Indy Concert

“My Requiem was composed for nothing…for fun, if I may be permitted to say so!”
-Gabriel Fauré


Gabriel Fauré

I must admit that I was a bit confused when I learned that the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's Classical Christmas concert would feature Fauré’s Requiem.  Although I was unfamiliar with this particular piece, I thought back to my music history class, in which I learned that a “requiem” refers to a mass for the dead – a somber tribute to the departure of souls.  Images of the...

It's been six months since I graduated from college and what do I miss the most? Well, that might be a trick question. But one thing I do miss A LOT is student ticket prices. Gone are the days when I can attend world class arts events on the cheap. Or are they?

With Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's Cyber Monday special, all (well, most) tickets to Classical, Pops, Symphonic Hits and Happy Hour performances are priced at the student rate of $12. Now, I don't mean to get preachy, but this is a...

While classical music lovers have long cherished the classic opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth, the pastoral-sounding wind solos in Beethoven 6 and, of course, the “Ode to Joy” melody in Beethoven’s Ninth, Beethoven’s Seventh often lies under the radar.

Yet, upon its premiere in 1812, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was strikingly well-received. Not only did Beethoven assert that his Seventh Symphony was one of his best works, but critics and fellow musicians also celebrated the piece. Richard...

I was first introduced to Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony a few years ago when I had to play the second movement clarinet solo for a summer program audition tape. While learning the fingerings, attempting to perfect the articulation patterns and drilling the section with a metronome to train myself to play it more quickly, I repeatedly listened to the recording of the peppy, folk-like second movement. This lively section consists of a rousing dance theme and bouncy woodwind staccatos and...

The first orchestral piece with which I truly fell in love was a Richard Strauss tone poem.

While I have studied clarinet for over 10 years and have always relished the passion and power of orchestral music, it was not until my youth orchestra performed Strauss’s “Don Juan” in May 2009 that I realized just how obsessed I could become with particular pieces.

It was during our first rehearsal of “Don Juan” that I realized the magic of a tone poem. (Just a note: a tone poem is an orchestral work...

This Halloween, forget "Scream" costumes, zombie flicks and vampire novels and let orchestra music scare your socks off!

In the spirit of the approaching weekend of witchery, I chatted with a few ISO musicians about their favorite creepy concertos, haunting hymns and ominous overtures. Play some of these pieces as you're doling out candy or slathering carmel onto your apples!

"Berlioz’s "Symphonie Fantastique" features the Dies Irae tune, a hymn to the 
dead. We’ve played Paul Dukas’s...

The oboe exudes a smooth A. The hall is silent. The conductor strolls to the podium, shakes the concertmaster’s hand, and raises his baton. Suddenly, the sounds of two unison clarinets, against the soft, eerie backdrop of low strings, emanate from the woodwind section. For the first minute or so of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, the audience focuses only on the rich sounds of the clarinet.

In my completely biased opinion, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony has one of the most powerful openings of any...

Maybe I've been watching the World Series too much, but I see this weekend's Symphonic Hits Concert as a fast ball, right down the middle.  It's strong, it's exciting, and it doesn't pull any punches - no contemporary works, no difficult to understand rarity, just three masterworks from the heart of the ever popular Romantic repertoire.   We have an overture by Bellini inspired by Romeo and Juliet, THE quintessential Romantic piano concerto by Robert Schumann, and a fatalistic symphony...

This morning, my boss Jessica gave me the keys to the ISO’s archive room and told me to “have at it.” As I stepped into the tiny room tucked away in the middle of the Marketing and Communications floor and caught a glimpse of the treasure trove of old ISO photographs, music scores and random artifacts – including a cornet with the baseball stuffed in the bell about which I am quite curious and thus plan to explore in a future blog post – my history-dork senses were awakened.

As a lifelong...

If two years ago anyone had told me that the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra concert for which I would be most excited this season would be Mahler's First Symphony, I would have called them crazy. 

For most of my life as a classical musician, I could never bring myself to like or even understand Mahler's compositions.  Beethoven symphonies, Brahms sonatas, and even Strauss tone poems made sense to me, but these long, loud, and laborious Mahler works that call for an army of brass players and...