NOTE Magazine - Issue 10: Music and the Brain by Classical Music Indy

and the

spring 2019

ISSUE 10

Brain Music

Contributors

CRYSTAL HAMMON

is a corporate storyteller, frustrated golfer and devoted fan of classical music and opera. She loves to play “the bump game” for free travel vouchers and blogs at DressedHerDaysVintage.com.

M & B

NICHOLAS JOHNSON, PH.D. is an assistant

professor of musicology at Butler University, the musicology director of the Vienna Summer Music Festival, and a local musician.

SPECIAL THANKS TO NOTE MAGAZINE COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD AND CONTRIBUTING STAFF:

Crystal Hammon

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Amy McAdams-Gonzales DESIGNER

AMY LYNCH is an

Indianapolis-based freelance writer and active vice president of the Midwest Travel Journalists Association. She enjoys well-made Manhattans, road trips, live music and breakfast any time of day.

CHANTAL INCANDELA

is marketing coordinator for Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra in Nebraska. She also plays double bass and frequently writes about music and musicians.

Lisa Brooks, D.M.A. Rob Funkhouser Kyle Long Jen Rodriguez Anna Pranger-Sleppy Eric Salazar Michael Toulouse

02 Editor’s

Music & the Brain

Note 04 Music and the Brain

FOUR LOCAL EXPERTS ARE EXPLORING HOW THE

RAW COMPONENTS OF SOUND — SINE WAVES —

MAY BE BENEFICIAL FOR HEALTH.

08 My

Music. My Story.

BRANDY R. MATTHEWS, M.D. AND

MALAZ BOUSTANI, M.D.

Soundmakers

THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT TIMPANI

Today’s Classical Musician

AN UNLIKELY MAESTRO, STUART HYATT

New Classical

THE ART OF NOISE

Classical in the Community

TO CELEBRATE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

ENSEMBLE MUSIC SOCIETY OF INDIANAPOLIS

20 Hidden

AN INDIANAPOLIS LANDMARK WITH MUSICAL ROOTS

SENIOR CONCERTS HAVE SOCIAL IMPACT

Music Unites Programming

26 Music

NOTE magazine is a publication of Classical Music Indy, Inc.

Classical

LEILAH SMITH

Unites Artist

28 Classical

Pairings

CELEBRATE CLARA SCHUMANN’S

200TH BIRTHDAY WITH LOCAL WINE.

To subscribe, visit www.classicalmusicindy.org/ program/note-magazine/

30 Neighborhood

For more information contact us at info@classicalmusicindy.org or 317-788-3291.

Music

INDY CONVERGENCE BEGINS 2019 PERFORMANCES

WITH A FLOATING STAGE ON THE WHITE RIVER.

On Air

Dear Classical Music Fans and Friends, One of the most intriguing topics I’ve discovered in the last two years is music’s effects on the brain. When I first became involved at Classical Music Indy almost three years ago, I had the pleasure of immersing myself in the world of classical music. As part of that experience, I was fortunate to be introduced to Dr. Marianne Tobias. From our very first discussion, she shared her research in music and the brain at Eskenazi Health, and I was mesmerized. Dr. Tobias is an accomplished performer and civic leader, and so many local organizations benefit from her talent. I can’t thank her enough for helping Classical Music Indy over the years, and for sharing her research experiences for this issue’s cover story. When my tickets for a classical concert place me in the balcony, I always seem to fixate on the timpani. I love its powerful sounds, and am fascinated by watching the percussionist to see when he or she might strike. On page 12, learn why two women’s graduate work at Indiana University led them on a quest to create the perfect timpani. And be sure to see their work, currently on display at Rhythm! Discovery Center. Our featured local artist is Stuart Hyatt. His innovative compositions capturing “found sounds” will lead you to explore Metaphonics: The Complete Field Works Recordings. This issue’s Classical Pairings pays homage to Clara Schumann’s 200th birthday with selections from Traders Point Winery. Look for more ways Classical Music Indy will celebrate this iconic musician and composer throughout 2019. As a final note, congratulations to John Failey and the amazing volunteer leaders at Ensemble Music Society on their 75th anniversary! Learn more about this extraordinary organization on page 18. May you always enjoy classical music on-air, online and in the community.

