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Russian Festival No. 16
IVCI Laureate Chamber Series: Stefan Milenkovich
Concertante string sextet
Masterful masterworks
It's all about Hoffmann
Classical continuity
Classical music
Following my dire concerns last year for classical-music health in Indy and its environs, plus its relation to the continuing economic slump and local loss of jobs, I must report that the upcoming season, though somewhat retrenched, appears one of the more fascinating, overall. The Indiana Historical Society — or, as its “corporeal” part is now called, the Indiana History Center (a term I’ll use henceforth) — continues to house one of the most visible, successful new concert venues for chamber sized forces. Let’s start by looking at the IHC Theater’s scheduled events: The Ensemble Music Society launches its 60th-Anniversary season on Oct. 8 with another appearance of the world famed Guarneri String Quartet. Other chamber groups scheduled for the season include the Mendelssohn String Quartet on Nov. 19 with Jonathon Biss as guest piano soloist, the return of the celebrated Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields chamber ensemble on Feb. 25, the four-year-old Amelia Piano Trio on March 17 and the somewhat misnamed Aspen Wind Ensemble (three strings, a piano and a flute). The society’s season finishes on May 5 with the Stanford University based St. Lawrence Quartet. All are Wednesday concerts starting at 7:30. Now in its second season at the IHC Theater, Suzuki and Friends, under International Violin Competition of Indianapolis (IVCI) sponsorship, will open Sept. 30 with “An Evening in Vienna,” featuring Strauss waltzes as transcribed by the three serialist members of the Second Viennese School: Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Hidetaro and Zeyda Ruga Suzuki will offer an appealing piano-violin duo recital on Nov. 4 of works by Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky and Sarasate. Their final two programs are scheduled for March 30 and April 27. All start at 7:30 on Tuesdays. The IVCI’s recently launched Laureate Series, featuring recent and past competition finalists will begin Dec. 2 with Ivan Chan, Bronze Medalist in the 1990 event, joining the Ronen Chamber Ensemble in works by Milhaud, Chausson and Franck. Feb. 3 presents 1998 Gold Medalist Judith Ingolfsson and 1994 Silver Medalist Stefan Milenkovich with the Suzuki players in a program to be announced. The IVCI sponsored Ronen series concludes its season at the IHC Theater with an intriguing mystery selection, a sextet for piano and winds, with composer clues offered during its three previous concerts. (More of this kind of thing should be done.) The Ronen’s first and third concerts return to the intimacy of their home base, the Hilbert Circle Theatre Wood Room. Three of the 2002 IVCI laureates — Gold Medalist Barnabás Kelemen, Frank Huang and Susie Park — will help launch the six-concert Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra season with a blockbuster program on Sept. 15 at Clowes Hall. Each laureate will be heard in a work for solo violin and orchestra. The ICO’s second concert, held at the Christel DeHaan Center on Nov. 23, features the 2001 Van Cliburn Competition winner Olga Kern in Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto. In keeping with its competition-winner theme, the ICO’s fourth concert (March 21) features the two recently named American Pianists Association Fellows, Thomas Rosenkranz and Michael Sheppard in Poulenc’s Two-Piano Concerto in D Minor. ICO music director Kirk Trevor will preside over the first four programs. Beginning its 64th season as a community ensemble, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis plans an adventuresome five-concert series, at both the Pike Performing Arts Center and the U. of I.’s Ransburg Auditorium. The dates are Oct. 12, Nov. 16, Feb. 8, March 28 and April 25 — all Sundays. Podium duties are shared by Jackson Wiley and Orcenith Smith. Of special interest is the March 28 program, which pays homage to the bassoon in a manner not previously seen locally. A cluster of bassoonists — and there are plenty of them — offer a massed bassoon potpourri of “epic proportions,” ending with the finale of Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Then we’ll hear Michael Daugherty’s Hell’s Angels for bassoon quartet and orchestra — described as “offbeat.” This program is sponsored by ... you guessed it: Southside Harley Davidson. Early music continues to be well represented by the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra under its artistic director John Holloway as the ensemble-in-residence at the DeHaan Center and Ensemble Ouabache as the ensemble-in-residence at Trinity Episcopal Church. The orchestra offers five concert programs, each one given in two or three successive evenings/matinees. The ensemble, using Baroque period instruments, will present single concerts on Nov. 14, Feb. 20 and March 19. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s 21-program Classical Series will, at last, have its new music director Mario Venzago visible and ensconced here in town for ten of them. Of special interest is Venzago’s Feb. 12-14 program featuring the new, young piano sensation Lang Lang — who’s making everybody crazy with accolades — playing the Saint-Saëns 2nd Piano Concerto in G Minor. Jun Märkl, returning from two seasons ago on June 4-5 for a Mendelssohn/Wagner/Beethoven program, was one of the most brilliant of ISO guest conductors to grace the Hilbert Circle Theatre podium — electrifying the orchestra to incandescence. Indianapolis Opera continues to ride the crest of endemic opera popularity by sustaining a lower attendance drop last season than most other music presenters. Its four Clowes Hall productions this season: Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette (1867) on Oct. 10 and 12, with IO favorites Gran Wilson and Laura Pedersen singing the title roles; Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore (1832) on Nov. 21 and 23; Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte (1790), featuring another IO favorite, Amy Johnson, singing Fiordiligi. Finally IO will engage baritone Timothy Noble in his final performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto (1850) on May 7 and 9. At age 59, Noble expessed his desire to do it “one more time.”
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May 17, 2008
Indianapolis Art Center
NUVO Riverfront Concert Stage. Broadripple Arts Fair....
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