Indy.com • The Indianapolis Star • Friday, January 4,2008 • Go! • 17
Piano in excelsis
THREE IVORY-TICKLERS WILL BE ISO GUESTS
M
WHSTNEY
SMITH
ost orchestral
programs typically offer only
one concerto with
a soloist, but the
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra will retool that formula this
weekend with its all-concerto
program devoted to the piano.
For starters,
J|BPP'\ botn of the
I American Pian-
* - **aB ists Associa-
K tion's2006
Classical Fellowship
Awards winners will be
featured. Stephen Beus will
take on Franz
Liszt's Concerto No. 1, with
Spencer Myer performing
George Gershwin's Concerto
inF.
Then as a finale, Canadian
concert artist Jon Kimura
Parker will perform an even
better-known warhorse, Peter
Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Concerto
No.l.
A Vancouver native who
turned 48 on Christmas Day,
Parker said he performed as
part of a concerto showcase
once before, with the Florida
Orchestra in Tampa. That happened to be under the direction
of Thomas Wilkins, who also
Stephen Beus Spencer Myer
will conduct the ISO's concerto
concert.
"It's a very interesting type
of program," said Parker, who
lived in New York City for
years before moving to Houston, where he teaches at Rice
University.
"A piano concerto is really
different from a symphony, although it's constructed in similar ways," Parker said, "but a
real piano concerto is also written in a certain way to showcase the piano with orchestra,"
Concerning the ISO's choice
of concertos, Parker said: "In
all three cases, the composers
were brilliant pianists who
understood how to write a
piece that really showcases the
Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker will
appear on a concerto program with two
Classical Fellows of the American Pianists Association this weekend.
piano. That means, in a way,
that these concertos are different from Mozart concertos,
which are less about display."
Parker, who has focused on
performing with orchestras
since the 1980s, said that, to
play a concerto, "you have to be
willing, on top of everything
else musically, to have a real
desire to project, even in a very
big concert hall. In the context
of having a full orchestra onstage, it requires a different
side of your
musical personality."
Indianapolis
Symphony
Orchestra
When: An all-concerto program with pianists Jon Kimura
Parker, Stephen Beus and
Spencer Myer. 8 p.m. today,
5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Location: Hilbert Circle Theatre, 45 Monument Circle.
Tickets: $10-$63.
Info: (317) 639-4300, www
.lndianapoiisSymphony.org.
* Contact Star reporter Whitney
Smith at (317) 444-6226 or via e-mail
at whitney.smith@indy.com.
APA pianists shine on new CDs
By Whitney Smith
whitney.smith@indy.com
Last month, Harmonia
Mundi issued three
albums by recent
American Pianists
Association award
winners, and each is distinctive in its repertoire and range
of performance styles.
The disc by Michael Sheppard, one of the Indianapolis-
based contest's 2003 Classical
Fellowship Award winners, is
quintessentially American, and
showcases his gifts as an im-
proviser and composer.
As for the 2006 Fellows,
Spencer Myer's sampler of the
theme-and-variations form
brings out bis interpretive
skills, while Stephen Beus
highlights harmonic color by
featuring Alexander Scriabin of
REVIEW
Russia and American Charles
T. Griffes.
Sheppard's charisma at the
keys comes across especially
well in his transcriptions of
tunes by two American song-
smiths, and in a short, delightful piano rag. The Baltimore-
based musician crafted two
waltz fantasies based on Richard Rodgers' musical "Carousel" and on "My Favorite
Things" from "The Sound of
Music." In both, Sheppard incorporated wild riffs, elaborate
ornamentation, and playful
slowing or accelerating of melodies. His light, elusive take on
William Bolcom's "Graceful
Ghost" Rag is enchanting.
Sheppard's two most sub
stantial cuts are Earl Wild's
"Fantasy on Gershwin's Porgy
and Bess" and John Coriglia-
no's "Etude Fantasy." In the
Wild, Sheppard instantly establishes the piece's bluesy
style and broad range of
sounds and emotions, but
switches back and forth from
personal, quiet musings to big,
arresting sounds. The "Etude
Fantasy" showcases the
player's appreciation of structural relationships among the
five studies incorporated into
the piece.
Myer's "Preludes and Variations" opens with his alternately simple, deliberate and
intense premiere recording of
Variations on "L'Homme Ar-
me," the late University of
Southern California professor
Ellis B. Kohs' setting of a
French Renaissance tune. Fer-
rucio Busoni's "Ten Variations
on a Prelude of Chopin," probably the most familiar work on
the album, showcases Myer's
technique arid expressive
powers. The album also contains Aaron Copland's "Piano
Variations" and the second
book of Claude Debussy's
"Preludes."
Two of the three largest
works on Beus' album are the
Griffes Sonata (1917) and Sonata No. 6 from Scriabin's series
of 10. The pianist brings clarity
and passionate focus to the
Griffes. Some describe Scriabin's Sixth Sonata as ominous,
but Beus' gentle approach
brings out its ethereal qualities.
* Call Star reporter Whitney Smith
at (317) 444-6226.
