projections design.</p><p>The opera has a dramatic scene that climaxes in a cymbal thrown at the teen saxophonist's feet. It's brief but significant, in that it showed the fledgling musician the work he had to do for acceptance in the jazz community. The drummer Jo Jones in fact loosened a cymbal and tossed it to the floor near Parker to express disdain for the saxophonist's getting lost while soloing. In the years to come, Parker was to fashion whole new ways of playing solos in jazz, making them both original and cohesive.</p><p></p><p>The libretto focuses much more on the eventual musical successes, including the approval he gets from his domineering mother. On Saturday, in a couple of solos, Brown made the most of both Addie's pride in her son and her pervasive worry about his demons. It was rewarding to hear and see this notable diva helping to put across "Charlie Parker's Yardbird" with such commitment.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieDXHqh1PC-ecWiiP2lqNkEfM3SHZ3PZGRj3Ab8XWNO6Bfv6DOCI_wpvepMwEYOYeDmvG2kxsoF-x1JZS5EyRwf_p9TYdVwC8QrAMBxeeGFkfqAL3ufqLhdhOWIYJ0WG0p0_DsHYWtFWB3SIqboWS3bwFPUf249-wyWMRnIHmwr_Le8Mb1Yq8e7K58c7UG/s706/0.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="706" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieDXHqh1PC-ecWiiP2lqNkEfM3SHZ3PZGRj3Ab8XWNO6Bfv6DOCI_wpvepMwEYOYeDmvG2kxsoF-x1JZS5EyRwf_p9TYdVwC8QrAMBxeeGFkfqAL3ufqLhdhOWIYJ0WG0p0_DsHYWtFWB3SIqboWS3bwFPUf249-wyWMRnIHmwr_Le8Mb1Yq8e7K58c7UG/s320/0.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Addie expresses concern for son, with Chan in background</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Female worries about Charlie take on a huge musical and dramatic role in the opera. We heard from several sopranos, individually and collectively, with the sort of high-register impact one gets from the operas of Richard Strauss. In addition to Brown, they were Victoria Korovljev and Courtney Porter as two of Parker's early wives, and Ashley Fabian as his New York common-law wife Chan. Tension over the musician's final resting place and estate settlement is strongly recalled.</p><p>Brilliant singing also came from mezzo-soprano Liz Culpepper as the musician's aristocratic friend and patron, Nica. The supporting male role of Dizzy Gillespie got the trumpeter's right impish pep and affectionate strength of character from baritone Jorell Williams.</p><p>The main vocal burden rested upon Martin Bakari in the title role. The part is demanding and almost unrelieved in intensity, and Bakari's tenor had ringing authority and pathos throughout. He folded in jazz vocalism when required and, toward the end, lifted his voice smoothly into falsetto range. He encapsulated both the fantasy and the real-life aspects of the role as Wimberly conceived it.</p><p>It was disappointing not to find any information about composer Daniel Schnyder in the program booklet. His score shows familiarity with jazz while it rests upon classical modernism, with complex, restless harmonies. The onstage ensemble provided zesty, atmospheric accompaniment under the direction of Clinton Smith. Sometimes the music sounded cluttered, but clear ways through always emerged.</p><p>The score captures the exploratory nature of Parker's musicianship. The libretto spins into fantasy, perhaps, in putting so much anxiety into the hero's psyche about creating a full score that would garner universal respect. Parker's contribution of spontaneous composing in improvisational form was actually something he never tired of: scholars have identified 32 chord schemes on which he built 108 pieces; the inventiveness continued up to the end of his life. </p><p>Probably the opera's creators wanted to emphasize that "Bird Lives!" can also mean that if he'd conquered his demons and survived just a few more decades, he would have set down on paper completely notated works of great scope and durability. Yet what he came up with on the bandstand and in the studio during his short, turbulent life was enough to establish Bird as a pioneer of continuing influence. Among his younger colleagues, Miles Davis once offered the most succinct essential history of jazz, consisting of just two names: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker. </p><p><b><i>[Photos by Denis Ryan Kelly Jr.]</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-14274025053666424912024-03-16T09:30:00.000-07:002024-03-16T13:01:36.053-07:00Fonseca Theatre's "Blackademics": Who serves and who is served?<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkcuCCWvaR7G7QPFGaIeWRh1LwR-jz4A0A97kP0yTuyBtgMJ56yZPWeoqZvJoziBHhJYGj-l2hIdxKYvpMcI3x5S69lSqIykSSASNSJx9p0CEvG1RpmM7V6PB6nXJJQE5fAPBy7VEBrrxf3PttYugbToSVCRS2LZihdXCO9xvaAqDS3XL8D-RlLM5kwlDK/s362/0-2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="362" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkcuCCWvaR7G7QPFGaIeWRh1LwR-jz4A0A97kP0yTuyBtgMJ56yZPWeoqZvJoziBHhJYGj-l2hIdxKYvpMcI3x5S69lSqIykSSASNSJx9p0CEvG1RpmM7V6PB6nXJJQE5fAPBy7VEBrrxf3PttYugbToSVCRS2LZihdXCO9xvaAqDS3XL8D-RlLM5kwlDK/s320/0-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ann and Rachelle size each other up before ordeal.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The witticism credited to poet-critic Randall Jarrell that academic battles are vicious because the stakes are so low has dated rather surprisingly in our era, when larger social tensions raise the stakes significantly in the educational field.<p></p><p>The struggle is pitched up toward a weaponized resolution in Idris Goodwin''s "Blackademics." <a href="https://fonsecatheatre.org/">Fonseca Theatre Company</a> opened the one-act drama Friday night in a <a href="https://fonsecatheatre.org/shows/blackademics/">production </a>brimful of hip-hop buzz and scrutiny of black sisterhood and academic ambition.</p><p>The 21st-century stakes are indeed high when higher education's focus on diversity is subject to whims of administrative fashion and political power centers. There are no more tempests in teapots of the kind Jarrell made fun of in the mid-20th century. The focus on African-American literature that Rachelle, an ambitious young teacher, has developed turns out to be too narrow to secure her career as "people of color" become the flavor of the month at the state university where she has taught. In contrast, the older academic striver, Ann, wants to reconnect with her younger friend to celebrate her achievement of tenure at a liberal-arts college in the same town.</p><p>In a surrealistic style, "Blackademics" suggests that the real power continues to be administered from the white mainstream. The unlikely holder of the whip in this show is a crisply tailored, officious server at a cafe of high-end reputation far away from any black community. "Server" is a beautifully ambivalent word in the context of this show, because Georgia seems as ready to serve a couple of patrons as items on a hidden menu as she is to serve them in the usual sense of catering to their appetites and tastes.</p><p>The set is bare with walls suggesting in tone and arched doorways a reserved elegance. Bernie Killian's design seems just perfect, though the audience's initial surprise at the complete absence of tables and chairs is not relieved for some time. Georgia is in total control, and the occasion that Ann has set up goes wrong as both women are forced into a game of privation, bullying, and meager, doled-out rewards. </p><p>The two friends are bound to find the game rigged and designed to pit them against each other. AshLee Baskin and Chandra Lynch exuberantly play the title characters, revealing differences imposed by "colorism" and sexuality, as well as the vagaries of academic trends, as they tussle and share their plights. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdIU5TfMc9gB8_T2RHNfsV6C-jbK-z0WrII9D0Sv8A1YJhUjA1FNGNXTAhpbH7xp1NcjbGyLuC8rl0k9eSAilKYfsSjdMmVqOuFwG_jUddbTJP8OR7F_7Qg-1-Ttk3H6BH_-Ckoyr3QAR92OSn1Wgy4jSOilfPGmI5kWqln6HqMRSU5YsvpGvsQdD2WTA2/s362/0-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="362" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdIU5TfMc9gB8_T2RHNfsV6C-jbK-z0WrII9D0Sv8A1YJhUjA1FNGNXTAhpbH7xp1NcjbGyLuC8rl0k9eSAilKYfsSjdMmVqOuFwG_jUddbTJP8OR7F_7Qg-1-Ttk3H6BH_-Ckoyr3QAR92OSn1Wgy4jSOilfPGmI5kWqln6HqMRSU5YsvpGvsQdD2WTA2/s320/0-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brought to her knees, Ann addresses bossy Georgia.</td></tr></tbody></table>For a while, I thought they were chewing the scenery a bit, especially Baskin as the demonstrative Ann. The dialogue has the outsized energy and volubility of hip-hop. Then, prompted by the studied artificiality of Caroline Sanchez's Georgia, I detected the sure hand of director Ansley Valentine in guiding the performances through a style that hems in the full humanity of all three characters, though Georgia's is questionable. Each woman stands for something outside herself, and the playwright's satirical targets are outlined in Crayola colors. His critique of white supremacy, a controlling system even when it seems to advance black cultural status now and then, is unremitting. <p></p><p>There is a dark magic in Georgia's control that goes beyond mere psychological manipulation. It pervaded<br /> all three portrayals on opening night. The scary scenes of physical and mental debilitation undergone by Rachelle and Ann had absorbing detail and concentration. Sanchez's performance rose to wizardly heights as Baskin and Lynch crumple believably under Georgia's spell before their characters take on solidarity and determination at the end. </p><p>The stakes of higher education couldn't be higher, after all. We may all have some version of this Georgia on our minds. </p><p><b><i>[Photos: Ankh Productions]</i></b></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-83081847125084651302024-03-15T11:16:00.000-07:002024-03-15T11:16:37.273-07:00Southbank Theatre Company's 'Man of La Mancha' has breadth of emotional appeal and depth of stagecraft<p> Far from my favorite place to see theater in Indianapolis, <a href="https://butlerartscenter.org/venue/shelton-auditorium/">Shelton Auditorium</a> may well be the proper home for <a href="http://southbanktheatre.org">Southbank Theatre</a>'s ambitious production of "Man of La Mancha." The steep pitch of its stadium setting in an expanded semicircle in straight-back pews evokes both sacred and secular traditions. Messages of import, matters for both study and meditation, are at home in such a venue. The stark beauty of the environment has to contend with compromises in comfort and perhaps even safety.</p><p></p><br />Entertainment nonetheless also claims room in Shelton, where this company is in residence. That value is upheld in the way the cast invests controlled energy in the prize-winning musical under the direction of Marcia Eppich-Harris. The peak results in Thursday's opening-night performances were those of Paul Hansen as Cervantes/Don Quixote, Jessica Hawkins as Aldonza/Dulcinea, and Anthony Nathan as Sancho Panza.<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn_KTKg4lm-eCHaE_A2kGv0jJgSkXfZsVnhABF8W4_NU0k38F7b2CnJ2YP4Kp1KarFHF3CkajoopcPRIWtDv0-ilEUiMldgKvvhgK7ZPmMmoxe-uaEGKznrS4oypCm7WRpWFWeuAuVLrKpuyfqjgKluOaidF382DcRoeYTH5Zngpj5elCFHTdcpLIwV51_/s1286/image4.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="1286" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn_KTKg4lm-eCHaE_A2kGv0jJgSkXfZsVnhABF8W4_NU0k38F7b2CnJ2YP4Kp1KarFHF3CkajoopcPRIWtDv0-ilEUiMldgKvvhgK7ZPmMmoxe-uaEGKznrS4oypCm7WRpWFWeuAuVLrKpuyfqjgKluOaidF382DcRoeYTH5Zngpj5elCFHTdcpLIwV51_/s320/image4.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alonso Quijana on way to real knighthood under the Golden Helmet.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The setting also thrusts forward the appeal of this adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' sprawling classic novel, "Don Quixote." That's because the title character is presented to the audience as a figure deserving both admiration and pity. To be deluded for the sake of idealism is a hard delusion to lack sympathy for. "Man of La Mancha" maximizes that sympathy, though I would strongly encourage fans of the show to spend some time with the original work — enough to learn how thoroughly ambivalence about the knight's fantastic adventures, as well as a lot more comedy, is woven into Cervantes' wandering narrative.</p><p>The greatest achievement of Dale Wasserman's book is to frame a selection of the addled knight'sadventures within scenes of the author's actual imprisonment by the Spanish inquisition, where the inmates put him on trial to judge whether he's worthy of their respect. Thus the character Hansen plays is doubly judged, and in both cases the audience is likely to deliver a thumbs-up and go out humming, perhaps actually singing, "The Impossible Dream," the show's artfully repeated hit song.</p><p></p><p>This reminds me of another performative plea for audience approval I was part of long ago, when a popular unacademic poet called Brother Antoninus gave a reading at Harvard University, where I was a graduate student. Sometimes identified by his pre-Dominican name, William Everson gave a masterly performance in a lecture hall somewhat similar in design to Shelton Auditorium. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXW2cPm9R8sYl_Y-cZkMlKO3BlvRl5IYqpAwSBnsaWsBNEO4wF-eKZ-OXO8tCrfXhyphenhyphen1VUY_yiCI7oEiICjTyxvd6UkpUAAiSVqggGExEF8kP436Nru0BLBZF9w8pHHXxm-qdHrQojQTDg2w-npw-CSasNI0XH_hnhM0jH_70_hpqBDjngYE0ixx7VRYkz/s1600/image2.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1033" data-original-width="1600" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXW2cPm9R8sYl_Y-cZkMlKO3BlvRl5IYqpAwSBnsaWsBNEO4wF-eKZ-OXO8tCrfXhyphenhyphen1VUY_yiCI7oEiICjTyxvd6UkpUAAiSVqggGExEF8kP436Nru0BLBZF9w8pHHXxm-qdHrQojQTDg2w-npw-CSasNI0XH_hnhM0jH_70_hpqBDjngYE0ixx7VRYkz/s320/image2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Knight errant and his squire share visions of a better world.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>He subtly invited the audience not only to be deeply engaged with his poetry, but also to succor him personally as he explicitly compared himself to a Christian gladiator in the Roman Colosseum, counting on a collective thumbs-up to save him. It was a superb act, drawing murmurs of sympathy, audibly swelling as the reading (really a recital from memory) proceeded. Was Brother Antoninus a sacrificial victim or a living hero? He left it for us to decide, but he seemed a successful blend of both, as are the overlapping title characters in "Man of La Mancha." </p><p>With his piercing eyes and vivid vocal quality in speech and song, Hansen made the most of the ambiguity and the baffled reception of the knight's quest by the real world he must contend with. Suggesting a parallel with today's social-media quicksands, the provincial minor aristocrat Alonso Quijana is under the spell of the chivalric romances he reads. The ghost of Cervantes must be nodding his head in recognition.</p><p>The alternative is reflected in the show's satirical thrusts at the narrow perspectives of everyday life, summed up in the linked trio/quartet "I'm/We're Only Thinking of Him," which was the best ensemble number on opening night. Everyday life in the world of "Don Quixote" is also mirrored by cruelty and prejudice. In the show, it takes the form of the abuse endured lifelong by Aldonza, an inn server (in more ways than one) idealized by Quixote as Dulcinea. </p><p></p><br />The role was capably presented, with a proper excess of bitterness masking a strong wish for release, by Jessica Hawkins. She also sang "What Does He Want With Me?" as well as her second-act self-portrait, both confirming the command of the character she showed in dialogue. A similarly well-targeted song performance linked to a full-fledged portrayal was Anthony Nathan's "I Really Like Him," Sancho's explanation of his loyalty and willingness to endure confusion and risk as the Don's squire. If it lacks a good Sancho, any production of "Man of La Mancha" would miss Cervantes' comedy entirely.<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO8wEc-93oPhSUxryN_HKms4G_5O15yWiwjzaqDza-5qE3qC9auHfgVrrSblaMA3J_-KUA80V56LQCy1ol_TNe5zd0TdaQoBEsKkktKv5RWb2_33xelkktfs-YCnLNQLGi2q0qI6G4j-NJsgBPRkpJeBzV1pp0fSvWUVlueepXqP2cXpOdChO4gTBKIiUe/s1600/image3.