Reviews

VINCENT review in American Record Guide

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:48:59 +0000

The following review of VINCENT was written by Charles Parsons and published in the May/June issue of American Record Guide.

The world premiere of an opera is a serious undertaking of major proportions. So much is resting on the success (or failure) of the work. Significant amounts of time, money and talent have been invested in the work. Most of all, there is the major investment of the composer and librettist, putting into it their hearts and souls. So much can be lost, even destroyed by the failure of the work. And how easily that failure can occur, be it the conservatism of the audience or of the critic. As the resident “authority” on modern and contemporary opera for American Record Guide (ARG,) I take my responsibility to the new work quite seriously. I do as much “homework” on the composer, the subject and the opera as I can. It is most important to be prepared going in.

Thus it was that with a sense of excitement and a certain amount of trepidation I approached the first performances of Bernard Rands’s Vincent at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music (Musical Arts Center, seen April 9 & 15). Upon arrival at the “MAC” a pleasant surprise was in order. Much of the foyer was taken over by an assemblage of chairs, most already filled, facing a dais for an in depth preview of Vincent to be presented by the composer, the librettist (J. D. McClatchy) and the costume designer (Linda Pisano), moderated by the stage director, Vincent Liotta. One could not have asked for a better introduction to the opera. The highly articulate panel began with a brief history of the development of the opera, then an in depth exploration of their aims and ideals and how these were expressed in text and music, and in the production. Any concerns I had vanished. This panel could not only sell a contemporary opera to distrusting audience, they could sell a refrigerator to the Eskimos.

The production by Barry Steele was awesome. The stage was totally empty with the three sides on stage huge gray panels. A scrim enclosed the fourth (audience) side. Upon these were projected seemingly hundreds of paintings by the opera’s titular character, Vincent Van Gogh, creating a 3-D video projection world “based on the world as Van Gogh saw it, so that the world that surrounds him looks like the worlds as he sees it, not the world we would see if we were taking a photograph of it.” (Liotta) It was a living, breathing stage of glorious beauty and intensity, constantly in motion, fluid, always changing, a world of art beyond reality! Just as Van Gogh was engulfed by his art, so the audience was engulfed in the bizarre beauty of his world. Little in the way of props or furniture was needed: a few paintings, a desk, a bed, appearing with precision in the orchestral interludes. The stunning climax of the opera was Van Gogh’s suicide. The audience was “with Van Gogh” in that passionate wheat field, as much a part of the production as the singer or Van Gogh himself. At the sound of the single gun shot a flock of Van Goghesque crows took flight (via film), a startling effect, much as the artist would have seen them just before shooting himself.

But what of the libretto and music? Were they effective in supporting the storyline; strong enough, to not be overwhelmed by the visual aspect of the production? Rands’s experience in the field of opera was limited to a single entry: Belladonna, a two-act opera commissioned by the Aspen Festival (Colorado) and performed there in 1999 and not often seen since. On the other hand, McClatchy’s experience was major. A poet and literary critic, McClatchy had already written eight opera libretti, including Ned Rorem’s Our Town (2006), Lowell Lieberman’s Miss Lonelyhearts (2006), Lorin Maazel’s 1984 (2005), Tobias Picker’s Emmeline (1996), all well-received. Other libretti were written for William Schuman, Bruce Saylor, Daron Hagen, and Elliot Goldenthal. For Rands, McClatchy based most of his libretto on the correspondence between the artist and his brother Theo. Many quotes from the letters were quite revealing psychologically. Dramatic contrasts are the hallmarks of Van Gogh’s paintings and his life. McClatchy has capture the artist’s life and personality, not in just the downward spiraling of despair as the man sinks lower and lower, but his transcendent art becoming more extraordinary. McClatchy says: “So it’s a kind of double helix rather than just a downward spiral.”

Finally, the music. Aural magic! Sometimes the music was delicately imitative of objects or ideas; bells for the church, a heavenly (offstage) choir. Strong harmonies, delicate orchestration (harp,tambourine, bongos and wood blocks for a dance) yet capable of a tremendous musical climax. The numerous orchestral interludes would make an effective collection much like Benjamin Britten’s “Sea Interludes” (Peter Grimes). The vocal lines sound highly influenced by Britten as well. The music often caresses the ear, sometimes assaults it, but is never less than effective.

So impressed by the opera and its production, I returned for a second performance. I had hoped to hear both casts, but a scheduling conflict allowed me to hear the same cast twice. Two more experienced artists were brought in to sing the title role, David Adam Moore for the actual premiere (April 8th) and Christopher Burchett (seen twice). Burchett was magnetic in his deeply moving characterization coupled with a handsome baritone voice. The role is quite lengthy, but Burchett never faltered or tired, leading to a heart-rending final monologue. The only other sizable role was the painter Paul Gauguin sang and acted with gauche panache by Adam Walton. Steven Linville flounced and bounced as a towering (!) Toulouse-Lautrec. In the orchestra pit the school’s Philharmonic Orchestra played its own sonorous beauty, delicate and powerful by turns under the solid leadership of Arthur Fagen.