Jenny Burch 02

President & CEO Classical Music Indy

Music

Brain and the

A LOCAL MUSICOLOGIST AND THREE PHYSICIAN-SCIENTISTS TEAM UP TO LEARN HOW THE RAW COMPONENTS OF SOUND — SINE WAVES — MAY BENEFIT HEALTH.

The New Dignity in Music MEDICINE WITHOUT

HARMFUL SIDE EFFECTS ____

by Crystal Hammon

If you were sick during the ancient Greek era, a visit to a healing shrine gave you access to two professionals: a physician who was versed on the latest potions and a hymnist who played specific kinds of music, depending on your illness. The harp, for instance, was used to treat gout. No one knew why, but people got better when music was incorporated. Throughout history, music has been used to stir patriotism in citizens and to stoke courage in soldiers before sending them off to battle. It appears that human beings instinctively understand what science is now beginning to prove: that music is so much more than entertainment. Learning what happens in the mind and body when we hear music is a relatively new frontier of scientific inquiry related to the brain’s ability to grow and change. It’s a subject that fascinates Marianne Tobias, Ph.D., a resident musicologist, pre-concert lecturer and program annotator for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. “I’ve read many books that explain the brain’s response to music, but that wasn’t enough for me,” Tobias says. “I wanted to know why.” Three years ago, Tobias met someone who shared her curiosity: Malaz Boustani, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, director of the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science at Regenstrief Institute Inc. and chief innovation and implementation officer of the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Care Innovation at Eskenazi Health. Boustani has been exploring the possible therapeutic effects of music and sound

since the early 2000s, when he was a research fellow at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. His career has focused on finding better treatments for patients with dementia. Impressed by Tobias’ background, Dr. Boustani invited her to collaborate on a feasibility clinical trial to explore how music might diminish certain symptoms for intensive care patients and people with dementia who have behavioral and psychological symptoms such as agitation. Trained as a classical pianist, Tobias has studied acoustics and understands the component parts and frequencies of individual musical tones. She also brings knowledge of repertoire. Also part of the investigation team are Sikander H. Khan, D.O., and Babar Khan, M.D., M.P.H., physician scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The quartet brings a scientific approach to the study of brain frequency manipulation using brain entrainment — entry into the brain via sine wave frequencies. Through observation of brain behaviors, their research measures cognitive and chemical reactions when patients listen to selected musical frequencies through special headphones. The study monitors 17 biomarkers in the body, revealing fluctuations in blood chemistry, oxygen requirements and other physiological changes activated by sine waves. (In simple terms, sine waves are the raw material of sound. The brain communicates through electricity and has five frequencies, one of which specializes in receiving sine waves.) Science has, in recent years, reported many beneficial effects from biomarkers such as dopamine, one of the chemicals produced by the body when part of the brain (the nucleus accumbens) is ➤

A Word of Thanks ____ by Marianne Tobias, Ph.D.

Music is often used in physical therapy, and there is a whole field devoted to music as therapy. Our investigation focuses on how music affects the healthy human brain. Music activates both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously and offers a direct pathway of influence into the brain. By deconstructing the elements of musical sound, we can work with specific brain responses and use scientific research to measure clinical reactions. At Eskenazi Health, we are also using a carefully-curated playlist as background in certain examining rooms and waiting rooms. Eskenazi Health has humored me and called it the Marianne Tobias PlayList. Outcomes and observations from these settings are being documented for various kinds of research. I want to profoundly thank Eskenazi Health for their continued support, faith and active participation in this initiative. Through these trials and investments, Eskenazi Health is on the leading edge of research in the United States. Tobias is the founder of the Marianne Tobias Music Program, a cornerstone of health and wellness initiatives at Eskenazi Health. Each year the program brings patients and the public hundreds of free concerts performed by world-class musicians.