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="1600" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO8wEc-93oPhSUxryN_HKms4G_5O15yWiwjzaqDza-5qE3qC9auHfgVrrSblaMA3J_-KUA80V56LQCy1ol_TNe5zd0TdaQoBEsKkktKv5RWb2_33xelkktfs-YCnLNQLGi2q0qI6G4j-NJsgBPRkpJeBzV1pp0fSvWUVlueepXqP2cXpOdChO4gTBKIiUe/s320/image3.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aldonza tries to keep Muleteers at bay with bravado. </td></tr></tbody></table><p>In other solo turns, Jericho Franke had the right soft-spoken piety as the Padre, though his projection could have been better. Scott Hall turned in performances as the prison "governor" and the innkeeper filled with gusto, but his singing security wandered in "The Knight of the Woeful Countenance." The onstage accompanying band did creditable work for the most part, despite some out-of-tune bassoon playing. </p><p>The main shortcoming of the production can be summed up by the Muleteers, who frankly need to be absolute brutes and thugs, not just a nasty gathering of work colleagues. Two combat scenes flowed acceptably but remained kind of stagy. I think the character study of Aldonza that's so essential to the show's message needs these bullies to present a representation of — lacking a better term — pure testosterone poisoning. This is a show that doesn't bother about setting its conflicts in three dimensions. The Muleteers need to have an unmixed character of cynicism, cruelty, and selfishness. </p><p>At its heart, though, this "Man of La Mancha" has things right. That long-ago impression designed for self-justification by Brother Antoninus was properly evoked by the manipulative positivity of Don Quixote's fantastic quest in this show for the relevance and justice of an outmoded vision of life. </p><p><b><i>[Photos: Indy Ghost Light]</i></b></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-5131297711862145502024-03-14T07:10:00.000-07:002024-03-14T11:08:52.765-07:00Dover Quartet, touring with its new violist, gives radiant concert for Ensemble Music<p>In his concise oral program notes from the stage, Camden Shaw proposed a theme linking the three pieces the <a href="https://www.doverquartet.com/">Dover Quartet </a>played in its concert Wednesday night for the <a href="http://ensemblemusic.org">Ensemble Music Society.</a></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUtFIhgXgHKD7lTHOKhTMHZ43BK5b-RWC_W-sgkSWNyGMECbqupotv1_cJ690W1p5AEcuw0bxL4h6xRkMxIh9EyjfkhS-myPgR4JtOzMGp9bNYOryt_BkF22bNyxj3XkiPVYWqLlUb7Noh5qRyncZDkzEz0gE5bVW0TYZnRcgfQxjt4Md3NmvflxpyWoi4/s2048/EMSDoverQuartet.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUtFIhgXgHKD7lTHOKhTMHZ43BK5b-RWC_W-sgkSWNyGMECbqupotv1_cJ690W1p5AEcuw0bxL4h6xRkMxIh9EyjfkhS-myPgR4JtOzMGp9bNYOryt_BkF22bNyxj3XkiPVYWqLlUb7Noh5qRyncZDkzEz0gE5bVW0TYZnRcgfQxjt4Md3NmvflxpyWoi4/s320/EMSDoverQuartet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dover Quartet on the move</td></tr></tbody></table>The string quartet's cellist admitted that it's a stretch sometimes to impose a thematic interpretation on a program, but he ventured that the music by Joaquin Turina, Leos Janacek, and Franz Schubert has in common the composers' attempts to "work through something in their minds." The vagueness of that wording nonetheless applied well to what the Dovers offered the audience at the <a href="https://indianahistory.org/">Indiana History Center.</a><p></p><p>He was alluding to how dangerous life's tasks, whether self-imposed or not, can be to carry out or even move toward resolution. Composers work with problems that aren't purely musical, in other words, and they do so through mastery of their craft. By extension, these chronologically distant masterpieces apply well to the magnified uncertainties and challenges we all face in 2024.</p><p>The concert opened with the Spanish composer's intimate probe into a bullfighter's anxiety in "La Oracio del Torero," op. 24. The piece's <i>sotto voce</i> opening created the atmosphere of quiet confidence mixed with dread in the matador's mind. Joel Link's playing of the first-violin part conveyed the dramatic tension with a recitative-like urgency. The music moves toward explicit anticipation of the struggle between man and bull to come, then moves into a mood of invocation that has a deceptive dreamlike quality, masking the urgency of the bullfighter's prayer for a successful outcome.</p><p>Link and his colleagues — cellist Shaw, second violinist Bryan Lee, and new-member violist Julianne Lee (no relation) — carried their adaptability and investment in the special qualities of each selection forward into Janacek's Quartet No. 2 ("Intimate Letters"). In this piece, the composer's infatuation with a woman he wasn't married to was exercised through a massive exchange of letters. The four-movement composition that amounted to his representation in music of this obsession paints with a broad brush, as well as a delicate one.</p><p>The mood swings are abrupt and sometimes drastic. The Dovers entered into this volatile atmosphere with full commitment. A slow, tender melody for viola gave Julianne Lee a showcase that still remained within the ensemble texture to put across the implausible cohesiveness of the work. The ensemble's internal rapport was unshakable in the stop-start progress of the short second movement. In the folkish feeling of the third movement, Link's violin soared boldly, nailing the irrepressible scope of Janacek's unrequited passion, with the fourth movement a kind of protracted coda ending quizzically.</p><p>All the Dovers' picturesque accuracy in the Turina and Janacek works was expansively laid out in Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" Quartet in D minor, which occupied the concert's second half. I want to focus on three of the <i>Andante con moto </i>variations plus the movement's conclusion, each of which was a superior illustration of how manipulation of a theme can reveal various aspects of its possibilities. The first that captivated me wholly was the one with the cello paraphrasing the song; Shaw's playing was held within an appropriate embrace of the song's pathos, perfectly balanced with his colleagues' accompaniment figures. </p><p>The "hunting-horn" variation that followed, with its pervasive fanfares, was superbly balanced. I loved the way, here and elsewhere in this movement, the repeats were varied, not merely restated. In the next variation, a kind of drone writing for the cello built in coordination with the other three players to overwhelming effect. It led to a conclusion, so evenly poised at the lowest level of audibility, that it seemed to be death's voice saying to the maiden, "You know I've won, don't you?" </p><p>It's just one instance of the short-lived Schubert working something out in his own fertile mind. The Dover Quartet couldn't have represented it better than they did here Wednesday.</p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-66105570634702544562024-03-10T05:57:00.000-07:002024-03-10T11:02:31.179-07:00Long-form Wynton Marsalis gets a sterling exhibition from ISO's principal tuba<p><a href="https://wyntonmarsalis.org/"></a></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKknhuWOu5zw6T891FT5RTt7H1QQCZ32JYbemd5Bd5rQtwOCQuyxKF12Gg9nN6bp3blfjNwH7osxzsDByjnfWUI6Ia8cpfbpDFEhK8463S_We6Jf2jnLo5YhdS6dCBe8Nc-T-nD6uzSiaLUHBW5tU_RzEkTDdXhv_vbl6-1-5Rox4uMzEDqvMIwm6rAGUk/s667/Tony-Kniffen-scaled-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="503" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKknhuWOu5zw6T891FT5RTt7H1QQCZ32JYbemd5Bd5rQtwOCQuyxKF12Gg9nN6bp3blfjNwH7osxzsDByjnfWUI6Ia8cpfbpDFEhK8463S_We6Jf2jnLo5YhdS6dCBe8Nc-T-nD6uzSiaLUHBW5tU_RzEkTDdXhv_vbl6-1-5Rox4uMzEDqvMIwm6rAGUk/s320/Tony-Kniffen-scaled-1.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anthony Kniffen had a helpful composer chat.</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://wyntonmarsalis.org/"><br />Wynton Marsalis </a>has grown his musical footprint to become the Bigfoot striding across the jazz-classical landscape. His initial impact as a 20-year-old trumpeter seesawing between jazz and classical performance soon resulted in a decision to stick to jazz.<p></p><p>But in making that choice, the now 62-year-old New Orleans maestro as a composer has looked for long-form stature and ensemble splendor in a genre not known for sustaining long forms. Jazz packed with extended solo flights — a la John Coltrane — is not structurally substantial. So there often needs to be programmatic content, particularly on African-American themes, to provide breadth of expression. Marsalis' model has been Duke Ellington, notably in such works as "Black, Brown, and Beige" and <a href="https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/4813/harlem">"Harlem."</a></p><p>Marsalis made his mark on this tradition with "In This House, On This Morning," the Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Blood on the Fields," and "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" — to highlight his desire also to make tough, significant cultural statements. </p><p>Though I've not heard everything in his vast discography, even his strictly jazz compositions seem often to be hopeful of lodging a tune in the public's ear as firmly as Ellington did (though Duke's musical alter ego Billy Strayhorn has to be counted as part of that legacy). He has not succeeded in this yet, but he's established the kind of ensemble virtuosity that Ellington did with his bands.</p><p>For Marsalis, abstract music of extended length has been rarer, but still a solid category of achievement. So it was a treat to hear <a href="https://www.indianapolissymphony.org/profile/anthony-kniffen/">Anthony Kniffen</a> take on the solo role in Marsalis' 2021 Tuba Concerto Friday night. That was the novelty on the program, repeated Saturday, for <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra</a> patrons this weekend at Hilbert Circle Theatre. </p><p>In four movements, the concerto settles upon Marsalis' penchant for interpretations of black culture through his uniquely schooled prism. The titles give a clue, and Kniffen's extensive remarks about the piece, in "Words on Music" and to the audience just before Friday's concert performance, explained the context of "Up!," "Boogaloo Americana," "Lament," and "In Bird's Basement." (I also think what the soloist said about the musical content of the concerto got too much into the weeds for the concert audience.)</p><p>Kniffen connected with the audience in spoken remarks and, more important, in his performance. The benefit he received in an hour-long-plus phone chat with Marsalis last Monday showed up brilliantly as he played the difficult piece. There were the climbing phrases of "Up!" to launch the piece, and along the way, some strong singing-playing duetting to recall the vocal energy of black-church worship. </p><p>The second movement featured dance rhythms, including hand claps both imitated in the percussion and from string players setting aside their instruments. "Lament" extended Marsalis' interest in tone-quality contrasts, with a solo line for the bass section and in the way heavy triplet rhythms underlined the dominant feeling of woe. The finale lifted up the bebop inspiration with phrases characteristically ending on weak beats. And here in particular Marsalis' displayed his debt to Ellington's way of passing around material to unconventional blends of instruments.</p><p>Elsewhere the concert brought forward the excellence of guest conductor <a href="https://www.danzmayr.eu/">David Danzmayr.</a> Friday's performance opened with an electrifying reading of Beethoven's "Coriolan" Overture. It featured an especially well-managed scaling back of the energy to a subdued, chastened conclusion. </p><p>After intermission came an especially invigorated interpretation of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major, about five minutes quicker than the norm. The masterpiece requires the conductor to keep the oft-repeated melodies and accompaniment figures interesting; momentum mustn't flag. The first movement opened with a rapid, though not headlong, "Andante" that led naturally to a surging "Allegro." In the second movement, in which the "con moto" part of the "Andante" movement heading was stressed, the brisk march tempo embraced that peculiar habit of Schubert in turning suddenly toward anxiety. The scherzo returned to the sociable Franz's sunny side. Throughout, I admired the eloquence of Danzmayr's left hand, as nimble and decisive expressively as an action painter's or a dancer's. The finale, enhanced by precise accents, was taken quite fast, but held together with collective unanimity and an implied declaration that here indeed is one of the great symphonic masterpieces. </p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-81463770836943190852024-03-06T13:04:00.000-08:002024-03-06T14:13:30.933-08:00Schelle 'visions de l'amenities' at Butler's EDRH<p>Caught up, as one inevitably is, in Michael Schelle's gift for musical plays on words, I've borrowed that privilege and stretched it to label the concert he called "Schelle, Sasaki, and Friends" in a wretched pun on the French title of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_de_l%27Amen">Olivier Messiaen's "Visions de l'Amen."</a></p><p>Butler University's longtime composer in residence avails himself of the amenities of his professional position, in the dictionary sense of "something that conduces to comfort, convenience, or enjoyment."</p><p>These human amenities are students, former students, and Jordan College of Arts colleagues, plus his wife Miho Sasaki, assembled for a riotous kaleidoscope of short pieces. They are presumably a far cry from those in the <a href="https://www.presser.com/416-41173-iphigenia-in-brooklyn.html">P.D.Q. Bach cantata "Iphigenia in Brooklyn," </a>with its poignant recitative lines "and in a vision</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2Jd2MicPPYWNZw4TebDd6iLQ74_4abNo5Vmc2G8k-F8w6RxDtJ5La1iAF-nVEkgVfzu3cn1Eg10hjzcNSM7Y3GR8mjuEmpoU7BdPLn6XeuAUNnMMfH8vSaNBgX1qSkyy-2jm0ZWmqnYoivPzEQ5-E5FbpG5S1XGhfxiV8nPQp-7tn4WGqriCqTGrtZQd/s228/download.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="228" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2Jd2MicPPYWNZw4TebDd6iLQ74_4abNo5Vmc2G8k-F8w6RxDtJ5La1iAF-nVEkgVfzu3cn1Eg10hjzcNSM7Y3GR8mjuEmpoU7BdPLn6XeuAUNnMMfH8vSaNBgX1qSkyy-2jm0ZWmqnYoivPzEQ5-E5FbpG5S1XGhfxiV8nPQp-7tn4WGqriCqTGrtZQd/s1600/download.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Schelle sizes things up.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Iphigenia saw her brother Orestes, who was being chased by the Amenities."<p></p><p>Collectively Schelle gave the players the portmanteau name of the Bang on a Roomful of Teeth All Stars, an ensemble that might evoke the dentist in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Shop_of_Horrors_(musical)">"Little Shop of Horrors." </a> But new-music fans will readily divide the name into Bang on a Can and the vocal group Roomful of Teeth, mitigating fears of that figure as well as the one portrayed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dentist_(1932_film)#Plot">W.C. Fields in "The Dentist."</a> </p><p>I was on familiar ground from the outset. No one could do windups launching a beanball pitch like Ludwig van Beethoven, the coda of whose "Appassionata" sonata (op. 57) is lovingly sent up in "Roll Over Beethoven," the movement from <i>Funf Halluzinationen von Beethoven</i> that opened the recital. It was performed with predictable brilliance and panache by James Loughery, who has made a specialty of Schelle for over ten years, by my count. </p><p>The Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall was nearly filled with enthusiasts, as well as no doubt newcomers to the Schelle experience. A ready contrast of Schelle's muse with Sasaki's could be savored through two pieces for solo flute: her serious, multifaceted "iki" (meaning "breath") with Catherine Hoelscher and his 28-year-old "Subwoofer," a work of a much more theatrical cast played by Amanda Ellery, the fun of which has a touch of spookiness surely inspired by Schelle's deep interest in movies. As I wrote about a performance of this piece by another flutist in 2016: "In the realm of peripatetic music for solo flute, 'Subwoofer' probably reigns supreme."