This is an opera that should be taken up by the operatic establishment. It need not have the stunningly elaborate production fielded by IU. The opera is strong enough to stand on its own. Dramatic, musically accessible it is an opera from the heart to the heart.

Charles H. Parsons

MUSIC REVIEW: Webb and Friends

Jacobs School of Music — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:30:39 +0000

Opening summer concert at IU highlights two-piano compositions

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
June 22, 2011

Would that more academic requirements resulted in so much pleasure for others as Monday evening’s opening concert of the Indiana University Summer Music festivities.

The concept for “Charles Webb and Friends” originated in the needs of a Webb “Friend,” the second pianist on the program that filled Auer Hall.

Steven Mann, an alumnus of the Jacobs School, where he studied with Menahem Pressler, is currently a doctoral candidate at the Manhattan School of Music. Part of his academic obligation is to give a recital. He chose to focus much of that recital on two-piano compositions, to request assistance from Webb, dean of the school when Mann was enrolled, and to perform it here.

Since the name “Webb” holds more drawing power in Bloomington than “Mann,” it was Charles Webb’s that was chosen to promote the concert. Splendid pianist and musician that Webb is, he contributed significantly to the event.

But only Steven Mann performed in all of Monday’s selections, and he left no doubt about his own keyboard qualifications. He is a fine pianist.

The two opened the program with Mozart: the Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos, K.448, a work that calls for a seamless conversation between the players in solo and duo passages that roll forth in exhilarating fashion. The called for was achieved; the music gained from a level of interplay that was not only appropriate but seemed totally comfortable.

Webb then left the stage to Mann and the young Esther Kim, a recent IU Artist Diploma recipient. They joined for more Mozart, the Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano, K.301, a two-movement piece that served to highlight Kim’s ability to deliver exquisite tones and Mann’s sensitivity to the dynamic restraints required for a successful piano-violin partnership.

After intermission, Mann and Webb welcomed other “Friends” for a performance of Robert Schumann’s Andante and Variations in B-Flat Major for Two Pianos, Two Cellos, and Horn. Joseph Kaizer and Alan Ohkubo were the cellists and Jeff Dunford horn.

The instrumental combination is unusual for this 20-minute array of just-as-unusual variations on a serviceable theme. Schumann reportedly was not totally sold on his own score and later changed and shortened it for two pianos. The five-musician version does meander and appears to sort of run out of steam. But Monday’s quintet treated the whole of it with respect.

To close, Mann and Webb enthusiastically tore through Camille Saint-Saens’ Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, a playful tour de force that engages the pianists in ping pong dialogue, plentiful fireworks and even a fugue.

For Mann, it was an opportunity to tie down his credentials, which he did.

For Webb, it must have been a memory trip to the long years he partnered with Wallace Hornibrook. The Saint-Saens Variations were among the popular duo’s most requested concert items. Listening on Monday, one again could understand why.

‘Vincent’ world premiere extraordinary production

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:46:04 +0000

April 11, 2011

By Peter Jacobi

On opening night, Friday, the audience, laden with students, erupted in cheers. On Saturday night, with more mature subscribers dominating attendance, there, too, were cheers, slower to start but ultimately just as pronounced.

So, in terms of public reaction, the weekend’s performances of “Vincent,” in a world premiere presentation by IU Opera Theater, must be considered a success. The question that remains is how this intriguing work, a music drama about the painter Vincent Van Gogh, will fare in future mountings if and when separated from the visual values one currently experiences in the Musical Arts Center.

This “Vincent,” though without doubt boasting both a potent musical score by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Bernard Rands and an eloquent libretto by J.D. McClatchy, is an extraordinary production to see. Front, back and sides, on scrim and ever changing scenic panels, one sees projections that create constantly shifting environments, designed to show, as a deeply troubled Van Gogh expresses in a letter to his brother Theo when “Vincent” begins, “This is the world in my mind.”

In flashback, that world is re-created through key scenes, from when the young Vincent, rejecting his father’s insistence to follow him into the ministry, fails at a job in his uncle’s Parisian art gallery, through troubling, tortuous years to his suicide. All the while, Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings flash on and off or linger; they establish sites in which he worked and suffered; they whirl dizzyingly, enlarge themselves, or magically transform, as from a sunflower to the yellow house in Arles where Van Gogh lived briefly with Paul Gauguin. Well-chosen props complete the stage pictures.

Production designer Barry Steele created this mesmerizing world, with the notable assistance of costume designer Linda Pisano. Making virtuoso use of the magic is another Vincent, director Vincent Liotta, who so obviously steeped himself in the lore and lure of Van Gogh and gave his two casts telling lessons in art history as well as operatic theater. He choreographed movement, with some allowances for individuality but distinct notions about how Steele’s environments should be used to best serve this operatic Van Gogh.

Choreography was at work also between stage pictures and music. As one listened to composer Rands’ vivid orchestral interludes, separating scene from scene, the visuals seen kept time with the score, in reinforcement.

The Rands/McClatchy “Vincent,” built heavily from correspondence engaged in by the loving brothers, Vincent and Theo, shapes a loner who desperately didn’t want to be, a man drawn to God but far from averse to the sins of pleasure, an artistic visionary, a dreamer whose life turned into a living nightmare ruled by epilepsy and emotional disintegration.