stimulated by music. After leaving a concert, for example, you’re likely to be in a good mood because your brain tells your body to produce feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. It’s possible that the way we process music may one day be leveraged to deliver better treatments for endocrine, autonomic and autoimmune disorders. “I know that music is greatly pleasurable, and I love that about it, too,” Tobias says. “But science is showing us that it’s so much more than that. Music is medicine.” Research suggests that sine waves may be an effective way to calm areas of the brain responsible for certain seizure disorders. Sine waves also give relief to intensive care patients who suffer hallucinations when they are placed on automatic ventilators. In double-blind studies of volunteers over the past three years, the use of sine waves in treatment showed an 80 percent reduction of hallucinations in intensive care patients, and in other patients, reduced the use of opioids to treat pain by 30 percent. (In double-blind studies, neither the participants nor the researchers know which patients get the placebo and which get the treatment.) Boustani, Sikander H. Khan, Babar Khan and Tobias hope their research will bring insights that eventually help physicians use specific frequencies to target parts of the brain with laser precision, coaxing it to act in healing ways. “So many drugs have horrible side effects — both physiological and psychological,” Tobias says. “Music has no side effects, or at least no harmful ones.” ■

Music & the Brain 101 GAIN A DEEPER APPRECIATION OF THE DAZZLING COMPLEXITY AND POTENTIAL OF YOUR BRAIN WITH THIS SHORT PRIMER.

____

by Crystal Hammon A lifelong soundtrack. When processing music, the brain can create new neural pathways and

store them. “We have a little savings bank of musical memories in our brain,” Tobias says. Musical memories are stored in an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens.

Neural nostalgia. A favorite song can trigger personal memories due to the neural response we had when we first heard it, especially if that happened during the formative years of life. It’s the reason a middle-aged adult can be driving down the highway, listening to music and be transported to the night of the senior prom when the 1977 Fleetwood Mac hit, Dreams, is played.

During adolescence and young adult years, the brain is in a stage of rapid development, flooded with growth hormones that tell the brain, “This is important. Remember it.” No matter what music we love during this era, it stays in our brains permanently because of the strong neural link. The brain receives and translates various elements of music in different areas. Most of the activity for pitch reaction and identification is in the right auditory cortex,

specifically in the planum temporale and the medial section of Heschl’s gyrus. The belt and parabelt areas of the right hemisphere process rhythm. The putamen regulates body movement and coordination, and music stimulates dopamine production in this area.

When music isn’t fun. Music activates specific neurons. The stimulus is transmitted as an electrical message from the conversion of sound into an electrical impulse from the organ of Corti in the cochlea of the ear. In a healthy body, the message is received and sent to the brain stem. Damage to certain brain structures such as the hippocampus or the amygdala can cause abnormal reactions to music — a lack of pleasure, greater stress and/or strong emotional reactions. Thus, a healthy brain processes music differently than one that has been damaged. The rest is just noise. Music frequencies are separable and rational, which means their ratios form simple fractions. Unlike noise, music has a dominant frequency that is discernible to the brain. Noise frequencies are not rhythmic; they’re continuous and random. There is no fundamental tone. Your ear responds to noise differently because it doesn’t receive the same kind of information. Going to the symphony is a wonderful treat for the brain. That’s because listening to classical music generates a more complex response in the brain due to its complex harmonic combinations. “Your brain likes harmonic and rhythmic complexity,” Tobias says. Musicians have different brains. Tobias says musicians (especially classical musicians) have

different demands and stresses on the brains. Those demands change the speed of synapses and the size of certain parts of the brain.

My Music. My Story.

Brandy R. Matthews, M.D. ____

by Crystal Hammon

Early training set the stage for Brandy R. Matthews’ lifelong romance with music. Even through the most demanding years of her residency, fellowship and neurology practice at Indiana University Health, she has been both a performer and a concert-goer. As a physician-scientist who studies dementia and other neurological disorders, and serves as a medical director at Eli Lilly and Company, Matthews is enthusiastic about neuroscience research, especially where it relates to the brain’s way of processing music. WHAT IS YOUR MUSICAL BACKGROUND?