</p><div>I must skip over a few of the titles for the sake of readers' patience, if I've not already lost it. I was impressed by the concert's two new pieces (from 2023): Schelle's "Cut and Run" clarinet and piano, ruthlessly played like a movie chase scene by Eric Salazar and Ross Dryer, and Miho Sasaki's haunting piece roaming among three languages (Latin, Japanese, and English), "et non et non." It received a commanding performance by pianist Dryer, baritone Oliver Worthington, clarinetist Trina Gross, violinist Tricia Bonner, and cellist Drew Sperry, conducted with precision and verve by Richard Auldon Clark.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clark returned to lead the finale, an expansive octet of multiple charms, called "Heartland." I have heard this piece in concert before, and there is little to compare it with except itself. I guess that's what "sui generis" means, a phrase that has nothing to do with calling hogs.</div><div><br /></div><div>As Schelle noted in remarks from the stage, it's a wry assertion of what it was like for its New Jersey composer (raised, as was my father, in Bergen County) to get used to the Midwest. Schelle's musical embrace of his home here is confirmed by the rousing finale, during which he held cue cards so the audience could join in for this "Threnody for the Victims of Indiana." It amounted to an invigorating blend of hootenanny and pure hoot. "Visions de l'Amenities" indeed!</div><div><br /></div>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-53632017595167813242024-03-04T06:19:00.000-08:002024-03-04T10:06:07.365-08:00John Fedchock heads a Hoosier quartet to pay tribute to J.J. Johnson<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4p7JzCaCtZADjGZV9V_h3EH1Oj055zArLIX8Uz_w6tkUrIFARrC5fOc1bNRgPiRQhjYTK__BzYjJKwwEwp7MA_Xp9ENNaawdJfC0pY0hOXZSdE3nL-ANdR5-vtyURn1IpjHhC80yf_8Q3pEzcgsbbcaQCmIsWnXvbRCYfUN8tl1Kv4zJpYVx5_IUamLrh/s2048/JKFedchocksolo.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4p7JzCaCtZADjGZV9V_h3EH1Oj055zArLIX8Uz_w6tkUrIFARrC5fOc1bNRgPiRQhjYTK__BzYjJKwwEwp7MA_Xp9ENNaawdJfC0pY0hOXZSdE3nL-ANdR5-vtyURn1IpjHhC80yf_8Q3pEzcgsbbcaQCmIsWnXvbRCYfUN8tl1Kv4zJpYVx5_IUamLrh/s320/JKFedchocksolo.jpg" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fedchock taking care of J.J. business</td></tr></tbody></table>As a fledgling trombonist, my youthful idea of jazz trombone swung between two poles: Jack Teagarden and J.J. Johnson. Off to the side, more as a model of pristine tone and fluidity than jazz chops, stood Tommy Dorsey.<p></p><p>So, when I moved to Indianapolis in 1986, part of the excitement was establishing a home in Johnson's hometown. He started out here, he ended up here, and this year is his birth centenary. </p><p>To celebrate that, the well-regarded New York trombonist and arranger <a href="https://www.johnfedchock.com/">John Fedchock</a> was brought in Sunday night <br />to <a href="http://thejazzkitchen.com">the Jazz Kitchen</a>, fronting a quartet of local/regional stalwarts: pianist Steve Allee, bassist Jeremy Allen, and drummer Sean Dobbins. </p><p>That lineup delivered on a promise of a proper tribute to Naptown's trombone native son. Especially winning was Fedchock's detailed placing in bandstand remarks of the tunes the quartet offered: their places in the Johnson discography and the honoree's stature as a model of adapting the trombone to tonal gymnastics of bebop and then displaying unprecedented skill at being what Fedchock called "a compositional player." </p><p>Fedchock's history with the venue goes back to the 1980s, when the club was called The Place to<br /> Start, in an appearance as a member of the Woody Herman band, where he honed his arranging skills. Much more recently, he came back leading his sextet at the Kitchen, displaying (as he did Sunday night in this tribute) the same wealth of ideas, applied with great dexterity when the tempo and the inspiration called it forth.</p><p>He showed himself agile in all registers in Johnson's "Short Cake," following Allee's deep-delving chordal<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1t9b_VamG_G7P5QTu8EOxYd-wegIc5WKy_w9mhbrU9SslrbrlYeN6uPqWDjI_kYMFDzIHBPnG0DkKZ4hGUsCRxuRg_llSQIbBEtqRFbqgw8N_hv4HjEJdTYVYowSGjFzzdDcVVJG9HryzQ6XAM_5WoDDeOQMl2D9SvrCpA6Srf-m7zTI62vCaDqBzMTxa/s2048/JKFedchockQuartet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1t9b_VamG_G7P5QTu8EOxYd-wegIc5WKy_w9mhbrU9SslrbrlYeN6uPqWDjI_kYMFDzIHBPnG0DkKZ4hGUsCRxuRg_llSQIbBEtqRFbqgw8N_hv4HjEJdTYVYowSGjFzzdDcVVJG9HryzQ6XAM_5WoDDeOQMl2D9SvrCpA6Srf-m7zTI62vCaDqBzMTxa/s320/JKFedchockQuartet.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All quartet eyes on Allen's solo</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> solo. He inspired and gave space to the other sidemen here, giving Allen a well-deserved feature on "Lullaby of Jazzland," a Manny Albam composition that Johnson recorded in 1964. Trombone and bass unison in statements of the theme set up Allen's showcase aptly. </p><p>Dobbins thrived in this setting, getting his solo display moment early with the tom-tom and bass-drum emphasis that opened Johnson's "Kenya," which wore its African influence gracefully. In "Naptown USA," a fleet Johnson tune based on "Back Home Again in Indiana," the pianist helped to anchor the piece closer to the original. Fedchock's knack for good programming was evident in the set's followup with the evergreen Johnson ballad called "Lament."</p><p>Several tunes climaxed in 8- and 4-bar exchanges with the drummer; Dobbins never played one that failed to flourish concisely. </p><p>"Minor Mist" brought to light Johnson's adeptness with modal writing, and the set ended with an upbeat, late Johnson original titled "1085," the number of the trombonist's last Indianapolis address on Fox Hill Drive.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i>[Photos by Rob Ambrose]</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-71348505807550517232024-03-03T10:39:00.000-08:002024-03-04T04:41:32.819-08:00Catalyst Repertory's 'Bat in the Wind': The dark side of interdependence<p>No less an innovator than <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs">Steve Jobs</a>, who also had his useful demons, may have spoken the key to the</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7avnruDD04Qt0eY2gcjm_T2qFNOuzwSGkD10K-GVcxaWxEJ2S2y_ec4Sbbx8DR5P0qzpV5DiinVYzLYeKQ4xMsfH2_uuKpMSPAI5yonaG8kC2pKbkZHFDMu1uTaY7o9hApip1e37K-wCqT3mTvi_t4Ejdr2aTQnJ31CpaQX06IvdcIJXmQ1ZUMY_c9oW4/s1600/received_771495314528272.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1600" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7avnruDD04Qt0eY2gcjm_T2qFNOuzwSGkD10K-GVcxaWxEJ2S2y_ec4Sbbx8DR5P0qzpV5DiinVYzLYeKQ4xMsfH2_uuKpMSPAI5yonaG8kC2pKbkZHFDMu1uTaY7o9hApip1e37K-wCqT3mTvi_t4Ejdr2aTQnJ31CpaQX06IvdcIJXmQ1ZUMY_c9oW4/s320/received_771495314528272.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Randy connects with Taylor after his fashion.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> perils of the creative process faced by Taylor, the struggling playwright who frames the action of Casey Ross' new play, "Bat in the Wind." The <a href="http://catalystrepertory.org">Catalyst Repertory</a> production opened over the weekend at Indy Eleven, <a href="https://indyfringe.org/">Indy Fringe</a>, where it will run through March 17.<p></p><p>"Creativity is just connecting things," Jobs said. "When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it — they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while because they were connecting experiences they've had to something new."</p><p>Taylor re-creates his role from a shorter 2023 Fringe festival version of the play; Dane Rogers takes the other role as Randy, a boozy neighbor washing up as flotsam and jetsam on life's ruder shores. Taylor's attempts at making theater are thwarted by his isolation and addictive personality. At the outset, he feels superior to Randy, who seems to be a thoroughly damaged alcoholic and witless ne'er-do-well. Taylor clads his difficulties in a gauzy garb of words — the only skill he commands, as Randy brutally points out in a rare moment of clarity.</p><p>The trajectory of the 90-minute one-act drama, set in the men's adjoining apartments in a sketchy urban neighborhood, pivots from Taylor's conviction that he is a superior kind of failure to Randy toward a reversal of status. The blocked writer is aware of Randy's long-ago victory in an international arm-wrestling competition, but that explains little to the playwright, who is mired in a script going nowhere about his failed romantic relationship with a prickly, controlling woman named Shelley.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs1FbCCNGlilDhlwmyriGfCRldfL3_Ot5-IDIPyM-xYgRrUl3OYNyHUWv8diskq35ffuUQb8RRTYlz8LGZbJWzlXqe_W8D3jk7gis6vOVYra6k7l00HG4GMotdHIFxfzbaStmkh5FMFSrf9fSK1ehL7IvivIHd9JPGP2dmPwRSdMkm5t4ttD2R19FK2GrO/s1600/received_1078613953355637.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs1FbCCNGlilDhlwmyriGfCRldfL3_Ot5-IDIPyM-xYgRrUl3OYNyHUWv8diskq35ffuUQb8RRTYlz8LGZbJWzlXqe_W8D3jk7gis6vOVYra6k7l00HG4GMotdHIFxfzbaStmkh5FMFSrf9fSK1ehL7IvivIHd9JPGP2dmPwRSdMkm5t4ttD2R19FK2GrO/s320/received_1078613953355637.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taylor's creative effort draws Randy's strong criticism. </td></tr></tbody></table><br />When Taylor finally "sees something" (in Steve Jobs' sense) in his rocky interaction with Randy, it turns out to be the wrong thing, and promises no positive way out of his dilemma. It's a typical will-o'-the-wisp glimmering to an addictive brain fueled by cigarettes, alcohol and a little cocaine.<p></p><p>The final scene and the violence that leads up to it may offer a solution, but the audience is not encouraged to find more than a faint smear of hope there, set against the hopelessness of a bat in the wind, an image enunciated by the expiring arm-wrestling champ. </p><p>I admired the sneaky way Ross introduces Randy's access to long-hidden inner resources, though I'm not convinced the turnaround is adequately prepared for. The men's unlikely hanging out is the key, as it is in so much finding of common ground from initial enmity and guarded loneliness. The writing is witty and revealing, qualities sometimes deliberately veiled by Taylor's tunnel vision and Randy's oafish inebriation and irritating neediness.</p><p>Maybe it would take another visit to the show or a study of the script to reveal the plausibility of the characters' status exchange to me. At any rate, there's nothing missing in the insight Zachariah Stonerock's direction gives to the performers, who are fully invested in their tasks. Be prepared to be emotionally slammed as well as entertained, and if you have problems with secondhand smoke, consider this forewarning. </p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-6623537590206265272024-03-02T06:02:00.000-08:002024-03-02T10:46:06.339-08:00Conductor's ISO debut strikes sparks, returning guest soloist nails concerto<p> Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3 follows in its authentic American fashion the precedent established by</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4PkAuvBjv5yH9AuSI0ZSsn0n2h3qIuI6ApqVT8o96kZ3ppvIruIuFAYkRMb9nZv22RaV9EIfgQMb7mxbiMwAw8GLgFBop3xvv0gkdGP863ORygMfZwYhh63uwOkpow2lCOyU3-kn2LYjalTbFMACjXuZK22e_c6WPexEBo1hQrG3QWAg0KESZbxJAAxKj/s1600/Yue_Bao_c_Starghill.webp" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4PkAuvBjv5yH9AuSI0ZSsn0n2h3qIuI6ApqVT8o96kZ3ppvIruIuFAYkRMb9nZv22RaV9EIfgQMb7mxbiMwAw8GLgFBop3xvv0gkdGP863ORygMfZwYhh63uwOkpow2lCOyU3-kn2LYjalTbFMACjXuZK22e_c6WPexEBo1hQrG3QWAg0KESZbxJAAxKj/s320/Yue_Bao_c_Starghill.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yue Bao was trained in Shanghai and at the Curtis Institute.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Beethoven's Third ("Eroica") of shifting the expressive weight of the symphony form to the finale. And though that weight seems obviously centered early in the movement by the familiar "Fanfare for the Common Man," it is elaborated in a detailed, virtuosic kind of heaviness. Thus it relieves the superficial impression that this is all a little bit too much by the time of the brass-and-percussion peroration.<p></p><p>So it was scrupulously handled Friday night as the Chinese conductor <a href="https://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/about/our-people/guest-conductors-artists/yue-bao/">Yue Bao </a>made her <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra</a> debut. The intricacy of motivic interplay, which she already had managed well in the tricky rhythmic zest of the second-movement scherzo, wasn't sped through or simply illuminated in brilliant flashes. She was attentive to the sharp-edged contours of the music from the first movement on, including its convincing episodes of calm, which carried well from flute and trombone into some lovely elaboration in the violins.</p><p>As for the acceptability of that pulse-quickening ending, I can't resist quoting my account of a previous fine ISO performance of the Copland Third under the baton of Michael Francis in October 2017: </p><p>"When your ears are set to the wealth of skill and inspiration in the main body of the movement, you don't have to worry that the symphony's conclusion is simply an overstatement. The light emerges at the end, but it is as much a kind of simplification of the musical palette as it is some kind of metaphorical light."</p><p>Copland says somewhere in his writing about music that Beethoven's symphonies call up an image of a great man walking down the street, whereas Mahler's evoke a great actor playing a great man walking down the street. Copland in his own works comes closer to the Beethovenian ideal. In his mature music, he is never a poseur or a showboat, even when he approaches the grandiose, as in the Third Symphony. Bao seemed to model her interpretation on Copland's disinclination toward excessive display. She conducted a performance both energetic and clarifying, nuanced as well as explosive.</p><p>Bao presented as her calling card a short piece by one of the African-American composers of historic importance being programmed by orchestras nowadays. To be repeated with the rest of the program at 5:30 p.m. this afternoon, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's "Worship" is a sincere evocation of worship in the black church. It's a personal interpretation that doesn't make too much of stylistic resemblances. It rests on a kind of peekaboo tribute to "Old 100th," the classic hymn tune best known by its opening line, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixNOBR8F2axFFmLa6i5QguHAWqDF11bTccwyUWMNSe0mzKDtW37DL4Eqof90KUJbaGYoyKuRM77SX0g4I4_37iGBXzY7EwdTxzI-9BacykkBhXReb0zRn7T3ggn8L7AAu-Ud2VdBkvdnJIeK3jpQM3txVeD0iIIwEuixRmr1eqpziTx65RLBTQATS07UDY/s225/ISOGluzman.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixNOBR8F2axFFmLa6i5QguHAWqDF11bTccwyUWMNSe0mzKDtW37DL4Eqof90KUJbaGYoyKuRM77SX0g4I4_37iGBXzY7EwdTxzI-9BacykkBhXReb0zRn7T3ggn8L7AAu-Ud2VdBkvdnJIeK3jpQM3txVeD0iIIwEuixRmr1eqpziTx65RLBTQATS07UDY/s1600/ISOGluzman.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vadim Gluzman burst with brio.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />This weekend's other guest, reflecting mutual admiration for the guest conductor in his Words on Music remarks, is the Russian-Israeli violinist <a href="http://vadimgluzman.com/">Vadim Gluzman</a>. Previously here in solo concertos by Bruch (2018) and Glazunov (2013), Gluzman can be trusted to deliver a solid, polished performance. The tone is pristine and technically adept, and never trails a loose thread or a sketchy phrase.