The music that Rands gave Vincent and the denizens of his world is remarkable and rich in suggestiveness. No, it is not melodic or relaxing. Should that be expected? The dominant atonal qualities underscore the tension of a life in turmoil. But a Protestant chorale comes along when the action calls for it. So, too, does cabaret music. So, too, a Gregorian chant. What’s important is an expressive build that ingeniously echoes every dramatic nuance in an unfolding and disturbing drama.

Rands’ champion is conductor Arthur Fagen. He obviously understood intent and trained the pit musicians, the Philharmonic, to not only technically play the complex score but to do so with needed style and atmospheric power. The singers, too, have benefited from his knowing leadership.

In baritones David Adam Moore and Christopher Burchett, the production has two outstanding Vincents. Hired for their experience in performing new works, they handled a demanding assignment admirably. Their portrayals emerged as believable, sustained, and compellingly intense.

Tenors Jacob Williams and Will Perkins, as Theo, came a long way in matching their stage brother, high notes and all. Bass-baritones Hirotaka Kato and Adam Walton gave lusty life to painter Gauguin.

Remaining roles are shorter but of critical importance, too, and were, on the whole, intelligently cast: among them, Luke Williams and Jason Eck as Vincent’s father; Elizabeth Toy and Kelly Kruse as the prostitute Sien; Kirsta Costin and Laura Boone as a cabaret singer and model; Peter Thoresen and Steven Linville as Toulouse-Lautrec; James Arnold and Christopher Grundy as a benefactor, and Paloma Friedhoff and Jami Leonard as the benefactor’s daughter.

“Vincent,” as opera and production, is quite an achievement.

Soul is in the air with Solaire

Jacobs School of Music — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:35:08 +0000

To read the full article on the Valley Vanguard, please click here

Choral performances uplifting and unifying

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:32:09 +0000

MUSIC REVIEW: VOCES NOVAE AND ‘JUDAS MACCABAEUS’
Choral performances uplifting and unifying

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
March 7, 2011

It was a choral Saturday.

The community chamber choir Voces Novae served up a luscious appetizer, a 40-minute late afternoon concert at the Unitarian Universalist Church devoted to music inspired by or in some way suggestive of Psalm 137, “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.”

Then in Auer Hall, the Pro Arte Singers, members of the Early Music ensemble Concentus and the IU Baroque Orchestra performed Handel’s eloquent, grandly scoped oratorio, “Judas Maccabaeus.”

Voces Novae

Leave it to Susan Swaney. The artistic director of Voces Novae knows how to fashion provocative themes for her choir’s programs. This one, as the psalm expresses, spoke to sorrow and oppression, the Jewish exile and enslavement in Babylon, the search for a voice, in whatever place and time, to unify those facing the struggle.

The music, all of it carefully prepared and entrancingly and passionately sung, ranged from late 16th and early 17th century settings of the psalm by Salomone Rossi, Orlando di Lasso, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and Thomas Campian to “On the Willows” from the musical “Godspell,” the 1970’s hit song by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton, “Rivers of Babylon,” and a pair of shape-note hymns, one the 1811 “Babel’s Streams” by Stephen Jenks, the other, the 1986 “Wood Street. L.M.” by Judy Hauff.

Also sung was Verdi’s “Va Pensiero,” the prayer of the Hebrews held captive by the Babylonians in the opera “Nabucco,” a chorus that became the anthem of Italians seeking their 19th century independence and unification. Finally, there was “By the Waters,” an other-world-like, highly evocative work by a member of Voces Novae, the creative, locally based composer Cary Boyce, with music that paid heed to flowing waters, harps “hanged . upon the willows,” and the razing of the temple in Jerusalem. The piece was something to admire; Voces Novae treated it so.

Handel at night

The resplendent performance of Handel’s “Judas Maccabaeus” had the benefit of the meticulous and sensitive William Jon Gray as conductor, expert orchestral preparation by Stanley Ritchie, and coaching from both IU’s Paul Elliott and the Welsh soprano and Handel specialist, Eiddwen Harrhy, all this thanks to funding from the Georgina Joshi Fund, established to support a series of performances here of Handel’s operas and oratorios.

The money was well spent. The efforts were well rewarded.

This reviewer heard the second of three performances given (the first was Friday in Indianapolis, the third in Auer Sunday afternoon). It offered an authoritative, spacious and wonderfully energized reading of an oratorio far less heard than “Messiah” but certainly worthy of more exposure than it now tends to receive.

The subject deals with the history touched upon in Psalm 137, in this case the revolt during the second century B.C. of the Maccabeans against a disintegrating Babylonian empire. Judas Maccabaeus was their victorious military leader. Music and words (by Thomas Morell) celebrate the leader, the victory and God.

The best-known item in the oratorio is the mighty chorus, “See the conquering hero comes,” but a number of the choruses, along with an array of melodic and challenging arias, made their mark. That’s not only because of oft-inspired music itself but the fine efforts of the performers.

The two leading roles were assumed by students not in Pro Arte or Concentus: tenor Jacob Williams as Judas and baritone Scott Hogsed as his brother Simon. Williams did some heroic singing, negotiating breathtakingly-long lines, vocal pyrotechnics and multiple high notes with aplomb. Hogsed gave needed clarity and resonance to a string of recitatives and arias.