I trained in music as a young person, starting with voice lessons at age 8, funded by an anonymous donor at a church in my small town. Through junior high and high school, I performed at small church functions and weddings as a summer job. When I went away to college at Ball State University, I intended to major in musical theatre, but I became very interested in neuroscience, so I made theatre a minor. I continued to sing during my pre-med training at University of Colorado, Boulder and through medical school at Indiana University. I always described it to colleagues as my yoga. As a resident at Mayo Clinic, the Department of Neurology started a talent revue to raise money for neurologic diseases. That’s when I discovered there was a high volume of musicians in the medical community.

During my fellowship at University of California, San Francisco, I was able to continue singing at wine bar and coffeehouse kinds of gigs. It was a nice contrast to the intensity of my academic studies. The last time I performed was at my wedding. I have two children now, and my life is rich with music. I anticipate getting back to singing one day. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE GENRES AND WAYS TO EXPERIENCE MUSIC?

I continue to be a high-volume consumer of live music performances, and I have many opportunities to share those with friends and family. My taste in music is eclectic. I’ve seen Tony Bennett live with my grandfather. And, since my daughter plays the violin, I’ve taken her to hear Itzhak Perlman and Damien Escobar perform. My son loves to dance and sing, so for me, any type of music he enjoys is a favorite. A live music experience is the most meaningful to me. As you can imagine, the neuroscientist in me really wants to tease that apart. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m sharing the experience with the performer and other members of the audience. When I listen independently, it takes two forms: either in the car while driving or when I’m working alone. If I’m driving by myself, I’ll usually listen to singer-songwriters because I want to sing along. If I’m trying to accomplish a cognitive task, I choose instrumental or orchestral music. My preference is for happy, melodic music like Mozart or Vivaldi as opposed to something complex that might interfere with my own creativity. HOW HAS MUSIC INTERSECTED WITH YOUR WORK?

As an academic neurologist, I’m deeply interested in how the brain processes music, and that has factored into my work in a very intentional way. During my residency at Mayo Clinic, I was responsible for preparing an educational conference. I used it as an opportunity to learn more about opera and orchestra. I framed some of my research around music and the brain, and presented it at Mayo Clinic and to the American Academy of Neurology. Some of the research also became part of neuroscience textbooks.

The first independent science grant I wrote was to the GRAMMY Foundation. I loved being able to call my parents and tell them I won a GRAMMY. The grant funded a study looking at the emotional response to music in people with dementia. One of the common traits of patients with dementia is difficulty reading facial expressions — whether they’re happy or sad. My theory was that people who struggled with this might be able to distinguish between happy and sad music. This hypothesis was based on the ability of children around the globe to recognize that a fast tempo usually means happy, and a slow one is sad. Similarly, they recognize that a major key is happy and minor key is sad. It turns out that people suffering from dementia may be equally challenged by interpreting the emotions of music. Although I left that research behind, I think it’s a line of inquiry that warrants further consideration. I’ve been very encouraged to see ongoing research to better understand the relationship between neuroscience and music. WHAT MUSIC EXPERIENCE OR LIVE PERFORMANCE REALLY STANDS OUT AS UNFORGETTABLE?

My first live performance was hearing Whitney Houston when I was in the sixth grade. That was pretty special. A few years before her death, I saw Etta James perform live. After the fact, I learned she was suffering from dementia, but she commanded the stage so well that you would never have known it. One of my favorite concert experiences is crystallized in my mind. I took my mother and my 3-year-old daughter (now 9) to see Kathleen Battle at the Center for the Performing Arts Center in Carmel. My daughter was young enough that she sat on my lap. At one point, there was a brief silence. During that break, my daughter turned around in my lap and loudly said, “Mom, she’s a diva.” Everyone around us was very gracious about it. After all, she was correct! ■

Malaz Boustani, M.D., was completing a research fellowship in North Carolina in the early 2000s when he happened across a method of treatment that seemed to help agitated patients with dementia — without using drugs. Today he is a geriatric specialist at the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Care Innovation, where he treats patients with dementia, depression and memory loss. His quest for better treatments has continued as a research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. and professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. A few years ago Boustani met Marianne Tobias, Ph.D., and became intrigued with her study of music’s effect on the brain. That led to collaborative research, exploring how music might diminish suffering for certain patients.

HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN STUDYING THE EFFECTS OF MUSIC ON THE BRAIN?

My Music. My Story.

Malaz Boustani, M.D. ____

by Crystal Hammon

My first “aha” moment that music and sound could have a therapeutic effect in my vulnerable patients was as a research fellow at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where I was working to improve treatment of agitation in patients with dementia. At the time, drug therapy was not working. There were no FDA-approved drugs, and early indications were that the drugs we were using were actually harmful, increasing their risk of death from falls. It was a desperate situation. One day I went to the nursing home to see one of my patients, but she had an appointment with her hairdresser at the facility. Rather than come back later, I decided to go [to her hair appointment] and see how she was doing. She was one of those highly-agitated patients, and I wondered, “How do you take someone in

that condition to the hairdresser?” When I got there, I saw that she was as calm as if she was taking a drug. I knew that I hadn’t given her anything, but I was concerned that someone might have given her a sedative. After looking around, we determined that she hadn’t been given anything. She was sitting under a hairdryer very calm — not sleeping. I asked the hairdresser, “Is this the first time this has happened?” She said, “Nope. Every time she comes, she is not agitated.” I put on my scientist hat and thought, “Okay, what’s going on? Is this just coincidence?” I went through medical literature and found some early research that white noise had a calming effect in Alzheimer’s patients. I started writing prescriptions for white noise for 30 minutes, three times a day for my patients with dementia. People loved this concept. HOW HAS YOUR RESEARCH PROGRESSED SINCE THEN?

When I met Marianne [Tobias], she explained the difference, in her mind, between music therapy, classical music and general music — and the difference between classical music and less-complicated collections of sound waves. She was very confident, so I went back and tried to learn more about her and where she was coming from. She is a great pianist, highly professional, and she has a Ph.D. That was, to me, an indication of credibility. I wasn’t interested in exploring music therapy. To me, it looked very unscalable. But I thought listening might be therapeutic. Classical music had much more data, so we hired an intern who conducted a systematic review of literature about specific types of music in dementia, and there appeared to be certain music for reducing distress in patients with agitation. Marianne spent a significant amount of time with my students, developing a list we call the Marianne Tobias Playlist of classical music to reduce anxiety in my patients. We started thinking, “What if we use that playlist in our clinical practice as a prescription?” We got

some funding from a local foundation and conducted ongoing studies to leverage music in general, but classical music in particular in pursuit of two areas: 1) Intensive care patients who are on ventilators and have acutely failing brains or delirium, and 2) Patients who come to the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Care Innovation for treatment of dementia, depression or behavioral psychological symptoms like agitation. We have finished a feasibility clinical trial in the intensive care unit, and now we are analyzing the data. We are also writing an NIH [National Institutes of Health] grant to fund further research. We are in the conducting phase of a feasibility clinical trial called N-of-1 in the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Care Innovation as an outpatient therapy. [N-of-1 trials are a special kind of trial that has a single subject or site as the sole targeted individual or setting under observation.] WHAT ARE YOUR PERSONAL LISTENING HABITS?

I consume music through my mobile phone using Spotify in my car and at home through Alexa. Spotify has been awesome for me — an easy way to switch between different types of music. Through Marianne, I’ve created a playlist for deep focus. I use it when I write a grant, or read or write a new paper. I also have a mindfulness playlist of peaceful guitar music and classical music. I use it just to relax when I’m very hyper or when I wake up in the morning, as background for my 30-minute mindfulness practice. On the weekend I listen to a Morning Café playlist to help me energize, and finally, I use white noise when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back asleep. It’s my prescription for myself. ■

The Quest for the Perfect Timpani REBECCA KITE AND BARBARA ALLEN ____

by Nicholas Johnson, Ph.D In the early 1980s two enterprising women set out to design and build the perfect timpani. Rebecca Kite and Barbara Allen met when both were graduate students at Indiana University (IU), Bloomington. They believed that they could improve upon timpani and achieve the purest possible sound. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our goal was to build an instrument that had a better sound and worked better â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a timpani that we could be passionate about,â&#x20AC;? Kite says.