<p></p><p>This time his playing sounded extra brimful of confidence, resulting in a tendency to push the tempo in fast music. This was pervasive even though both musically and visually, he seemed focused on collaborative meaning with orchestra and conductor. Otherwise, more charm would have been welcome, a quality that became evident in the duo encore he offered with concertmaster Kevin Lin. </p><p>Gluzman's playing in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto no. 2 in G minor was best coordinated with the orchestra when the solo violin places deft figuration above the strings' pizzicati in the first movement. That's not to say it was the only time that unity of solo and ensemble was evident, but it stood out. Interpretively, the range of expressiveness seemed small, though it was intensely applied. </p><p>Surprisingly, it struck me as a Soviet-style performance of music by a composer who made many compromises with the regime that had pulled him back to the Russian homeland from abroad. Thus, it tapped into an authentic vein of Prokofiev's creativity, which repeatedly found ways to be original under severe constraints. But the capriciousness also characteristic of Prokofiev's muse was largely absent. </p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-35147014061541151432024-02-27T05:09:00.000-08:002024-02-28T12:36:07.235-08:00Dover Quartet's new violist and her colleagues have artistry shaped by Curtis<p>Philadelphia's Curtis Institute, long among the most prestigious American conservatories for advanced musical education, generated the<a href="https://www.doverquartet.com/"> Dover Quartet</a>, which comes to Indianapolis March 13 under the auspices of the <a href="http://ensemblemusic.org">Ensemble Music Society. </a> (The 7:30 p.m. concert, with music by Turina, Schubert, and Janacek, is at the Indiana History Center.)</p><p>A few years before the quartet's formation in 2008, Julianne Lee had graduated with a double major in violin and viola. She launched her career as an orchestra player, becoming a first-desk violinist in the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops orchestras. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYoP9jEGVX_CEamG-0uCDchUimjsF8kr1vCT3brSeXTPi83t0MAjA7-zRMjM21DQTMjqlP2DQ_II9HR8eGq_9MBUT54BdMsXDaTxY724JyWKzaIfG1pbALiTY7sIClsDCu-A3AfNihYYP79gnVOz-gabaNO5I0wAVfW6Qj2SHPYWaQGfmcVThRdksQ-5i/s2048/EMSDoverQuartet.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYoP9jEGVX_CEamG-0uCDchUimjsF8kr1vCT3brSeXTPi83t0MAjA7-zRMjM21DQTMjqlP2DQ_II9HR8eGq_9MBUT54BdMsXDaTxY724JyWKzaIfG1pbALiTY7sIClsDCu-A3AfNihYYP79gnVOz-gabaNO5I0wAVfW6Qj2SHPYWaQGfmcVThRdksQ-5i/s320/EMSDoverQuartet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dover Quartet on the move: Camden Shaw, Julianne Lee, Bryan Lee, and Joel Link. </td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br />At the beginning of the current school year, she renewed her <a href="https://www.curtis.edu/news/the-dover-quartet-names-julianne-lee-as-new-violist/">Curtis connection again as the Dover's new violist</a>. Her new colleagues are Curtis-educated founders of the ensemble, whose Indianapolis appearances go back to 2019. The Dovers have a residency at Curtis, a teaching and performing home base from which they go on tours of the kind that will bring them here.</p><p>Founded a century ago by Mary Louise Curtis Bok, daughter of music patron and magazine and newspaper publisher Cyrus H.K. Curtis, the Curtis Institute has a nearly unique free tuition policy for students. They often fulfill their youthful promise by going on to distinguished careers. </p><p>Institutionalized opportunities to broaden student development had a life-changing benefit for Lee. A violinist from early childhood, growing up in a Korean family with two cellists as family members, she was receptive to expanding her horizons in the string family, too. She learned as a Curtis junior of a program that would permit a double major in violin and viola. Borrowing an instrument from the school to get started, she was able to land instruction from a distinguished teacher, <a href="https://www.thestrad.com/american-violist-joseph-de-pasquale-has-died-aged-95/378.article">Joseph de Pasquale.</a></p><p>"They are so supportive of the students," Julianne Lee marvels. "Learning the alto clef was the hardest part of it," she admitted. "The sound was already in my ear — the low register."</p><p>Of the Curtis influence on her new professional status, Lee told me by phone: "I think that there's something there. Joel and Bryan's teachers have been my teachers as well. How we heard music was similar. You play what you hear, so I think we hear the same way. It's no exaggeration that it felt easy with them from the first minute." </p><p>Lee's audition went so smoothly that she was practically a shoo-in for the quartet's viola vacancy last year. As Dover cellist Camden Shaw told Strings magazine: "... <span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 14px;">when we first read with her, it was clear that her voice, as it were, came through with such clarity that we fell in love with the musician beyond the specific viola.."</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 14px;">With such a close working relationship, specific musical and educational affinities don't tell the whole story. "Another thing we have in common [besides Curtis] is that we are the youngest child in our families," she said. "So we have stories we exchange and even discussions about that." </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 14px;">She sums them up as "little personality things" about growing up as the "baby" of a family. Together with her love of travel and and a lifelong passion for chamber music, which she was able indulge while holding down orchestra positions, there seems to be a host of ways to count how thoroughly Julianne Lee belongs in the Dover Quartet's viola chair.</span></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-84253065284988436752024-02-25T05:02:00.000-08:002024-02-25T10:55:52.743-08:00Cyrus Chestnut for APA: Giving puckish charm and floridity to jazz-piano roots<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUXl2eC8lowcQVtb9R5szgNMf6x7LXu9Gyy9wgFbcYO0wJPLCwwG3TJ0NqiwwtKWAkirYVhY_zyQV0_r_Fu-uUaMq3sLgcR6DLc3tmSKfUETO5SE4qMMizmfUROWivVt1SgrkTQu3HyDxCvM9JWc-_1YbQ34mLmni4o7M3eRoXReqB0VhJdFThgzYeyuAC/s4032/IMG_4646.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUXl2eC8lowcQVtb9R5szgNMf6x7LXu9Gyy9wgFbcYO0wJPLCwwG3TJ0NqiwwtKWAkirYVhY_zyQV0_r_Fu-uUaMq3sLgcR6DLc3tmSKfUETO5SE4qMMizmfUROWivVt1SgrkTQu3HyDxCvM9JWc-_1YbQ34mLmni4o7M3eRoXReqB0VhJdFThgzYeyuAC/s320/IMG_4646.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cyrus Chestnut focuses in Sunday's first set. </td></tr></tbody></table>His recorded history, building a lot of his music out of the black church, confirms <a href="https://www.cyruschestnut.net/">Cyrus Chestnut</a>'s solid basis as a pianist worth including in the <a href="http://americanpianists.org">American Pianists Association</a>'s Grand Encounters series.<p></p><p>The APA presented the now-veteran pianist from Baltimore in two sets Saturday night at <a href="http://thejazzkitchen.com">the Jazz Kitchen</a>. Over the past 30 years in recordings, I've been impressed by Chestnut's old-soul piano style and his imaginative, personalized extension of that kind of brio and intensity. He gets into quotation and paraphrase, but not excessively, and can come up with filigree that grows naturally out of a tune's basic narrative. Tending to nourishment of the roots never seems far from his mind.</p><p>As demonstrated in the first set, too, he enjoys exploiting the whole keyboard, making every register ring out in its characteristic fashion. On "Breezin'," he followed wittily, with aggressive left-hand octaves, upon bassist Herman Burney's bowed solo, linked to vocalizing in unison in the style of Slam Stewart.</p><p>And you can always be sure he will rarely understate a melody, whether it's a full chorus of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" as introduction to "In a Sentimental Mood," or that Duke Ellington classic itself, joined at that point by Burney and tasteful drummer Kelton Norris. </p><p>Despite the loyalty to the melody shown immediately, he didn't mind indulging in a little too much filigree. But the spontaneity that led him there never escaped his overall control. He put a seal on that by going back to a couple of phrases from "A Mighty Fortress" at the end. </p><p>The waywardness of our dream life was cleverly mocked in the pianist's initial statement of "Darn That Dream." He jabbed out the theme in minor seconds, reveling in the kind of dissonance that overtakes our minds in those darn dreams. He also puckishly introduced a lengthy quotation, "Pop Goes the Weasel," stopping the bandstand action at the refrain so the audience could sing it. </p><p>I liked the arrangement in the standard "It Could Happen to You," with an inserted riff between choruses that occasionally took on the tone of tolling bells. There was a bass solo that covered all aspects of the song like a blanket, not just decorating the chord changes. And when it came time for the bandleader to occupy the spotlight, Chestnut roasted the opportunity on an open fire. </p><p>Whenever the pianist chose to start a number with an unaccompanied solo introduction out of tempo, you could be sure that when the tune came into view with the trio, he could both give it lots of love and be playful with it, as he did in Lionel Richie's "Hello." As black worship styles demonstrate, a certain amount of testifying doesn't mean you have to be dead serious about it all. Chestnut brought that attitude of joy to the bandstand, with plenty of ways to apply it, in his Jazz Kitchen headlining debut. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-86353139669500551702024-02-24T13:26:00.000-08:002024-02-24T17:55:09.722-08:00ISO: Choral masterpieces pose effective contrast of spiritual and secular valuesThe perpetual seesaw of sacred and profane, which rocks this weekend's Classical Series concerts of the <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra</a>, makes for special excitement. <div><br /></div><div>Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms," not performed by the ISO since 1982, occupies the program's first half with its spiky, austere reverence. Recoiling from the lavish writing for orchestra that brought him fame before World War I, the Russian composer moved into a restrained style that also eschewed Romantic expressiveness. As the ISO program note points out, he was even explicit about music's inability to express anything but itself. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yet "Symphony of Psalms" is quite moving especially in the third section, where the music certainly<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8_6TEPMq0-DH6owm0klrxf6OcQm7cy2eoWGm6P2Q-L8Aa38nLvH8uRMS2epYCvO_AuNJB6VJaO2lgUOa2horLwB3Kv3JzyFDfiL1SsatqWSGuc_gFxYXQsDqwjWUrBp6PySh7ZiWmSKBnIg8oViqpR7nFDP6ptOM3nDnC-X7eCQihlJssD8I8EcV5EAur/s810/hansgraf_vdb0165_c_singapore_symphony_and_bryan_van_der_beek_copy.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8_6TEPMq0-DH6owm0klrxf6OcQm7cy2eoWGm6P2Q-L8Aa38nLvH8uRMS2epYCvO_AuNJB6VJaO2lgUOa2horLwB3Kv3JzyFDfiL1SsatqWSGuc_gFxYXQsDqwjWUrBp6PySh7ZiWmSKBnIg8oViqpR7nFDP6ptOM3nDnC-X7eCQihlJssD8I8EcV5EAur/s320/hansgraf_vdb0165_c_singapore_symphony_and_bryan_van_der_beek_copy.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Austrian conductor Hans Graf</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> seems to have lots to say about the texts. In these performances, those are projected overhead so the audience can easily follow along throughout both works on the program. </div><div><br /></div><div>Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," a perpetual people's choice among 20th-century choral works, takes up the bulk of the program. The long-suppressed texts draw on the anonymous poetry of peripatetic medieval clerics and students, entertaining profane thoughts on the sly. The music is fully engaged with the pleasures and woes of this worldly life, all under the fickle hand of Fortune, the force apostrophized to open and complete the work.</div><div><br /></div><div>The <a href="https://indychoir.org/">Indianapolis Symphonic Choir</a>, prepared by its longtime director Eric Stark, makes a welcome return to the series in both works, with the Orff work also bringing into play three guest vocal soloists and the <a href="https://icchoir.org/">Indianapolis Children's Choir.</a> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/8403568589757394965?q=Hans%20Graf">Hans Graf, a frequent podium guest at Hilbert Circle Theatre, </a>conducts.</div><div><br /></div><div>Graf spoke to the Words on Music session preceding Friday's performance of Orff's admiration for "Symphony of Psalms." The German composer, who maintained affection for the theatrical side of music performance even while he settled into accommodation to the Nazi regime, never rejected the opportunity to move people. More likely, Orff drew inspiration from "The Wedding," a peculiar ballet-cantata that took Stravinsky a long time to get in final form, completing it in 1923 as he firmed up his thirty-year sojourn in neoclassicism. The influence of "Symphony of Psalms," extended closer to our own time, is especially evident in Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" and "Chichester Psalms."</div><div><br /></div><div>Clarity of rhythm and sonority distinguish both works on the ISO program, and the orchestra is set up this weekend to adapt to the unusual scoring, with the sentimental influence of strings reduced and the vigorous articulation of winds and percussion brought forward. </div><div><br /></div><div>In "Carmina Burana," placement of the vocal soloists reflected Orff's theatrical bent. Briefly used to spotlight the lament of a roasted swan, the countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen was somewhat costumed with a flourish suggesting both flames and the bird's wonted elegance. He appeared and then receded high on the male side of the choir. His singing outlined the grotesque comedy of the swan's fate without hamming it up.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soprano Ashley Fabian, clad in a red, off-the-shoulders gown, sings her more extensive solos on carnal love off to the other side, perched near the children's choir. The kids' music frankly suggests that theme on the emergence from puberty, perhaps risky in our oversensitive age. But nature cannot be denied.</div><div> </div><div>Both guest singers caught their characters' significance aptly, but they were <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXMMHrSQCPDnmpaovxWBteNccn0BECFU-xQw9xsUeCeqEEGzeWdp_KCDbNPqhNKDbdG5biYTh711jyJ3V6dvUFt61UzOdVwE4m_NYpNKExvJMyhdSTkqH4RNV0Spc59GvrdJ7oLiHyzfCapgN0LjOAU7dqKlPGCvXafmJYxL_ETtSH97-qhO7B7fr4l-1/s479/yun-hyung.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="479" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXMMHrSQCPDnmpaovxWBteNccn0BECFU-xQw9xsUeCeqEEGzeWdp_KCDbNPqhNKDbdG5biYTh711jyJ3V6dvUFt61UzOdVwE4m_NYpNKExvJMyhdSTkqH4RNV0Spc59GvrdJ7oLiHyzfCapgN0LjOAU7dqKlPGCvXafmJYxL_ETtSH97-qhO7B7fr4l-1/w200-h200/yun-hyung.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hyung Yun, Korean baritone</td></tr></tbody></table><br />exceeded in vitality and expressiveness by the third one: <a href="http://hyungyun.com">Hyung Yun</a>, a baritone in formal wear positioned near the front of the stage to the conductor's right.</div><div> </div><div>The baritone solos represent the anguish that recurs through the poems concerning unrequited love and other barriers to happiness under the rule of Fortune. This soloist was mesmerizing in every phrase, and both his soaring falsetto and the near-growl sometimes required couldn't have been more expertly managed. A colorless singer undertaking this role would sap "Carmina Burana" of much of the vigor that choral forces can't be expected to supply on their own, excellent though they are here. Hyung Yun was leagues away from dullness or routine, on the brilliant side of the spectrum.</div><div><br /></div><div>These concerts afforded ISO patrons the opportunity to reflect on the inevitable polarity between the purity of spiritual transcendence and the rootedness we all share in earthly life, with its temptations and fleeting joys, and its encouragement to weigh temperance and morality against desire and perhaps choose the latter. And as addressed through this music, audiences become acquainted a little better with how composers of the recent past set aside the 19th-century heritage that still dominates classical programming to produce masterpieces of a different and distinguished kind.