By the end, close to three hours from the start, a number of the choristers had taken a turn as soloist. They held their own. Some — including mezzo Lauren Walker, soprano Christine Buras and countertenor Brennan Hall — faced major technical hurdles but emerged as victors.

This “Judas Maccabaeus” was a combined effort that worked because of all its parts. And up front, it was conductor Gray who, much praise to him, kept the performance unified and spirited.

Bach’s ‘Come, Sweet Death,’ played in memory of Phillips, a highlight

Jacobs School of Music — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:55:26 +0000

Bach’s ‘Come, Sweet Death,’ played in memory of Phillips, a highlight

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 17, 2011

A sumptuous arrangement of Bach’s moving “Come, Sweet Death,” sumptuously played by Indiana University’s Symphonic Band, proved a highlight of Tuesday evening’s concert in the Musical Arts Center.

There were other highlights, too, as the IU Symphonic and Concert bands shared performance time, but the Bach deserves special notice, having been played and played so affectingly in memory of Harvey Phillips, the celebrated and beloved tuba virtuoso who died last fall.

Much of what one heard Tuesday was of lighter cast. As usual, the concert band performed first. With master’s candidate Aaron Burkhart on the podium, it offered the festive “Konigsmarsch” of Richard Strauss, a ceremonial item the composer wrote for Germany’s Wilhelm II in 1907. Four trumpeters and a snare drummer, working at mezzanine level to the left of the stage, added aural depth to the gushes of sound produced by the rest of the ensemble.

Matthew Smith, visiting assistant director of bands, then took command for an ambient reading of Ballad for Band, inspired by composer Morton Gould’s love of spirituals. Michael Gandolfi’s “Vientos y Tangos,” played with rhythmic fire and integrity, gave the tango in its various manifestations more than a once-over. The Shostakovich Folk Dances followed, receiving all the necessary speed and gusto; Maestro Smith made sure that this joyous romp also had the necessary cohesion.

The symphonic band’s half of the program began with “Savannah River Holiday,” Ron Nelson’s sometimes serene and at other times exuberant musical love letter to the Savannah River and its countryside. Doctoral candidate William Petersen drew heavily on the atmospheric possibilities in the score.

It was the symphonic band’s usual conductor, Jeffrey Gershman, who led the beautiful “Come, Sweet Death.” Then, splendidly, they collaborated in Robert Russell Bennett’s Suite of Old American Dances, an amalgam of traditions — Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, folk and spiritual — expressed in five stylistically different dances: a cake walk, schottische, Western one-step, wallflower waltz and rag. The performance was definitely another highlight, as music and as so ebulliently interpreted.

For a rousing close, Gershman chose the wedding dance from “Hasseneh,” a Symphonic Suite for Orchestra, by Jacques Press, who made a career writing and arranging songs and scores for films. The clarinets were kept particularly busy as this lively piece rushed along to a frenzied finish.
Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2011

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Undergraduate soloist shines in Alban Berg Violin Concerto

Jacobs School of Music — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:54:55 +0000

Undergraduate soloist shines in Alban Berg Violin Concerto

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 18, 2011

The Indiana University Philharmonic deserves recognition for having played so resplendently in the Musical Arts Center on Wednesday night under visiting conductor Steven Smith, but when an undergraduate tackles the Alban Berg Violin Concerto and makes it her own, as she did on the same program, then top attention must go to that achievement.

Young Sarah Saviet, winner of the Jacobs School’s Concerto Competition and a student of Jorja Fleezanis, undertook the daunting assignment and most definitely came out a winner. Her performance proved that not only had she mastered the technical problems posed by the work’s blend of 12-tone modernism and melodic tradition, but she had captured its spirit.

Though specifically commissioned by the American violinist Louis Krasner, who would give it its world premiere in 1936, the concerto was written while Berg grieved over the death from polio of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, daughter of Gustav Mahler’s widow Alma and the architect Walter Gropius. Berg dedicated it “To the Memory of an Angel.” The music weaves between lyrical sadness and savage anger, and those contrasting moods were made evident in Saviet’s savvy and persuasive performance.

In the first of two movements, the score shifts from quiet to intense both in speed and volume. The second movement reverses that trend, but more dramatically; it begins in shocking crescendo, then slowly, inexorably reverts to calm, even quoting a Bach chorale as a poignant serenity increasingly permeates both the violin line and that of the orchestra. Saviet seemed fully attuned to her responsibilities, handling the astringent and the sublime with aplomb. As for Wednesday’s orchestra, the Philharmonic, thanks to Maestro Smith, served as convincing partner in providing the interpretive symmetry Berg sought. Saviet’s accomplishments were remarkable; the orchestra’s, estimable.

Of course, Smith and ensemble had more to do, handling two other works that, like the Berg, deal thematically or atmospherically with matters of life, death and the hereafter. They opened the program with a performance of the Prelude to Wagner’s opera “Lohengrin,” one that supported the composer’s instructional description for the piece: “Out of the clear blue ether of the sky, there gradually emerges an angel host bearing the sacred Grail. As it approaches Earth, it pours out exquisite odors, like streams of gold,” and so forth. The Prelude’s music moves from shimmers to majestic climax. Smith drew that transcendent feel from his players.

