Summer Music Festival has plenty of goodies to look forward to
By Peter Jacobi
May 3, 2009
Approximately 40 events will light up various venues during the annual Summer Music Festival planned by IU’s Jacobs School between June 21 and Aug. 11. Familiar headliners and newcomers will share those stages, starting with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and ending with a second season appearance by the IU Symphony.
The schedule, though with as many concerts as usual, boasts fewer visitors of note, the likes of headline ensembles such as Sweet Honey in the Rock and Chanticleer, which graced recent festivals, this because of budget constraints placed on the whole university by the current economic downturn
. But there’ll be plenty to arouse excitement, much thanks to talents who reside here or come to teach in the various summer academies.
The long-standing Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson combine is a repeat attraction. Among the concert world’s most prominent musical groups, these three artists (including Jacobs School faculty members Jaime Laredo, violin, and Sharon Robinson, cello) will feature works of Beethoven, Shostakovich and Schubert. Quickly followed they will be by another returning ensemble, the Biava Quartet which, with IU faculty violist Atar Arad, will attend to more Shostakovich, some Haydn and the Mendelssohn Viola Quintet.
The music of Mendelssohn, whose birthday 200 years ago is being widely celebrated, will be featured again on several programs later in the festival: the Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio and collaborators will do “An Afternoon of Mendelssohn,” containing a cello sonata, quartet and sextet; the new-to-the-scene Afiara Quartet, which serves as the quartet-in-residence at San Francisco State, will add the Mendelssohn Opus 44, No. 2 Quartet, and IU’s William Grey will lead a choral concert devoted to the composer’s works in that genre.
Voices will be prominent, too, in the IU Opera Theater’s sole presentation for the summer, which again is not an opera but surely to be considered a major event: the collegiate premiere of the widely admired musical, “The Light in the Piazza.” Based on a popular novella, a romance by Elizabeth Spencer, the musical, both its music and lyrics, is the handiwork of Adam Guettel, grandson of Richard Rodgers of the Rodgers and Hammerstein duo. C. David Higgins is designing sets and costumes. Vincent Liotta will stage. Coming here to take care of the musical elements is Dan Riddle, who conducted the work’s premiere in 2003 at the Beaumont Theater in New York City’s Lincoln Center.
We’ll have no Beaux Arts Trio, of course, that famed ensemble having been disbanded last year. But its pianist, the indefatigable Menahem Pressler, will add to the festival scene with a pair of “Pressler and Friends” concerts. And among the other chamber music and solo highlights, count a series by violinist Sarah Kapustin and pianist Jeanette Koekkoek devoted to the Beethoven violin sonatas, along with recitals by pianists Evelyne Brancart and Jonathan Biss, the latter returning to Bloomington, amid his budding concert career, to perform a benefit for the Piano Academy.
Those who relish symphonic events can look forward to a pair of Cliff Colnot-conducted concerts given by the IU Symphony and the usual three appearances of the Festival Orchestra. The latter — holding not only top students but faculty and distinguished guests — will perform under a trio of renowned conductors in July and August.
David Robertson, music director of the St. Louis Symphony who thrilled a Musical Arts Center audience two summers ago with a powerful performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, comes again, bearing the gifts of Rachmaninoff’s “Isle of the Dead,” Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini,” and the Nielsen Symphony No. 4. Mario Venzago, visiting for his first local engagement without the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, which he serves as music director, has chosen Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” Richard Strauss’ “Til Eulenspiegel,” Debussy’s “La Mer,” and Ravel’s “La Valse.” New to the scene is Giancarlo Guerrero, the recently appointed music director of the Nashville Symphony; he will conduct the orchestra in the Sibelius Sixth Symphony and Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique.
We have musical goodies to look forward to.
Summer festival schedule
Auer Hall will be closed during the early weeks for installation of the long-awaited organ. During that period, Recital Hall will be the principal venue of choice. Switch-over date, tentatively, is July 17. Program content will be shared in Music Beat and Show Times closer to the events.
June
21 — Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, 4 p.m., Recital.
23 — Biava Quartet and violist Atar Arad, 8 p.m., Recital.
25 — Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio, 8 p.m., Recital.
26 — Festival Chamber Players, 8 p.m., Recital.
27 — Pianist Hans Boepple, 8 p.m., Recital.
28 — Weiss-Kaplan-Newman, with Atar Arad, Zoe Martin-Doike, Peter Lloyd, Mary Persin, 4 p.m., Recital.
29 — Pianist Ruth Morrow, 8 p.m., Recital.
30 — String Academy 25th Birthday Celebration, 8 p.m., Recital.
July
1 — Festival Chamber Players, 8 p.m., Recital.
2 — Festival Orchestra, David Robertson conductor, 8 p.m., Musical Arts Center (MAC).
3 — Piano Academy Benefit Concert with pianist Jonathan Biss, 8 p.m., Recital.
5 — Festival Chamber Players, 4 p.m., Recital . pianist Read Gainsford, 8 p.m., Recital.
6 — Violinist Sarah Kapustin and pianist Jeanette Koekkoek, 8 p.m., Recital.
7 — Festival Chamber Players, 8 p.m., Recital.
8 — Summer Band, 7 p.m., MAC . violinist Sarah Kapustin and pianist Jeanette Koekkoek, 8 p.m., Recital.
9 — Biava Quartet with pianist Jeanette Koekkoek and cellist Csaba Onczay, 8 p.m., Recital.
10 — Pianist Evelyne Brancart, 8 p.m., Recital.
12 — Afiara Quartet, 4 p.m., Recital.
14 — Symphony Orchestra, Cliff Colnot conductor, 8 p.m., MAC.
15 — Summer Band, 7 p.m., TBA . violinist Sarah Kapustin and pianist Jeanette Koekkoek, 8 p.m., Recital.
17 — String Academy Gala concert, 7 p.m. Recital or Auer Hall.
19 — Leigh Howard Stevens, marimba, 7 p.m., Auer.
20 — IU Summer Percussion Academy faculty recital, 7 p.m., Auer.
21 — Menahem Pressler and Friends (violinist Alex Kerr, violist Larry Dutton, cellist Paul Watkins), 8 p.m., Auer.
22 — Summer Band, 7 p.m., MAC . Pressler and Friends, 8 p.m., Auer.
23 — Festival Orchestra, Mario Venzago conductor, 8 p.m., MAC.
26 — College Audition Preparation faculty recital, 7 p.m., Ford-Crawford Hall.
31 — IU Opera Theater, “The Light in the Piazza,” 8 p.m. (opera insight talk at 7 p.m.), MAC.
August
1 — “The Light in the Piazza,” 8 p.m. (talk at 7 p.m.), MAC.
5 — Choral concert, William Grey conductor, 8 p.m., TBA.
6 — Festival Orchestra, Giancarlo Guerrero conductor, 8 p.m., MAC.
7 — “The Light in the Piazza,” 8 p.m. (talk at 7 p.m.), MAC.
8 — “The Light in the Piazza,” 8 p.m. (talk at 7 p.m.), MAC.
11 — Symphony Orchestra, Cliff Colnot conductor, 8 p.m., MAC.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