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-46395580902286309642024-02-20T07:35:00.000-08:002024-02-20T09:19:50.716-08:00ISO season moves into a new era with a new music director<p>With anecdotal reports coming in at high praise, it's likely that Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra audiences in 2024-25 will hear the enthusiasm the musicians have for the rec<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-DUKjHzXwnvEdYdFa5JiA4GDgUO56mvt7S66cZqdZJZXWnJ0Mvwco_n46sWNrhpoJ2TeIAKcnioc_CUBV3k9HUMjIlbdx0kXDRYGbjxwEaB25lzOuKwbajD1hXTbGP6bFszpYV3z_BcJakohomPujAhYklrCTWIVVTi4bnp9yqQyut0NfVg-Xe6A_k1B/s1030/CS1%20and%20Gala%20Mario%20Venzago%20photo%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="688" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-DUKjHzXwnvEdYdFa5JiA4GDgUO56mvt7S66cZqdZJZXWnJ0Mvwco_n46sWNrhpoJ2TeIAKcnioc_CUBV3k9HUMjIlbdx0kXDRYGbjxwEaB25lzOuKwbajD1hXTbGP6bFszpYV3z_BcJakohomPujAhYklrCTWIVVTi4bnp9yqQyut0NfVg-Xe6A_k1B/s320/CS1%20and%20Gala%20Mario%20Venzago%20photo%201.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mario Venzago, whose exit as ISO maestro was contentious</td></tr></tbody></table><br />ent appointment of Jun Märkl as the orchestra's eighth music director. In this first season under his artistic leadership of the Classical Series, Märkl will conduct six subscription weekends. The first weekend of his conducting in his new role will be Jan. 16-18 in a program of Beethoven's 7th Symphony and Manuel de Falla's "Three-Cornered Hat" ballet music. </p><p>Beginning with a return to the Hilbert Circle Theater podium by Mario Venzago, the sixth music director of the ISO, at the annual Gala Concert Sept. 28, the season will end with Märkl conducting Beethoven's "Choral" Symphony, No. 9 in D minor, on June 20-21, featuring four vocal soloists and the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir. The concert will be filled out with the rare inclusion of a work by modernist master Arnold Schoenberg, "Peace on Earth," an a cappella motet, also featuring the ISC.</p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVHX3hIg_Srd7CvRZpfZrLrrCr3wm1zizIdMsESRQDuFAo_lb9DMZG0sULzPqN7h4yAtf_9AafYzhFwXNevlzwptuj5VQKUVJ_p2VW3MwmwTYhpZMlGsk74PpUuvE9vR-9ev8xDQVz1TxpAC18x2VtZ8WJHWZpdH7hWZOQvP8YtbMdNwJslOJdh9ESd55/s5760/Gala%20Conrad%20Tao%20Photo%201%20credit%20Brantley%20Gutierrez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3840" data-original-width="5760" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVHX3hIg_Srd7CvRZpfZrLrrCr3wm1zizIdMsESRQDuFAo_lb9DMZG0sULzPqN7h4yAtf_9AafYzhFwXNevlzwptuj5VQKUVJ_p2VW3MwmwTYhpZMlGsk74PpUuvE9vR-9ev8xDQVz1TxpAC18x2VtZ8WJHWZpdH7hWZOQvP8YtbMdNwJslOJdh9ESd55/s320/Gala%20Conrad%20Tao%20Photo%201%20credit%20Brantley%20Gutierrez.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conrad Tao will play Rachmaninoff "Rhapsody"</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The Opening Night Gala also brings in as guest artist the pianist Conrad Tao, playing the solo part in Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The IU Health Plans Classical Series will begin with the subscription-debut Oct. 18-19 of guest conductor Gemma New, principal guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Other guest conductors making their debuts in the 2024-25 season are Keitaro Harada, Valentina Peleggi, Daniel Raiskin, and Joseph Young. </p><p>Among the guest soloists returning are violinist Karen Gomyo and pianists Stewart Goodyear and Awadagin Pratt. Pratt's local appearances have included a fascinating interpretation in 2013 of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, with Märkl's predecessor as music director, Krzysztof Urbanski, conducting a work whose centennial is this year. </p><p>That birthday-boy composition will come to the ISO fore again with Steve Hackman's "Uncharted Series" premiere, "Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue," on Sept. 18. The creative pop-classical mash-up series will also link Bartok and Bjork (Feb. 19). And that's not all: With soloist Goodyear and the ISO, Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly will conduct the Gershwin work Oct. 11 and 12 in a series that will open with Broadway star Ashley Brown Sept. 20-21.</p><p>On the Classical Series, several ISO members will be featured as soloists, including concertmaster Kevin Lin. Other principals in the solo spotlight next season include contrabassist Ju-Fang Liu, and, in a new double concerto by Indianapolis-based composer Hanna Benn, oboist Jennifer Christen and bassoonist Ivy Ringel.</p><p>Complete information on the season, including the Film Series, has just been put up on the <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">ISO website</a>.</p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-76996530620097366862024-02-15T16:40:00.000-08:002024-02-15T17:44:13.001-08:00Mining its region for musical gold, Danish String Quartet visits again<p> The trimmings were in Valentine's Day red, but the precious metal on this visit by the <a href="https://www.danishquartet.com/">Danish String<br /> Quartet </a>was the pure gold of the ensemble's arrangements of Nordic and North Atlantic folk music.</p><p>Attracting a large crowd Wednesday evening at <a href="https://www.indianalandmarks.org/">Indiana Landmarks Center,</a> the top-drawer DSQ devoted its concert's second half to that growing part of its repertoire.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNVaBWmyMTfVjoYV-OuJjFDjoJ6FB_LRUUhJs2uALSWq0cIHIjiPHA0OQUBC6vJQJajN7GVf-cslz0B3sTSG3DqgWQyMbyVrAJGQUxSGzNEtZAqzozkwJNMDh5fCpctMPGZKmv4Gl0yIWF0npIJGYhsBN8seOAuL74Rd91PDJ2Mih_TqWPBnDkoqEMblW8/s1626/DanishStringQuartet.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1626" data-original-width="1078" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNVaBWmyMTfVjoYV-OuJjFDjoJ6FB_LRUUhJs2uALSWq0cIHIjiPHA0OQUBC6vJQJajN7GVf-cslz0B3sTSG3DqgWQyMbyVrAJGQUxSGzNEtZAqzozkwJNMDh5fCpctMPGZKmv4Gl0yIWF0npIJGYhsBN8seOAuL74Rd91PDJ2Mih_TqWPBnDkoqEMblW8/s320/DanishStringQuartet.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Danish String Quartet paid its third visit here.</td></tr></tbody></table>There was the first appearance in its touring of the Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian violin and a matter of intense pride. Frederik Øland played the ancient folk instrument in a generous second-half stretch of the concert. Its eight strings, four of them sympathetic (resonating to the activated four), have helped give rise to the affectionate mockery Øland summed up as Hardanger fiddlers spending half their lives tuning and the other half playing out of tune.<p></p><p>He got it right, however, avoiding that legendary lifelong musical task of Sisyphus. I found especially fetching the quartet's playing of a boat song said to originate in Norwegian voyages toward the Shetland Islands in days when such sailing was a risky venture. The poignant balance in the music of a sailor's homesickness and his tenuous hope of safety reminded me of the pretty tenor song<a href="https://thelistenersclub.com/2023/11/08/berlioz-les-troyens-vallon-sonore-hylas-song-ryland-davies/"> "Vallon sonore" in Berlioz's "Les Troyens</a>." </p><p>There was also a Swedish polka and a medieval "chain dance" from the Faeroe islands as part of a medley capped by a ballad about a blacksmith and an Irish tune. The entire second half made good on the evidence of the concert's first half that the Danish String Quartet plays as if one musician were divided four ways at the same time, no matter how much their lines diverge or come back together. And a stamp was put on that to heart-melting effect with an encore offered after a prolonged, cheering ovation: the Rodgers-Hart classic "My Funny Valentine."</p><p>In the first half, Øland and fellow violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard, and cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, unfailingly projected compatible sounds, matching one another in articulation, volume, phrase shape and adjustable positions on the spectrum of tonal opacity and translucence. (When the time has come to me to pass on, I think I want to be embalmed in the tone of Sjölin's cello.)</p><p>The concert opened with Mozart's Divertimento for String Quartet in F major. The first movement readily established the blithe atmosphere of the divertimento form, which young Wolfgang practiced expertly while he was readying his escape from Salzburg to the larger world as his own person. The Andante in the middle made a shift in <i>its</i> middle to the minor mode, deftly managed by the quartet and not amounting to a serious break in the carefree progress of the whole. </p><p>A Haydnesque sense of humor proved to be a harbinger of the easygoing temperament that pervaded Benjamin Britten's three divertimenti: March, Waltz, and Burlesque. The first one unleashed the pacifist composer's knack for making fun of the military's favorite musical form, and the waltz had the malleable nature Britten exercised so well in his host of operas: the nostalgic mood swung from assertiveness to diffidence. "Burlesque" tested the DSQ's adaptability and quicksilver shift management; the music was virtually acrobatic in its well-directed quirkiness.</p><p>In between came Thomas Ades' "The Four Quarters," an examination of the divisions of the day from "Nightfalls" around the clock. The expanded techniques required suggested a day loaded with the amount of variety and whimsical thoughts that Leopold Bloom entertained in his famous day in "Ulysses." Ades' "Nightfalls" adumbrated the changing hours' emotional atmosphere. For the next movement to be titled "Serenade: Morning Dew" suggests the substitution of a serenade in the place where an aubade might be expected. The reliance on pizzicato techniques had the dewdrops falling like the rain they imitate. </p><p>"Days" hinted that the routine that marks most people's passing of daylight hours must be settled into and some accommodation needs to be made for all the things we cannot change. "The Twenty-fifth Hour" put the musicians through their paces in adding en extra beat to each measure, we were told, as if it were an extra hour poised for the sake of doing nothing. Ades' willingness to keep the mood light in his quotidian salute really paid off here in a lightheartedness that the DSQ effortlessly folded into the work's technical demands. </p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-67121886563546353702024-02-10T09:52:00.000-08:002024-02-10T12:21:46.114-08:00To play Beethoven, Augustin Hadelich returns to the arena of his triumph <p>Decades ago, the leading American concert violinist Isaac Stern appeared as a talk-show guest and talked briefly about audience behavior. He told of a time he was playing the Beethoven concerto, and during the second movement— which "goes straight up to heaven," I remember him saying — he noticed that a woman in the front row had draped her coat over the edge of the stage.</p><p>Stern continued, of course, but reported being annoyed at the sight of that coat. "That's my space!" he exclaimed justifiably of the stage he and the orchestra had occupied. </p><p>I bring that up in this account of <a href="https://augustinhadelich.com/en">Augustin Hadelich</a>'s performance Friday night of the same concerto with</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCUujlhRJg4JaIEAdpXjhFbRoUSld2ZTYPBROlj72KcYKTl8gMkuIMipnv0v0ssOPJsR28m8ws2yT8y4y38zeAYaiBvACIwZSgOk9pdDnIfkv5TB23vUvWe9dmOQY1uptWUdrQ-D2tvAsu1NfXclQ1vW4cM5eHUTTEKAnHI6B-Oo6g27Tp6OvzBDz4n_Mf/s867/Augustin-Hadelich_web.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCUujlhRJg4JaIEAdpXjhFbRoUSld2ZTYPBROlj72KcYKTl8gMkuIMipnv0v0ssOPJsR28m8ws2yT8y4y38zeAYaiBvACIwZSgOk9pdDnIfkv5TB23vUvWe9dmOQY1uptWUdrQ-D2tvAsu1NfXclQ1vW4cM5eHUTTEKAnHI6B-Oo6g27Tp6OvzBDz4n_Mf/s320/Augustin-Hadelich_web.png" width="295" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IVCI gold medalist Hadelich has a host of fans here.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, with <a href="https://vladimirkulenovic.com/">Vladimir Kulenovic</a> on the podium. (A second performance happens this afternoon at 5:30.) It's relevant because not only is there a spiritual dimension in Beethoven's <i>Larghetto</i> that Hadelich and the orchestra succeeded in bringing out, but the behavior of the large audience was exemplary. <p></p><p>It was even close to ideal throughout the concert, and that deserves comment up front because it revealed not only the deep admiration local music-lovers have for Hadelich, but also helps wipe away any notion that Hoosiers are rubes in matters of concert etiquette.</p><p>Reveling in audience behavior as well as the music performed might seem odd, but when the silence is in all the right places (including between movements of the concerto and of Brahms' Third Symphony), the music is lifted up. And there was nothing lukewarm about the response. The tumultuous ovation after the concerto received the gift of two solo encores: the soloist's arrangement of "Wild Fiddler's Rag," droll and energetic, and Carlos Gardel's "Por Una Cabeza," a classic tango also arranged by Hadelich.</p><p>The Italian-born German-American violinist has been back here several times since winning the 2006 <a href="http://violin.org">International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. </a>He always makes a good impression. He seems to enter fully into the personality of every composition he brings to the public: the range of associations in Friday's pair of encores demonstrated that. I have heard excellent Ysaye, Mozart, and Bartok from him both recorded and in concert. He puts his personality on everything without homogenizing the material.</p><p>Whatever the spiritual reach of the second movement, noted by Stern and many others, the work is a masterpiece that doesn't seem to strive for profundity. For the solo instrument, it lies high and prioritizes nimbleness. The score prizes momentum even in the long first movement. It was first performed, with the ink hardly dry on the page, by Franz Clement, who was famous for the lightness and high spirits of his playing. </p><p>The ISO program notes repeat the legend that Clement inserted pieces of his own between the first and second movements, including playing his instrument upside down. The story is featured in the sleeve notes of an LP I own featuring Jascha Heifetz and the Boston Symphony. In "The Concerto," Michael Steinberg makes clear that Clement didn't have such nerve, but put his own pieces at the end of the program. </p><p>At any rate, the manner presented by Hadelich and Kulenovic was true to the nature of the composition. Hadelich's use of the Fritz Kreisler cadenzas helped link the work firmly to the Viennese tradition of not prioritizing solemnity. The long orchestral tutti before the soloist enters promised a reading that could have turned too solemn, but the performance unfolded with pervasive gracefulness.</p><p>The concert's first half contains a novelty: Lili Boulanger's "D'un matin de printemps" (On a Spring Morning). The French composer, who died at 25 shortly after completing this work, bears signs of genius in this and other pieces. Her knowledge of what she wanted to do in original composition was extraordinary, and she husbands it in this six-minute piece in a fashion both colorful and concentrated. There are a number of picturesque pieces by French composers that demonstrate anything but a superficial touch, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Paul Dukas being the best-known. The ISO's first performance of the Boulanger work suggests it deserves to be programmed again, with luck by an interpreter as sympathetic to it as Kulenovic.</p><p>Now based in Chicago area, where he is music director of the Lake Forest Symphony, Kulenovic is making a return visit to the ISO. On Friday, with genial expansiveness and fighting back husky vocal cords until a patron kindly handed him a bottle of water, Kulenovic commented effusively on Boulanger and said a few words about the Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F major and its gestation by the turbulent waters of the Rhine. There was thus a readymade link to his immediate need to calm a scratchy throat with safe, donated water.</p><p>The performance was a marvel of detail and the kind of clarity that set aside the notion that Brahms' orchestration lacks translucency. Kulenovic's large, precise gestures communicated well, though they came close to overcueing. The stirring energy of the first and last movements was well-shaped, with all instrumental choirs well-integrated. The sound never seemed too crowded or out of breath. </p><p>Of the solo and sectional bows Kulenovic signaled at the end, the first and most deserved one was for clarinetist Samuel Rothstein, whose limpid playing as acting principal made the second movement extra special. (Oh, how we look forward to the durable "acting" tag being removed from several ISO members' titles as auditions proceed and new music director Jun Märkl shapes the ensemble!)