The visiting conductor is music director of the Richmond Symphony and holds impressive credentials working with young musicians in Cleveland and the Oberlin Conservatory. He obviously knew how to get the most out of the talents in the Philharmonic. And that he did as well in the concert closer, the Richard Strauss tone poem “Tod und Verklarung” (“Death and Transfiguration”), meant, as the composer told a friend, to describe the “last hours of a man who had striven for the highest ideals, an artist.”

Here is lush music, sometimes deliriously so. Wednesday’s reading matched intent. It was broadly and dramatically and beautifully realized.

Camerata at BHS South; African-American composers celebrated

Jacobs School of Music — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:52:51 +0000

MUSIC REVIEW: CAMERATA AND EXTENSIONS
Camerata at BHS South; African-American composers celebrated

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 22, 2011, last update: 2/22 @ 9:40 am

On a Sunday of multiple concert overlaps, a reviewer sadly had to skip more events than he could cover, but the two concerts chosen offered ample satisfaction as well as variety.

In the afternoon …

… at Bloomington High School South, the Camerata Orchestra made a belated season appearance after an autumn during which no large-enough-hall could be obtained for rehearsals and performance, this having to do with the school district’s pre-referendum budget shortfall.

Reconstituted, the ensemble sounded awfully good in a program labeled Fantasy, one that featured an excellent soloist, Orli Shaham, who played the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and a called-in-at-virtually-the-last-minute conductor, Arie Lipsky, in substitution for an ailing Murry Sidlin.

Maestro Lipsky is no stranger to the Camerata. This was his fifth appearance with the orchestra, and what one heard attested to the efficiency and musical knowhow of a conductor who, between visits here and elsewhere, serves as music director of the Ann Arbor Symphony. The high quality of playing also meant he was working with an ensemble of capable and receptive musicians.

In collaboration, they gave Tchaikovsky’s dramatically suggestive Romeo and Juliet Overture a polished and yet also fully expressive account. So, too, they supplied Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” as lavishly orchestrated by Ravel, with all the necessary show, culminating in a booming, rousing, properly breathtaking “Great Gate at Kiev.”

Between the Tchaikovsky and the Mussorgsky, pianist Shaham lavished the grandeur, elegance and elasticity that pianist/composer Rachmaninoff undoubtedly intended for his inventive 24-variation take on that familiar theme taken from Paganini’s Caprices for violin. She was outstanding and effectively partnered by the orchestra.

In the evening …

… at Auer Hall, the annual Extensions of the Tradition program, always a celebration of music by African-American composers, brought Leo H. Davis Jr., to the campus. He is the gifted organist and director of music at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis.

Davis gave Auer’s organ, the Maidee, a workout as he soloed and collaborated in a wide-ranging concert, “Organ Works from the African Diaspora,” that also cast the spotlight on saxophonist Otis Murphy, mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson, a brass/timpani combine, and a chorus consisting of the African American Choral Ensemble, voice students from the Jacobs School and members of the IU All-Campus Chorus.

Organist Davis was on call throughout. Alone, he showed splendid musicianship and intense emotional involvement in a wide range of pieces by various African-American composers: a resplendent Impromptu for Organ by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a reflective “Retrospection,” by Florence Price, a deeply moving fantasy on “Go Down Moses,” by Fela Sowande (accompanied by trenchant photos from the Civil Rights struggle), a peaceful Prelude on the spiritual “O Fix Me,” by J. Roland Braithwaite and “Anguished American Easter, 1968,” variations on the spiritual “He ‘Rose,” written by Thomas Kerr and dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.

Otis Murphy contributed the Fantasia movement from David Hurd’s Sonata for Saxophone and Organ, a demanding exercise neatly accomplished. Marietta Simpson and the choral group, conducted by Keith McCutchen, raised the temperature in the hall with a heated version of “Git On Board,” by Evelyn Simpson-Curenton, the mezzo’s sister. And all of the above followed a musical treatment of Psalm 95 (“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord”) from “Proclamations, for Organ, Brass, Timpani and Chorus,” by Darin Atwater. The composer himself conducted a jubilant performance of music tremendously jubilant to begin with.

The program was intended to show the breadth of classical music written by African-Americans. It most surely succeeded

Weekend’s Best: Classical Music and Jazz

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:58:33 +0000

Composer David Baker directs the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. / Photo provided by Indy Jazz Fest

Written by

Jay Harvey

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

Douglas Boyd, music director of the Manchester (England) Camerata, will conduct two performances of “The Creation,” Joseph Haydn’s 1798 oratorio, with the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and soloists Sarah Tynan, Thomas Cooley and Matthew Rose.

A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Boyd was a founding member and principal oboist of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe until 2002. He is principal guest conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and artistic partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

» Details: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Hilbert Circle Theatre, 45 Monument Circle, $20-$70, call (317) 639-4300 or (800) 366-8457; order tickets online at www.indianapolissymphony.org.

Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis

David Baker, who has directed jazz studies at Indiana University for more than 40 years, will talk about his jazz symphony “Shades of Blue” before a performance of the work Sunday by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis.

Reginald Walters will conduct the orchestra’s 13th annual gospel concert, also featuring the Symphonic Praise Choir (under the direction of Paralee Gale). Selections will include “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho,” “I Love the Lord” and “I Can Go to the Lord in Prayer.”

Baker, a prolific composer who also directs the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, will talk about his 1993 four-movement work at 2:30 p.m.

» Details: 3 p.m. Sunday, Pike Performing Arts Center, 6701 Zionsville Road, $15 ($12 seniors, $5 students; children younger than 10 free when accompanied by a paying adult), www.philharmonicindy.org or (317) 229-2367.

Organist Christopher Young

Christopher Young, professor of music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, will play an organ recital Friday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

He will play works by Hubert Parry, J.S. Bach, William Albright, Marcel Dupre, Louis Vierne and others. In 1988, Young won the National Young Arts Competition of the American Guild of Organists, at whose conventions he’s been a featured artist. He has been heard also on “Pipedreams” on National Public Radio.

Peter Jankovic Leyenda Review

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:55:39 +0000

By: Brad Conroy

Petar Jankovic Leyenda

Petar Jankovic’s Leyenda is an incredible recording that features a mix of standard works by Granados, Villa-Lobos, Albeniz, and Tansman, along with more recent additions to the classical guitar repertoire by Merlin and Dyens. Jankovic is a strong personality on the instrument, who possesses his own unique and distinguished style of playing. As one would expect from such a seasoned performer, his interpretations and performances are solid throughout the album.

Jankovic does not fit neatly into the modern idiom of classical guitar perfection; though he does play the pieces with precision, grace, dynamics, and style. Jankovic has a character to his playing that is reminiscent of artists like Segovia or Bream. He performs as if he is conducting an orchestra, bringing every performance to life with his incredible dynamic palette and knowledge of the instrument and its repertoire.

Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Cinq Preludes” begins the album with Jankovic breathing new life into these oft played pieces with his rhythmic precision, deep sense of expression and obvious admiration for the composer. He manages to avoid playing these pieces too fast, or too slow, which he might have been tempted to do after he has been playing and teaching these pieces for a many years. It is easy to hear his artistry and mastery of the guitar on these familiar pieces.

“Danza Espanola No. 5” by Enrique Granados is another one of the many highlights on Leyenda. Jankovic’s personalized approach to the right hand thumb execution can be heard in the opening measures of this piece. Those who have seen him perform will know that Jankovic puts his whole arm into the bass notes, giving them an enormous sound that really captures the essence of the guitar with his myriad use of tonal colors. Jankovics’ interpretation of this piece is unique and exciting, providing a new vision of a standard piece.

“Suite del Recuerdo” by Jose Luis Merlin is an example of a newer composition for classical guitar, one that has become a part of the popular repertoire of students and concert guitarists alike. The music itself is strikingly beautiful music, with Jankovic giving perhaps the finest interpretation and performance of the opening movement “Evocacion” in recent recorded memory. His interpretation of this suite, alongside the more traditional repertoire, showcases the dexterity of Jankovic’ ability as a performer and his deep knowledge of a wide breadth of the classical guitar anthology.

Jankovic gives an incredible performance on Leyenda with his artistry and individual style putting him in a category with the likes of Segovia and Bream. Jankovic plays with virtuosic precision, grace, expression, and with a unique character to his sound, something that will appeal to both guitarists and non-musicians alike.

******

Passion unabashed in tribute to Rostislav Dubinsky

Jacobs School of Music — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:13:37 +0000

Passion unabashed in tribute to Rostislav Dubinsky

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 15, 2011

Aside from the fact that time passes much too quickly, it feels satisfying to pause each February in remembrance of someone who offered much to the musical lives of Jacobs School students and local audiences. On Sunday afternoon in Auer Hall, the Rostislav Dubinsky Memorial Concert, as given annually since his lamented death in 1997, honored the esteemed violinist and champion of chamber music.

His beloved widow, pianist Luba Edlina-Dubinsky, was very much in evidence as she joined the visiting Lafayette String Quartet in a powerful reading of the Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor, Opus 34. Prior to that, the Lafayette foursome played the Tchaikovsky Quartet No. 3 in E-Flat Minor, Opus 30, which Dubinsky used to perform as long-time first violinist of the famed Borodin Quartet.

The presence of the Lafayette quartet was an appropriate gesture to Dubinsky’s memory. He was instrumental in the formation of the quartet 25 years ago and served as its mentor. Also, three of the four players in this all-woman ensemble are products of Indiana University. Its home base, however, is a distance away. For 20 years, violinists Ann Elliott-Goldschmid and Sharon Stanis, violist Joanna Hood, and cellist Pamela Highbaugh Aloni have served as artists-in-residence at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

Their long-standing ties were very much in evidence when one heard them play. Interaction seemed natural, second nature, and cohesion tidy. Even more importantly, they approached the music as of one mind, having obviously based their readings on a shared understanding of the scores.

The Tchaikovsky, written in memory of a violinist who had participated in premiere performances of the composer’s earlier quartets, is suffused with sadness and what also might be interpreted as the agitation of loss. The visitors seized the atmospherics and made them manifest.

Edlina-Dubinsky, though certainly capable of producing any sort of mood on the piano, revels in the forceful and in unabashed passion. She was in her element on Sunday, drawing her invited colleagues into an unabashedly vigorous realization of an epic work. That does not mean they shortchanged the wonderfully tender Andante. To the contrary, in it they found all the inherent warmth and relaxed into a welcome serenity. But large-scaled emotion dominates much of the quintet, and a large-scaled reading it received. There was no holding back the intensity of performance, even while Edlina-Dubinsky and friends also, to their credit, retained full control of shifting rhythms and surging climaxes. Listening was pleasurable.

Puccini operas pleasing

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:08:16 +0000

Puccini operas pleasing

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer
February 7, 2011

Solid singing from those in the casts who count the most, authoritative leadership from the conductor in the pit, and interesting touches in the staging mark the IU Opera Theater’s current production of two Puccini operas, which opened with a pair of weekend performances in the Musical Arts Center.

Thanks to carefully conceived and prepared treatment, the tragic “Suor Angelica” and the comic “Gianni Schicchi” received enthusiastic response from audiences both Friday and Saturday evenings. “Angelica,” which can easily turn tedious and treacly if mishandled, gained real traction and gathered dramatic momentum; I even heard sniffing nearby and noticed round-about dabbing at the eyes. “Schicchi,” usually considered the stronger of the two scores, can nevertheless falter if not kept musically taut and theatrically disciplined. This production well meets requirements; the consequent laughter was frequent and loud.

One must credit the youthful maestro, Jacobs School alumnus Andrew Altenbach, who not only extracted true Puccini sounds from the orchestra, on this occasion the IU Symphony, but kept a careful eye on the singers, guiding them through a flow of intricacies and entanglements. He seemed to have a beyond-his-years mature sense for the Puccini style and for the musical specifics the composer chose to tell the operas’ stories, the mounting tension in “Angelica,” the wit and chaos in “Schicchi.”

Visiting stage director James Marvel most assuredly put his stamp on the proceedings. The “suors” or sisters surrounding Suor Angelica gained personalities. Those who portrayed the sisters, the nuns, carried out choreographed movements that may at times have suggested overstatement but, on the other hand, also vividly displayed the rigid nature of life in the convent. In “Schicchi,” the action featured a few dubious low-jinks among the host of hijinks, but the absurdities Marvel chose and rehearsed — from line dancing to slapstick mayhem — underscored the fun that Puccini obviously meant to promote.

All these actions take place on a set that, with alterations, comfortably serves as cloister of a convent in Siena and a bedchamber in Florence, the work of the always creative C. David Higgins. Patrick Mero designed striking touches of lighting to add immeasurably to the visual effect.

The production team struck gold in the selection of sopranos to portray Suor Angelica, Shelley Ploss on Friday night and Lenora Green on Saturday. Without a singer that can both lyrically and dramatically convey the pathos Puccini poured into his music for Angelica, there is no good reason to perform this opera. Ploss and Green provided a very good reason.

Theirs to evoke aurally and visually is a to-be-pitied woman of wealthy origin forced into a convent because of an illegitimate birth, ultimately disinherited, and told that her child has died. She takes poison, realizes that the act will damn her, then pleads for and gains redemption. Ploss was breathtakingly intense, and not even a couple of slightly strained top notes voiced in needed fortissimo, could take away from her accomplishment; if anything, they added to emotional crisis embedded in the developing situation. Green resolutely and most effectively controlled her resonant soprano but also let it gush forth to express Angelica’s anguish; consequently, what one saw and heard was exceedingly moving.

Mezzos Ashley Stone and Laura Boone brought menace and chill as Angelica’s unforgiving aunt. The rest of the large, all-female casts, were less important for their individual contributions, which varied in vocal quality, than for their ensemble work as a beautifully expressive chorus of nuns. As such, they had been effectively trained by Sue Swaney.

Friday’s “Gianni Schicchi” cast was particularly fortunate to have the veteran Scott Hogsed, a student with years of professional experience, in the title role, that of a scoundrel who outwits a family of scoundrels seeking to circumvent the will of a wealthy, just deceased relative. He was a blast, tearing up the stage. But Saturday’s Schicchi, a younger Marcelo Ferreira, was not to be outdone. He very much held his own as the charming rogue.

Sopranos Shannon Love and Caryn Kerstetter, as Schicchi’s daughter, gave glow to the famous aria, “O mio babbino caro.” Tenor Nicholas Fitzer and even more so Marco Stefani scored as the man who wants to marry her. The whole lot of schemers and clowns was well served by those chosen for this very lively production.

Pianist bold in Beethoven’s Fourth, orchestra playful for Shostakovich score

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:07:30 +0000

Pianist bold in Beethoven’s Fourth, orchestra playful for Shostakovich score

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 11, 2011

After a silent January, the orchestras of the Indiana University Jacobs School have come awake with a flurry of February concerts. Five events are on the schedule, and as a bonus, we get to hear another two the first week of March.