</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-38615457664435053392024-02-09T13:06:00.000-08:002024-02-11T07:06:08.758-08:00'Queen' takes audience into macro matters of survival through prism of private life<p>I can't think of many plays where the actors must master characterizations that present them as knowledgeable about arcane matters. "Queen" is an exception, and if it weren't for clarity of context, the audience at <a href="https://www.summitperformanceindy.com/">Summit Performance Indianapolis</a>'s new show might almost need a glossary to understand "bee colony collapse," neonics, threshold effect, oversampling data, trading derivatives and, for many, the intricacies of poker.</p><p>It's taken me a while to understand confirmation bias, but at least I was in the neighborhood of getting it before attending the final dress rehearsal of "Queen," which opens tonight at <a href="http://phoenixtheatre.org">Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centr</a>e. And I knew how to interpret "NRDC" because I used to be a donor to the National Resources Defense Council.</p><p>Thank goodness for the North Star of All Truth, that's Google, for giving more substance to my quickly processed impressions of this enthralling drama about friendship, academic competition and ambition, and the tension between the sciences of observation and statistics. </p><p>Fortunately, all four performances seemed authentically loaded with the expertise at play in Madhuri Shekar's two-act drama. They were also well filled in as relatable in human terms, thanks to Kelsey Leigh Miller's direction of the intense, well-focused cast. The cross-cultural issues of Indian-American life as well as American class consciousness weave their tangled threads through "Queen" as well. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpPwUIL_Ad1WGDyAtYh6BpWJKB-Qa_hI4F-Y6Dm-7QuSRBPArG8jft-3TM-17-_wCSQXx7_mgrGNot05gstLX3jRVciGO97jhokIjcXJx5TUaOh2dXNHCuNbrLAEvnpCpBTHPhuLJojC4XQhevtObVFYoETXHjE1Vbm_wl8V9saUsAR5nz350YtrnZF2Bo/s5568/QUEEN_DSC_9347.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3712" data-original-width="5568" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpPwUIL_Ad1WGDyAtYh6BpWJKB-Qa_hI4F-Y6Dm-7QuSRBPArG8jft-3TM-17-_wCSQXx7_mgrGNot05gstLX3jRVciGO97jhokIjcXJx5TUaOh2dXNHCuNbrLAEvnpCpBTHPhuLJojC4XQhevtObVFYoETXHjE1Vbm_wl8V9saUsAR5nz350YtrnZF2Bo/s320/QUEEN_DSC_9347.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Philip, Sanam, and Arial exult in their expected triumph. </td></tr></tbody></table><br />The clearcut layout of the action and the psychological burdens the characters carry drive the mysteries forward toward an authentic happy ending. The production can boast a smooth management of several playing areas, with the atmosphere filled out by Ben Dobler's sound design and Michael Moffat's lighting. Mejah Balam's efficient set design subtly incorporates honeycomb cross-section patterns.<p></p><p>That happy ending happens despite the threat of environmental catastrophe that still hangs over us all, as related to the pesticide-linked demise of essential pollinators: the honeybees that stand as a model of collective wisdom, in the quite defensible view of the beekeeper scientist Arial.</p><p>At the start, a deadline closes in upon two post-op students at UC-Santa Cruz and their boss, Philip (given just the right type-A personality drive by Ryan Artzberger). Much is riding upon a high-profile presentation in Washington that will align sure science with political power. "Queen" moves confidently into the macro realm, so that the audience is definitively enlisted in support of the project. How can anyone be indifferent to honeybees?</p><p>Shekar has set up the friendship of the young women so that we suspect it can withstand any pressure. But the bond is dented and nearly smashed by two different perspectives on what the research needs in order to establish that neonics are conclusively responsible for worldwide bee colony collapse. The villain is named — Monsanto — but is the multinational chemical company only a partial villain or an absolute one? A clear answer lies somewhere to the right of the decimal point in the data they have so far. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9bkKUcK2W94S1Mm6xS_JnFU7kgnczlnOMDwFrPva2SlkbbuP253FWC9UB8oPNSEpXOZvgKBRmTdY25ZcQEsKxRWhZj-_l89-ksuQSzj2RVmtNy_GRVJ-m_7NpomYwe0D3bsmidbGSSOyE_DXVaJPT4eHbXqAobVpZY6M6L1Q85CdNMqwenBk1m_r3K_02/s5568/QUEEN_DSC_9976.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3712" data-original-width="5568" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9bkKUcK2W94S1Mm6xS_JnFU7kgnczlnOMDwFrPva2SlkbbuP253FWC9UB8oPNSEpXOZvgKBRmTdY25ZcQEsKxRWhZj-_l89-ksuQSzj2RVmtNy_GRVJ-m_7NpomYwe0D3bsmidbGSSOyE_DXVaJPT4eHbXqAobVpZY6M6L1Q85CdNMqwenBk1m_r3K_02/s320/QUEEN_DSC_9976.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two friends try to work out a research snag.</td></tr></tbody></table>Sanam (Isha Narayanan) comes at the research from a background as a teenage math prodigy in her native India. Arial (Chynna Fry) comes from a working-class family in the Valley (the same valley that put its pop-culture stamp on "Valley Girl"?), a family that focused much of its time and energy and relationship to the earth on beehives. The actors made this unlikely relationship, forged over years of work on a project that now seems fatally flawed, feel genuine at every point. <p></p><p>The playwright tucks in elements that might be sentimental if they were not in fact reinforced and then tested on the path to a make-or-break career moment: During a late-night session of wrestling with the data, when Sanam moves offstage to sing a calming lullaby to Arial's fussy baby girl, I knew both that the gesture and its result would not be wasted. </p><p>More problematic was Sanam's rocky connection to a thoroughly assimilated young man on the make, the<br /> securities guru (derivatives trader) Arvind, snappily and seductively played by Nayan Patadia. Their arranged first date (engineered because their grandfathers had played golf back in the homeland) is a hilarious exercise in missed connections. </p><p>Arvind narrates a recent poker victory in excruciating, mansplaining detail; Sanam, who seems to be</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAsx6np6-K56cvkaI28lyUVY8hGj7Y2FfCpAgiKCFCELKgFBeZQZ3rW-3h-Foe4yXCPGrLxktNeLiaRfPua3ogfLVNUgRCLW3gj1UhVgvZJ_WRELV_Ky9wzb7y0C8XV4ehAv6pFxqLtrH-fU3JgogL_nyyqEDjIOux1xQCkI_66HsfA6YASzmafK70ujqZ/s5568/QUEEN_DSC_9733.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3712" data-original-width="5568" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAsx6np6-K56cvkaI28lyUVY8hGj7Y2FfCpAgiKCFCELKgFBeZQZ3rW-3h-Foe4yXCPGrLxktNeLiaRfPua3ogfLVNUgRCLW3gj1UhVgvZJ_WRELV_Ky9wzb7y0C8XV4ehAv6pFxqLtrH-fU3JgogL_nyyqEDjIOux1xQCkI_66HsfA6YASzmafK70ujqZ/s320/QUEEN_DSC_9733.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arvind has some explaining to do, and it helps.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> tuning out, turns out to be picking up on the statistical probability of each move, and delivers a cogent analysis. The audience witnesses a brain-numbing "meet cute" interaction that actually works because of the smoothly oiled delivery of the dialogue. <p></p><p>The derivatives trader happens to contribute to the statistician's attempt to solve the research crisis, and, to be sure, stranger ways to generate romance are abundant in life and art alike. But I can't help wondering about the couple's survival prospects. Of course, Sanam has wriggled free of her inheritance of arranged marriages by doing some arranging of her own. And that gives grounds for hope.</p><p>As for the career-defining paper, the moral compromise that has to be reached fits the cliche that in a compromise everybody loses. Yet science marches on, arm in arm with statistics, and to no one's surprise seems to find common ground with the flawed world we live in, where queen bees fade into nonexistence, new ones emerge, and the pollinators thrive. That's as long as we don't destroy the whole shebang.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i>[Raincliffs Photography]</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-67351891521624118242024-02-07T17:02:00.000-08:002024-02-07T17:26:04.415-08:00'Romeo and Juliet': Collaboration of ballet and orchestra launched for May production<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t6pt4k8oKUe5-AZuAIsSiDy98XWGByoxxeJ_WpmzzSaL1Q8p99lV7E65t1LjhUxm68mEhkLdePzNPB-dikOWjlC8OoDG2BHnfX5O6ro7jcdB-LJ1ZvjldjuxpvgAepqDFbjqrZ05ZvXNKVNUujYoVwjGD-mEBNc-Ujlbh7wM9fSPfKp_o_ZwIIjuT1d3/s4032/IMG_4633.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t6pt4k8oKUe5-AZuAIsSiDy98XWGByoxxeJ_WpmzzSaL1Q8p99lV7E65t1LjhUxm68mEhkLdePzNPB-dikOWjlC8OoDG2BHnfX5O6ro7jcdB-LJ1ZvjldjuxpvgAepqDFbjqrZ05ZvXNKVNUujYoVwjGD-mEBNc-Ujlbh7wM9fSPfKp_o_ZwIIjuT1d3/s320/IMG_4633.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don Steffy, Kevin Lin, Yoshiko Kamikusa, and James Johnson flank ballet and orchestra maestri Victoria Lyras and Jack Everly at event celebrating forthcoming "Romeo and Juliet" production.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Seven seasons into <a href="http://indianapolisballet.org">Indianapolis Ballet'</a>s existence and 90-plus seasons into <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra</a>'s continuous presence here, the two performing forces will work together to produce "Romeo and Juliet," a ballet based on Shakespeare's romantic tragedy using Sergei Prokofiev's score, on the first weekend of the city's storied month of May.<p></p><p>At a celebration of the collaboration Tuesday at the home of Jackie Nytes, a board member of both organizations, the venture was hailed by IB's founding artistic director Victoria Lyras as something that mostly makes her "so happy for my dancers — there's nothing like working with an orchestra....You feel this music more: I love it more than the choreography."</p><p>Out of discussions between the two organizations begun nearly a year ago, the scheduling was put into place with another crucial aspect —the venue — that will stir the nostalgia of performing-arts old-timers: the return of the ISO to its old home of Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University where it was in residence from the building's 1963 opening to 1984, when the orchestra moved downtown to the refurbished Circle Theatre (now carrying "Hilbert" in honor of a major donor as part of its name).</p><p>ISO principal pops conductor Jack Everly will conduct the performances. His notable aptness for leading ballet performances is centered in his tenure as music director of American Ballet Theatre, beginning in the Mikhail Baryshnikov era (1980-1989). "He's good. We keep him," is how Everly on Tuesday recalled Baryshnikov's concise hiring of him to a post he held for 15 years. </p><p>Lyras was also thrilled to announce the hiring of Septime Webre as the local production's choreographer. His version premiered in 1994, and featured Lyras as one of the original Juliets. In the new production, IB principal dancer Yoshiko Kamikusa will dance that role, and told the party she is thrilled to have her debut as Juliet here. Her experience in a previous production had her in the rather more limited role of Mercutio's girlfriend; Mercutio is Romeo's buddy and leads off the Shakespeare play's parade of premature deaths. </p><p>Last June, the ISO presented in its Classical Series music from the Prokofiev score shifted into positions that suited a partial staging of the original drama with local actors. Jun Märkl, who was recently appointed music director of the ISO, designed the dramatic-musical presentation in a two-weekend Shakespeare Festival that also brought Mendelssohn's music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to the Hilbert Circle Theatre stage.</p><p>Tickets to the joint production of "Romeo and Juliet" can be purchased at IB's web site.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-38536116687171384172024-02-03T05:03:00.000-08:002024-02-03T10:21:57.908-08:00Dave Stryker takes his music up the road to the Jazz Kitchen<p><a href="https://www.davestryker.com/biography"> Dave Stryker </a>has capped his deeply rooted career in jazz guitar with academic credentials, including a</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNFSMMBcQaK53WzKMW1c28aS4iOwgO4BmV8Ipz2mhRpF7ZnzB9GCx0vJWU0XtYcznbvpSncsKqvKBBsrhfVLhfGsdqVI5TWEkT32-O7G_hp5Z1ZIt3XA3_a3MdixiniDj2Ap6u3TdAO1gjePOch3B1eHpCn_ozWCPPmilK54_SECVnOMnMnqnr8_NWh5Mh/s320/DaveStrykerRachel.jpg" width="240" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rachel Caswell guests, flanked by Dave Stryker and Rob Dixon. <br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> well-established presence in Bloomington on the jazz faculty of Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. That's just one of three connections as an educator to put beside his recent addition to an<a href="http://artistworks.com"> online school</a>. His well-schooled playing is not academic in any disparaging sense, however. <p></p><p>Though well established in New York City for many years, Stryker drew upon Hoosier connections and a Louisville link for a return to <a href="http://thejazzkitchen.com">the Jazz Kitchen</a> Friday night. <a href="https://seandobbinsmusic.com/">Sean Dobbins</a>, a fellow adjunct professor at IU, was on drums, and their colleague <a href="https://rachelcaswell.com/">Rachel Caswell</a> joined the band for two numbers during the set I heard. <a href="https://www.music.northwestern.edu/faculty/profile/rob-dixon">Rob Dixon</a> represented the home front on tenor sax, and Kentuckian <a href="https://www.kendallcartermusic.com/">Kendall "Keyz" Carter</a> completed the traditional format on organ. </p><p>Stryker's completeness as a bandleader was always evident. The soft edge of his tone covers a biting center, and the momentum is relentless. </p><p>His comping behind Dixon's solo on the blues that opened Friday's first set never fell into routine: it was engaged and supportive. Distribution of spotlight focus through "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" allowed each musician to etch a firm self-portrait. The way transitions between solos were handled shone in this Temptations song and throughout the set.</p><p>For a ballad contrast, Cole Porter's "Everything I Love" allowed both a tender lyricism and some assertiveness to emerge (particularly in Dixon's solo). For an extra touch of flavor, there was a succession of juicy chords in Carter's solo, and the exchanges with drummer involving the other three players were spicy toward the end.</p><p>Dixon's adaptability to all settings in which he finds himself was first-class. The unison statement of the rapid theme in Stryker's "Prime" was lively and blithely intact. Their individual solos seemed to blister the Jackson Pollock-knockoff paintings behind the bandstand. There was a deft call-and-response episode partnering sax and guitar in Wayne Shorter's "Infant Eyes."</p><p>As for Caswell's cameo appearance, I was especially impressed by the delicate ornamentation she lent to the evergreen melodic line of the Cahn-Styne gem "I Fall in Love Too Easily." It's easy to fall in love with a Stryker small-group performance on this level — and without the regret in those lyrics.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i>[Photo by Rob Ambrose]</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-13807916168719924792024-01-27T08:01:00.000-08:002024-01-28T10:41:51.340-08:00'Honored and touched' by new status, Jun Märkl conducts all-Strauss program<p>An intermission video presented a relaxed <a href="http://junmaerkl.com">Jun Märkl</a> introducing himself to Indianapolis, and that was</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="700" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtAolCDogq8meCmaUsjrsA2engpqgtMezHvzAdybH46EtqYg_q1ECpDl3iYpzR4mUZbvnicIwgQ0fgwpytFNdBhDJwzBk_FSw2MwPkwUfMwOlEsIPi_0cJllGTHl0fSyEdrZtI5ezmnJaNZtqKGMGc_DqR4tm6SJzqfqqKWJ8D6-vYLB-PM7PuOO0W6H1i/s320/jun-contact.webp" width="320" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jun Märkl is a native of Munich, Germany, son of musician parents.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> capped by a short speech of gratitude at the start of the second half. The occasion Friday night was the historic launch of his five-year term as the eighth music director of the <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra</a>.<p></p><p>It had all the hallmarks of a special occasion from the moment Märkl entered the stage at the concert's start, looking immaculately elegant in traditional white tie and tails. </p><p>The conventional garb has rarely been seen in recent years here, but there can be no doubt that Märkl will live up to that dressy standard in the likely polish and careful preparation of the ISO concerts he conducts.</p><p>The energy of the overall narrative in "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" was palpable from the opening atmosphere setting of a "once-upon-a-time" mood. The ISO performed with a full measure of devotion to the music and the new maestro, who has been known as a guest conductor here for more than 20 years. (In his curtain speech, ISO CEO James Johnson cleared up my slightly wrong impression that Märkl first wielded the baton for the ISO in the 1990s; it was in fact in August 2020.)</p><p>"Till Eulenspiegel" may be the most popular of Strauss' tone poems, a genre he perfected before opera absorbed him. The very notion of adventure and scamp mischief bubbles to the surface repeatedly. Orchestral color, which in his "Words on Music" appearance Märkl said placed Strauss on a level with Debussy and Ravel, was richly painted throughout in Friday's performance. When Till gets his comeuppance, we are meant to take his trial and execution seriously up to a point, which was hammered down by the orchestra. But as this performance made clear, it's all part of a story in which the rascal's spirit gets the brilliant last word.</p><p>The more substantial tone poem on the program, which will be repeated at 5:30 p.m today, is "Also sprach Zarathustra," a masterpiece whose opening measures were permanently embedded in popular culture through their prominence in "'2001: A Space Odyssey." </p><p>The work goes on much past that brassy announcement with timpani highlights to represent Nietzsche's philosophical figure of Zarathustra seeking the meaning of life. It's a piece easy to get lost in, and not only in the good sense. I want to hold up, however, the brilliant soloing by concertmaster Kevin Lin. And in the lighter ensemble music, the expanded woodwind section sounded as good as the core woodwinds always do these days. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcIohgD76QzzCqOHg2NiKYxQkWoBRCWkdwwCjfKfGe-GHJjhwBenGgMHwzFINNx-36HuZmub6oAb2oi4p2zeaml1e4rkNa4gPlHbOR6yLflQz9W61kmCwvq8hawpRmBuG8Fu-HGlzocs1ruFf5tnm6xJW9Sy299i991-Aaf-wopfs9MV5e0DbnK9wciAA9/s480/ISOCarolinWidmann.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="480" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcIohgD76QzzCqOHg2NiKYxQkWoBRCWkdwwCjfKfGe-GHJjhwBenGgMHwzFINNx-36HuZmub6oAb2oi4p2zeaml1e4rkNa4gPlHbOR6yLflQz9W61kmCwvq8hawpRmBuG8Fu-HGlzocs1ruFf5tnm6xJW9Sy299i991-Aaf-wopfs9MV5e0DbnK9wciAA9/s320/ISOCarolinWidmann.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">German, like the conductor: violinist Carolin Widmann</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br />In the middle position came a much less familiar Strauss piece, which is given its first ISO performances this weekend. The Violin Concerto in D minor was completed when the composer was just 18. It was typical of the quick start he got into the public sphere, though his precocity is probably less well-known than Mozart's and Mendelssohn's. </p><p>The opening movement spreads itself indulgently with teenage arrogance, and in Friday's concert, soloist Carolin Widmann's tone seemed to blossom against the deftly scored accompaniment only after the second cadenza-like passage. The return of the main material, including the lyrical second theme, had the requisite warmth. </p><p>The unity of soloist and orchestra was extraordinary in the slow movement. Clearly the rapport between Widmann and her countryman Märkl is first-rate. The compatibility of violin and orchestra would become transformed in Strauss' later output into those wonderful arias for soprano in the operas and the 1948 miracle of "Four Last Songs." </p><p>In the finale, so catchy in its sprightly melody, Widmann's spidery adeptness caught the right spirit, but the tone became scratchy in the frequent double-stopped passages. Some of her phrasing could have used better distribution of accents and overall shape; the illusion of her previously tight coordination with the orchestra was imperiled, though there was never a serious lapse in precision. </p><p>It was a treat, nonetheless, to hear a romantic concerto by a major composer in concert that's not overplayed. For an all-Strauss program, either this or the "Burleske" for piano and orchestra is a natural fit. In sum, then, Märkl's debut in his new role can be considered a triumph. "We're trying to create special moments here," he told the audience after intermission. "You will feel touched." Right about that. </p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-48090724032071306242024-01-26T11:59:00.000-08:002024-01-28T10:30:28.122-08:00ALT's "The Minutes': When legend becomes fact, print the legend<p>It's not often that a trigger warning given by a play's director in advance comes close to being a spoiler. But that's just the start of specifics I need to avoid in writing about "The Minutes," the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Letts">Tracy Letts</a> play in one long act exploring city-council machinations in a prairie town with lots to hide.</p><p>This review's title, borrowing <a href="https://sevencircumstances.com/2018/06/15/the-mystery-of-the-misquoted-quote-from-the-man-who-shot-liberty-valance/">a famous movie line</a>, comes about as close as I dare. My main business must be to praise the strong ensemble performance Chris Saunders generated from his cast on opening night Thursday at <a href="http://phoenixtheatre.org">Phoenix Theatre</a>'s Russell Stage. "The Minutes" extends the impressive run of <a href="https://americanlivestheatre.org/">American Lives Theatre,</a> of which Saunders is the founding artistic director.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2y7Z8li4fD1jTXlLbHagHwoDXk1u106MtG1VFdqinPxmPoT-JkAjNNvDl4pnZEKMCUZz2hzZ8cWy_SlC3kb2Xxx9x-xQ7xkPYhITV9gSeApMwSaV58Fd1v65b1RgCg5E4BUfa34U9_DfoShGyCBN-vm4iMqImibULz3RYuXLFL2TSiRUdia9225dNQDxD/s1080/ALTMinutesPeel.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="1080" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2y7Z8li4fD1jTXlLbHagHwoDXk1u106MtG1VFdqinPxmPoT-JkAjNNvDl4pnZEKMCUZz2hzZ8cWy_SlC3kb2Xxx9x-xQ7xkPYhITV9gSeApMwSaV58Fd1v65b1RgCg5E4BUfa34U9_DfoShGyCBN-vm4iMqImibULz3RYuXLFL2TSiRUdia9225dNQDxD/s320/ALTMinutesPeel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dentist and new councilor Peel works hard to extract the truth.</td></tr></tbody></table>In its heyday in its old church home under the guidance of Bryan Fonseca, the Phoenix mounted an excellent production of Letts' most famous play, "August: Osage County." Two of his other plays, both presented down the street from that storied building, were Theatre on the Square productions with two of the most notable starring portrayals by men of the last decade, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8403568589757394965/6114675433409979723">"Superior Donuts," with Ron Spencer,</a> and <a href="TOTS grips family values by the throat in Tracy Letts' 'Killer Joe'">"Killer Joe," with Ben Asaykwee.</a><p></p><p>Those plays' successor locally is an excellent ensemble piece, showing Letts' crisp, sometimes brutal manner of establishing characters and troweling in or out unsettling revelations. In the case of "The Minutes," though the members of the Big Cherry City Council are individualized, they face a collective problem: how to hold on to one of the few aspects of the town's identity that maintain civic pride. (The success of a local football team, the Savages, can't go far enough.) The vexing problem that eventually explains the difficulty of shoring up chauvinism has to do with the mysteriously missing minutes of the council's last meeting.</p><p>Letts has set up plausibly the reason that one council member doesn't understand the problem. He's a<br /> newcomer to the town, thanks to his wife's roots there, as well as being newly elected and eager for public service. Mr. Peel (Josh Ramsey) missed the last meeting because of his mother's funeral. Every other one of his colleagues, plus the mayor and the clerk, has a pet cause, obsession, or idiosyncrasy. Together, they are a stone wall erected against Peel finding out what happened to the minutes, as well as to councilor Mr. Carp (Charles Goad). </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XjpVTUiLJnvwAyHWVOBj2usvLjggjZHRM0Q8G6PvvuoAEsMWGJI1yOYTUg_G2rHSL1Rp0A49b2X14w3pwwiOMlJCp1nRM4MVefz971gnn3m4Tb8lQtQIqc1eOqXbrh_MiHqkEm5ZhXz-b-AWLyNxwHYzKRcx0TQblQZTtwG7Ur4QlHrhdDKkZ73ZVhpH/s1080/ALTMinutesTussle.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1080" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XjpVTUiLJnvwAyHWVOBj2usvLjggjZHRM0Q8G6PvvuoAEsMWGJI1yOYTUg_G2rHSL1Rp0A49b2X14w3pwwiOMlJCp1nRM4MVefz971gnn3m4Tb8lQtQIqc1eOqXbrh_MiHqkEm5ZhXz-b-AWLyNxwHYzKRcx0TQblQZTtwG7Ur4QlHrhdDKkZ73ZVhpH/s320/ALTMinutesTussle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The going gets rough at a city council meeting.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />You may find your nerves worn to a frazzle rooting for Peel to get to the bottom of things. I was so happy not to have had any advance knowledge of this play. The shock of discovery was all the keener, and I was thoroughly caught up in the bizarre surrealism of the latter part of "The Minutes."<p></p><p>Scanning down the list of production credits before the start, for instance, I became curious as I watched the oafish quarreling in the early scenes to learn what choreographer Mariel Greenlee would have to contribute: it turned out to be a dazzling element of the play's climax. Also essential to the mounting effect of Carp's searing indictment of the council as it wrangles over support for the town's annual Heritage Festival were brief, repeated power interruptions because of a weak electrical grid (credit Tim Dick's lighting design). The town's moral infrastructure is in bad shape, too. </p><p>It would be tedious to send kudos to all the actors based on how they filled their roles, and I would rather not take away from the ensemble triumph of this production. Everything about each odd duck, especially in dialogue laboring over the stink of the local secret, seemed apt. The comic zest of most of the play was rich, with as many lost or dangling verbal connections flapping in the wind as in the turmoil of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros." Besides those mentioned, the players that make "The Minutes" work so well are Stephen Roger Kitts II, Susannah Quinn, Ian Cruz, Paige Scott, Raymond Kester, Scot Greenwell, Tristan Ross, Suzanne Fleenor, and Len Mozzi.</p><p><b><i>[Photos by Indy Ghost Light]</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-40384051291610694262024-01-25T08:31:00.000-08:002024-01-25T08:48:55.331-08:00 Annual collaboration between EMS and IVCI bears fruit again<p>The annual collaboration between two well-run musical organizations that focus on individuality came off splendidly again Wednesday night at <a href="http://indianalandmarks.org">Indiana Landmarks Center</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/">The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center</a>, with two previous local engagements, both in 2016, was the marquee attraction as <a href="https://ensemblemusic.org/">Ensemble Music Society </a>and the <a href="http://violin.org">International Violin Competition of Indianapolis</a> continued their partnership and combined their large loyal audiences for a program of Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Dvorak.</p><p>Pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel were at the center of the concert. A married couple who also<br /> direct CMS and often perform together, they were in the spotlight for Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Sonata in D minor. Their vivid performance of a composition from the Russian composer's middle period, during which the difficulty of creative freedom in the Soviet Union became severe, had the requisite sparkle and flashes of intensity.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoJXYTpMr3w7k6AWcsHuO9E6588Q28R1-nsrEHuKWss6odUXeHCyzNWF2iIanxpLh5cNJsHectSaZTGO4faH-55J415SLQBeI-SrZauGDjjR4Z8MPft35i3K5Vz-NbBxDS-wM5BPwmvWq2vJrHAMtbdLMDUo0VA8nLflMAUmcVRxiNCZEHbRx9mNShjNqQ/s284/images.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoJXYTpMr3w7k6AWcsHuO9E6588Q28R1-nsrEHuKWss6odUXeHCyzNWF2iIanxpLh5cNJsHectSaZTGO4faH-55J415SLQBeI-SrZauGDjjR4Z8MPft35i3K5Vz-NbBxDS-wM5BPwmvWq2vJrHAMtbdLMDUo0VA8nLflMAUmcVRxiNCZEHbRx9mNShjNqQ/s1600/images.jpg" width="284" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wu Han and David Finckel: classical music's power couple </td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>There were times in the most intense passages of the first movement when the piano buried the cello line somewhat, and I wondered if adjusting the lid to the short stick would have been advisable. But the balance was better in the third movement, and any short-stick adjustment might have seemed unduly fussy for just one piece. Both musicians tend to display the kind of interpretive freedom and power-releasing capability that always works toward a common cause — and that was quite evident. </p><p>Those qualities were brought out to brilliant effect in the rousing waltz fantasy of the second movement. As for the finale, a typically Russian ebullience in fast music was never in danger of restraint or compromise. Wu and Finckel gave a memorable performance that lived up to the peerless stature they enjoy as a personal and professional duo.</p><p>The concert opened with that duo filled out by <a href="https://www.richardlinviolin.com/">Richard Lin</a>'s return to the city. Lin won the gold medal in the 2018 IVCI. There's a good history involving Wu and Finckel and IVCI laureates. The couple were joined by 2010 bronze medalist Benjamin Beilman for the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8403568589757394965/5783112725848629470">two Schubert piano trios in November 2022 at the Palladium. </a>That was an astonishing concert, representing these two masterpieces at the highest level. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH9sZO8BNZNecY2Nz081rpV_fc69WYRcFPXxCQOzigT92FtRtoR7MK4btW-OoM3e0ViNjV05XLbE-5GF2W7pQCfqoJdfkRLI8t_oB9B6MyOGaifASNIQOmYFOACQE2M8nWLRYWCXrzfVdGodZgJlK8Utq2h2Mh4LqRr558q2FyJZAhukQIVHicPQJTmYuY/s1149/Richard_Lin-025.webp" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="1149" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH9sZO8BNZNecY2Nz081rpV_fc69WYRcFPXxCQOzigT92FtRtoR7MK4btW-OoM3e0ViNjV05XLbE-5GF2W7pQCfqoJdfkRLI8t_oB9B6MyOGaifASNIQOmYFOACQE2M8nWLRYWCXrzfVdGodZgJlK8Utq2h2Mh4LqRr558q2FyJZAhukQIVHicPQJTmYuY/s320/Richard_Lin-025.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Lin was participated in two of the works played.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><br />The collegial feeling extended to Lin's participation in Beethoven's Piano Trio in E-flat, op. 1, no. 1. Early Beethoven tends to sound firmly within the classical tradition the young transplant to Vienna gradually grew out of. There is plenty of wit in a manner evocative of Joseph Haydn, the teacher he had briefly after settling in Vienna.<p></p><p>In the development of the first movement, Wednesday's trio reveled in the pixieish exchanges of the string instruments with piano support. Some full-blown lyricism was passed around between violin and cello, with due support from the piano. A tendency to <i>subito</i> shifts in dynamics, soon to become characteristic of Beethoven, inflected further indulgence in genial Haydnesque wit in the <i>Presto</i> finale. The three players sounded as if they regularly worked together, which always tends to happen when this pianist and cellist collaborate with others.