On Wednesday evening in the Musical Arts Center, the University Orchestra took the spotlight, acquitting itself nobly, thanks to a favored visitor on the podium. Cliff Colnot came down from an even colder-than-here Chicago to lead a program of Beethoven and Shostakovich.

The Beethoven, his Fourth Piano Concerto, featured a highly gifted Artist Diploma candidate, Wu Qian, student of Arnaldo Cohen. The Shostakovich was that composer’s shortest and yet still substantial symphony, the No. 9.

If there was a special quality being sought by Colnot, Qian and company, it seemed to be articulation. A listener, certainly this one, benefited from playing that was clean, clear-cut and precise. And that is not meant to suggest interpretive stimulation was missing. Far from it: this was an exciting concert.

Pianist Qian made sure of that from her first whispered notes on the Steinway to the brilliant conclusion. Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto requires not only consummate technical skill but expressiveness. Boldness is called for. So are warmth and refinement. Poignant passages require a poetic, gentle, rhapsodic touch. The bravura moments, and these come in profusion, demand power and fluent brilliance.

Qian provided all of the above, adding also the necessary control. Her performance was assured, musical and audacious. The audacity revealed itself in chosen shifts of rhythm, in notes extended or suddenly cut short, in silences, in effects obviously designed for impact. Those choices could be argued, but one wonders about the concerto’s premiere performance back in 1807 with the composer himself at the piano. What twists might composer/pianist Beethoven have added to win over his audience?

By the way, he took on the assignment because two other pianists, one of them his own favored student, turned down the opportunity, deeming the score too difficult. To the contrary, Qian almost made it sound easy.

Colnot and orchestra served as sensitive partners. The Shostakovich, of course, was all theirs to take care of, as ensemble and as individuals, the latter because the score features all sorts of solo and chamber opportunities: for piccolo, for violin, for clarinet, for bassoon, for groups of brasses, winds and strings.

Shostakovich had initially planned a Beethoven-esque Ninth for large orchestra, chorus and soloists. He changed his mind and, to the consternation of Dictator Stalin and cohorts, produced a 27-minute, light-hearted, sometimes comic score. The music is playful and was performed so. The music is transparent and was performed so. The music is, at different times, brisk and impish and boisterous and was performed so. Maestro Colnot and the University Orchestra are to be praised, as they were by the cheers and applause of the audience.

Fleezanis leads students through lovely program on a bitterly cold night

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:26:12 +0000

Fleezanis leads students through lovely program on a bitterly cold night

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 5, 2011

A short while back, Jorja Fleezanis left behind her position of 20 years as concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra to join the faculty of IU’s Jacobs School both as professor of music in violin and as the Henry Upper Chair in Orchestral Studies.

As the latter, she has worked to give the strings in the school’s orchestral ensembles, particularly the violin sections, the sort of cohesion that professional orchestras seek to achieve. She can sometimes actually be seen playing in their midst to help demonstrate to the students how it’s done.

On Wednesday evening in Auer Hall, Fleezanis went a step further.

She stepped in front of the IU Chamber Orchestra to lead it. Not to conduct it. Not to direct it. As the printed program noted: to lead it. That meant she had rehearsed the orchestra, as would have a conductor, and then in performance — standing, turned mostly toward the audience and her score — she led her colleagues on stage with bow, violin, body and facial expressions, serving as combination guide and additional concertmaster (to Sarah Saviet, who sat at the front of the first violins, as concertmasters always do).

The result was a lovely program on a bitter night that brought out fewer of the usual off-campus patrons and more students.

Those students had come to cheer, generously and often, but most vociferously soloist Daniel Perry, a 19-year-old sophomore who made his double bass sound like a cello.

And that’s a compliment, of course. Perry drew the sweetest and lushest of tones from his giant and unwieldy instrument, of a sort that Leader Fleezanis was getting all evening from the Chamber Orchestra’s upper strings. He performed the D Major Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra by a Haydn/Mozart contemporary, the Czech composer Johann Baptist Vanhal. Not a note seemed out of place or sounded coarse as the facile Perry ventured fearlessly through daunting passage work, including a couple of knotty cadenzas. He’s quite a talent.

The Vanhal followed a vigorous and neatly organized reading by the orchestra’s strings and harpsichord of excerpts from Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Don Quixote Suite,” melodic music of a descriptive nature that, indeed, suggested Quixote’s awakening, his attack on the windmills, his sighs of love for the Princess Aline, the swindling suffered by sidekick Sancho Panza, and the Don at rest.

After intermission, the full orchestra took over. With Fleezanis up front, commanding the ensemble and her own violin, the audience was graced with delectable Faure and Haydn.

The former’s gorgeously passionate Suite from “Pelleas et Melisande,” first written as incidental music for a performance of Maeterlinck’s drama and presented on Wednesday in the now-usual concert form, stirred the ears with enveloping drama and grandeur. The orchestra played sumptuously.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 22 in E-Flat Major, “The Philosopher,” ended the concert. An early work, it is rich in happy lyricism and gusto.

Fleezanis and company bounteously brought out those qualities.

Star-packed group delights in Avondale

Jacobs School of Music — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:17:55 +0000

To read the full article on Cincinnati.com, please click here