</p><p>After intermission, another colleague was taken on: British violist Timothy Ridout. The vehicle was one of the most popular for the combination of piano, violin, viola, and cello: Dvorak's Piano Quartet in E-flat, op. 87. Melodic and rhythmic variety run riot in the first movement, and these four players gave it a full measure of enthusiasm. Coordination was pinpoint here and in the folk-music-influenced third movement.</p><p>Worth bringing special attention to was the prominence of Ridout's viola in the finale. According to the program booklet, he plays an Italian instrument from the 16th century. That's quite an early origin for the most treasured string instruments still in use today. Ridout's tone was rich, and the melody he introduced and re-introduced set the tone in warmth and energy for what the whole ensemble lent to the music. The rapturous ovation that greeted its conclusion was fully merited — a vote of confidence for the continued mutual support of the IVCI and Ensemble Music.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-86635852871191901092024-01-24T07:04:00.000-08:002024-01-24T13:38:33.142-08:00Under contract for the long term, Jun Märkl looks ahead with ISO<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_aZorThdkC0A964dNfo8aNGpLujZosY-xXUDFjiAo5dUAM6jox8zPOG4hPj1VW3lKHdSsRepY2_1GS4oRRlsGCQPsHCpA9ILjM56W__3xJ4NY6XV5DdekOkS517xrq0y044LXBQmtfeJ1_5rZMePtvI5j4jnutLyUDFP5Rb0SR4aIcSMOnM84DN30kBMT/s800/Jun_M__rkl_in_action.webp" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="800" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_aZorThdkC0A964dNfo8aNGpLujZosY-xXUDFjiAo5dUAM6jox8zPOG4hPj1VW3lKHdSsRepY2_1GS4oRRlsGCQPsHCpA9ILjM56W__3xJ4NY6XV5DdekOkS517xrq0y044LXBQmtfeJ1_5rZMePtvI5j4jnutLyUDFP5Rb0SR4aIcSMOnM84DN30kBMT/s320/Jun_M__rkl_in_action.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">Jun Märkl: Master of detail as well as the big arc</div></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Between now and September 1, <a href="http://junmarkl.com">Jun Märkl</a> will be deepening his already extensive connection with the <a href="http://indianapolissymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra</a>. <p></p><p>Newly signed to a five-year contract as the orchestra's eighth music director, the native of Munich, Germany, draws upon deep experience here and abroad to move from artistic advisor to a more complete and powerful status as director of the ISO's core musical mission, starting with the 2024-25 season.</p><p>Speaking by phone late Tuesday afternoon after having got to work immediately, Märkl had just come from auditions at Hilbert Circle Theatre, the orchestra's home. For several years, the list of ISO musicians in every program book has included "Acting" in front of several principal and associate or assistant principal positions. "When you do not have a music director, many positions are on hold," the new music director explained, including section positions. "We schedule them as soon as possible."</p><p>The service of musicians with acting status is acknowledged by allowing them to skip the first audition round. Otherwise the vacancies are open. The experienced players have to go through the rest of the auditions. "If we make the wrong decision, we have the problem for the next 40 years," he added, in a rare expression of stressing the consequentiality of the decisions to come.</p><p>Coming from the artistic advisor job, Märkl knows the value of patience in "the waiting lounge," as he puts it. In the year-to-year continuation of that position before the next music director is hired, "he can't do a creative vision strategy for the future. We try to make the best of it," he said of the assignment, choosing guest conductors and repertoire in the interim. Starting Sept. 1, he will exercise full authority over those areas here.</p><p>Support of orchestras through tickets and donations must be sensitive to the communities served. "You have to be sure that style goes well with the audience," Märkl said. The Japanese-German musician, who will celebrate his 65th birthday next month, brings the full weight of his experience to bear. "This is my seventh music-director job; I have 45 years' experience." As for the ISO in particular: "We have known each other for over 20 years. I know what to expect, and we've built a friendship over some difficult and some better times. It has always been a very positive relationship. We can be sure from both sides that we don't have bad surprises." </p><p>He is also getting to know the community better, which he did not have time to do following the pattern of brief guest-conducting appearances over the years. He plans to establish a local residence with his wife, Susanne. In the process of furthering his bond with the city and the metropolitan area, he expects ISO musicians will advise him well. "We think that strengthening the orchestra in the community is the main priority," and that may include his renewed relationship with Symphony on the Prairie, the summer series of outdoor concerts at Conner Prairie. His first engagement with the ISO was there.</p><p>As he looks into his Indianapolis future, Märkl will continue his post as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Tawian while preparing to add the position of chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, starting with the 2025-26 season. His current relationship with the Oregon Symphony as principal guest conductor is in question as that organization intends to reduce the number of classical concerts next season, he said. </p><p>While retraining his professional focus on the Hoosier capital, Märkl hopes to include in the orchestra's activities a continuation of such ventures as last season's two-weekend Shakespeare festival. "I want us to cross borders," he said, "to reach out to dance and drama, and that will enrich our playing. Our musicians can be part of the story and they can see the function of music (with other arts). It's great to have this extension — also with video and film. It helps us think differently about music."</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-89731668372018206482024-01-23T07:35:00.000-08:002024-01-23T08:34:09.047-08:00Veteran guest conductor and recent artistic advisor Jun Märkl is ISO's new music director<p>After an unprecedented break between music directors, the eighth man to hold the leading artistic position</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTF4oyOJ9IGkV1tThaRuv8j7VADXGFG-16HpUVxCYv5d4ZrAR0ZeGnYckbR_lltsXo5K6FaNet_8sAYDG8ShPXjFVUWVdUAelJ8saiYQYSJMVRHkp8dpd9ZqkB_m3fTgiuT5PitgUoU5k4yatqo7y1lr2NP_WkVpeLpRRAhihbkR54g8sewLuZ3ySkLmFX/s700/jun-contact.webp" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="700" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTF4oyOJ9IGkV1tThaRuv8j7VADXGFG-16HpUVxCYv5d4ZrAR0ZeGnYckbR_lltsXo5K6FaNet_8sAYDG8ShPXjFVUWVdUAelJ8saiYQYSJMVRHkp8dpd9ZqkB_m3fTgiuT5PitgUoU5k4yatqo7y1lr2NP_WkVpeLpRRAhihbkR54g8sewLuZ3ySkLmFX/s320/jun-contact.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jun Märkl cements his ISO association with a five-year contract.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> with the <a href="http://indianapolisymphony.org">Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra </a>was announced Tuesday morning at the orchestra's home, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJwFwbsJwCAQAFDSOkBqm9Te-ccRsoVnDhS0ESFm-7wnhBoK3Hg_iHCkC3aMnhxQMZrQB_sk2BqD4ewyFcxowd5nbZ14LlnaLJ3lqpzX5B8TzBaF&q=hilbert+circle+theatre&oq=Hilber&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqEAgCEC4YrwEYxwEYgAQYjgUyBggAEEUYOTIKCAEQLhixAxiABDIQCAIQLhivARjHARiABBiOBTINCAMQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAQQABiABDINCAUQLhiDARixAxiABDIHCAYQABiABDIKCAcQABixAxiABDINCAgQABiDARixAxiABNIBCTQ5MTRqMGoxNagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Hilbert Circle Theatre</a>.<p></p><p><a href="https://www.junmarkl.com/">Jun Märkl</a>, a Japanese-German musician whose guest ISO appearances on the Hilbert Circle Theatre podium go back into the 1990s, takes the logical step upward from several years as "artistic advisor" following the pandemic-shortened tenure of <a href="http://krzysztofurbanski.com/wp/index.php/about/">Krzysztof Urbanski </a>(2011-2021).</p><p>As music director designate, Märkl will conduct the orchestra next weekend in <a href="https://www.indianapolissymphony.org/event/the-music-of-strauss/">two concerts of music by Richard Strauss</a>. His five-year contract, to take effect at the start of the 2024-25 season, calls for him to conduct nine weeks of concerts in Indianapolis each season, starting with six weeks the first season, in addition to other duties.</p><p>Currently, he serves as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, principal guest conductor of the Oregon Symphony, and, starting with the 2025-26 season, chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest in the Hague, the Netherlands. </p><p>Turning 65 next month, Märkl will be the second oldest ISO music director, next to its founder, Ferdinand Schaefer. A German-born musician who knew Brahms, Schaefer was a fixture in Indianapolis music for decades before guiding the new ensemble established after a few early attempts at the permanence the ISO has enjoyed since 1930, when Schaefer turned 69 as first in the series. The new music director's extensive European reputation can bear comparison with the more UK-focused resume of Raymond Leppard, who became ISO music director at age 60 in 1987.</p><p>With the ISO and cellist Zuill Bailey, Märkl made an impact <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvBdakpFxkM">on compact disc in 2012 with the Telarc release of the Dvorak Cello Concerto,</a> usually considered the greatest piece for cello and orchestra. His extensive discography with other orchestras includes more than 50 CDs, according to his website.</p><p>The new music director's many concert appearances with the ISO are too numerous to list here. His years-long good reputation with ISO musicians was confirmed today in a statement by concertmaster Kevin Lin, who said that Märkl's "inspiring leadership and instinctive musicality will honor the historical provenance of the ISO while leading our orchestra to even greater musical heights."</p><p>Here are some of my favorites:</p><p>*His contribution to Urbanski's "Out of This World" or "Cosmos" festival in the winter of 2016, when his affinity for German music let the ISO deliver its first performance of Paul Hindemith's "Harmonie der Welt" symphony in a program linked to Gustav Holst's "The Planets."</p><p>*He also achieved wonders with the ISO in a musically far-ranging seas-and-oceans program of Elgar, Britten, Ravel, and Debussy in 2018.</p><p>*Further saturation in German music, plus his deftness in assembling great music in new arrangements, was evidenced by the way he and the ISO presented music from Wagner's "Ring" cycle of music dramas, also in 2018.</p><p>*Last June, there was a wonderful two-part Shakespeare Festival with some suitable staging that still worked to lift up purely musical enhancements of Shakespeare's genius, with new arrangements of Prokofiev's music for the ballet of "Romeo and Juliet."</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8403568589757394965.post-59567646326691070222024-01-22T12:37:00.000-08:002024-01-24T03:38:32.396-08:00Under the weather, APA prizewinner Broberg shows elan in solo recital<p>His announced program shortened by a bout with flu, <a href="https://www.kennybroberg.com/">Kenny Broberg</a> still left a sterling impression on a</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_AA80kt7wOV1Bwg6dmxS7MF_twttusMbBpCFzRh5nw0pPacAq5jG1BK0BZD3xZFZaeN7RFVBKZL-6dGlsbXWrLjnZB9yuDOB-47RvtqdkFs1_UX0heWvQymN-7j4tD9gLx5-fP8Qq2dHXL_1VC4bT4PgdlAmIWIasNKAi-4BUFkWa3qUGhjqYsY9ODh60/s318/APABroberg.webp" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_AA80kt7wOV1Bwg6dmxS7MF_twttusMbBpCFzRh5nw0pPacAq5jG1BK0BZD3xZFZaeN7RFVBKZL-6dGlsbXWrLjnZB9yuDOB-47RvtqdkFs1_UX0heWvQymN-7j4tD9gLx5-fP8Qq2dHXL_1VC4bT4PgdlAmIWIasNKAi-4BUFkWa3qUGhjqYsY9ODh60/s1600/APABroberg.webp" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kenny Broberg found a place for a favorite, Nikolai Medtner.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> near-capacity audience at the Indiana History Center Sunday afternoon, presented by the <a href="http://americanpianists.org">American Pianists Association.</a><p></p><p>The 2021 winner of the Indianapolis-based <a href="https://www.americanpianists.org/classical/winners">American Pianist Awards Classical Fellowship,</a> Broberg now anchors his professional activity with a teaching position at a conservatory in Madrid. </p><p>Transatlantic air travel from Spain may have triggered the pianist's having caught the bug, moving him to discard Sunday's intermission and lop off two of the three movements of Robert Schumann's Fantasy in C major, op. 17.</p><p>It seemed a prudent choice. The Schumann Fantasy is a complex piece; in simplistic terms, you could label the second movement technically challenging and the third movement spiritually so. The finale has two of those "goosebump city" moments for me – great buildups of tension and release approaching the transcendent. Neither challenge comports well with flu, no matter how well prepared the pianist is.</p><p>The first movement ("With fantasy and passion throughout") lays the groundwork for the whole piece, and Broberg's performance of it to cap his recital was tantalizing, yet felt complete in itself, as it had to be, given his indisposition. It carried forward the sensitivity, technical elan and interpretive insight characteristic of everything he played.</p><p>Broberg opened with 20th-century piano titan Harold Bauer's transcription of Cesar Franck's organ work "Prelude, Fugue, and Variation," which he also used as a program appetizer <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8403568589757394965/7650823506396880761">at his last recital here</a>. Mozart's Piano Sonata in D major, K. 311, followed, with its light-and-shadow contrasts luminously set forth. Legato touch under Broberg's dependable command lent pastel coloring to the slow movement, and the contrasting sections of the rondo finale were fascinating. In that movement, a brief, out-of-tempo transition back to the main theme was given the expressive weight of a concerto cadenza, and that provided some well-judged suspense.</p><p>For a couple of "fairy-tale" dances (<i>skazki</i>) by Medtner, Broberg drew upon his long-embedded sympathy with this German-Russian composer, a contemporary of the much better-known Rachmaninoff, who like him stood aloof from modernism. (The most honored Russian pianist of the Soviet era, Sviatoslav Richter, shareed Medtner's mixed ethnic heritage.) The energies of folk dancing, sturdily expounded in Broberg's performance, yield in the second piece to a fantastic scenario suggestive of elves dancing. He used it as an introduction to one of Chopin's most searching masterpieces, Polonaise-Fantasie, op. 61.</p><p>It's one thing to say — the sort of thing critics succumb to, and how is any reader to know what it means? — that this was the best performance of the Polonaise-Fantasie I've ever heard. It's quite another to say that it may have been the best performance of it imaginable, at least to me. The tendrils of sound wafting up the keyboard after the initial chords helped prepare the listener for the fantasy atmosphere. In his introductory remarks from the stage, Broberg said he believes that the late-in-life, consumptive composer, an exile in France from his native Poland, "had one foot on the doorstep" when he wrote it. And there's no need to ask: Doorstep to what?</p><p>Broberg made the piece a dreamscape throughout, an artful blend of nostalgia, resignation, and an assertion of genius at its most heroic. It was a supremely well-knit interpretation, never a dreadful meandering toward the unknown region beyond life's trials. </p><p>The ominous repetition of dotted rhythms smoothly connected as the piece accelerates toward a ghostly benediction was crowned by a fortissimo chord that Broberg allowed to resonate toward eternity. My guess is that everyone in attendance Sunday can still hear it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572259649879520132noreply@blogger.com0