By the end of the 1980s they achieved their goal. It was a long and difficult journey, involving a 100-year-old copper shop in Ohio, a self-designed machine shop in

Bloomington, metal workers in Indianapolis, several patents and a remarkable amount of grit and determination. To appreciate their story, you have to know a little about timpani. These kettle-drums have been used in Western concert music since the late 1700s by composers like Mozart and Haydn. Beethoven later used timpani to add emphasis and volume at climactic moments in his symphonies, such as in his famous Symphony No. 9. Timpani makers continued to refine the instrument in the 1800s, and the basic design as we know it was standardized in the late 1800s.

Although they are imposing, powerful instruments, traditional timpani have musical and practical limitations: • They can be difficult to tune quickly and accurately. • The frame limits some of the instrument’s resonance. • They are difficult to move and expensive to purchase and maintain. Kite and Allen saw an opportunity to fix these issues. Several years after graduate school, Kite worked for IU and was in charge of nearly 60 timpani housed at the music school. This experience made her intimately familiar with the design of the drums. Timpani are essentially copper bowls suspended by a metal frame with a skin or synthetic head stretched tight. What makes them unique is the ability to change pitch by adjusting the tension of the head. Each of these elements presented Kite and Allen with opportunities for improvement. One of the first hurdles was designing and building custom copper bowls for the drums. Kite says most timpani sacrifice tone quality by using shallower bowls than is mathematically ideal for sound waves. This limits the purity of tone and resonance. To get deeper copper bowls, Kite and Allen had to build them by hand. They traveled to study with a 102-year-old coppersmith in Ohio who had “modernized” his equipment in the 1920s. He told them they were the first women ever to come to his shop, and offered to train the pair if they came back with a pattern for their drums. The wizened artisan probably never expected to see them again, but that was before he knew the degree of their determination and ingenuity. “When we were in school, we weren’t even allowed to take shop classes,” Allen says. “But we did take home economics, and drum patterns are remarkably similar to dress patterns.”

The two returned to the shop a few months later with a pattern for a perfect parabolic drum bowl. Training with the master, they learned how to make their own tools, pound the copper into the proper shape and bind it into a sturdy bowl. Using these skills, the pair then built their own machine shop in Bloomington, custom designed for manufacturing their timpani. Over the next decade they produced numerous timpani under the name GP Percussion. Orchestras, universities, military bands and professional percussionists all over the United States use the instruments. Kite and Allen, however, are no longer building timpani. Kite is now primarily a marimbist and timpanist, and Allen is a political science professor at Carleton College. Their innovations, however, have inspired numerous drum makers to adopt several of their ideas, although, as Kite puts it, “What we did has not been fully replicated.” Kite and Allen are inspirational to drum makers and young, entrepreneurial musicians alike, especially women in a male-dominated field. “You can get a degree in something, you can be really good at something, and it may take a long time before your particular idea comes about,” Allen says. “The creative spark that pushes you forward is really the important thing in life. And finding those interesting projects, solving those puzzles, that’s the deal. Not getting exactly what you want, the way you thought you were going to get it.” ■ You can see a set of timpani designed and built by Kite and Allen on display at the Rhythm! Discovery Center in downtown Indianapolis. Also included in the exhibit are original tools, patterns and patents from their tenure as timpani makers.

T O D AY ’ S C L A S S I C A L M U S I C I A N :

An Unlikely Maestro URBAN STREETSCAPES AND NATURE ARE MUSIC TO STUART HYATT’S EARS. ____ by Amy Lynch

Where most people perceive only sound, Stuart Hyatt hears music. The self-proclaimed “sonic adventurer” never imagined that five years ago, a walk through the city would be the catalyst that would set him on a musical career trajectory. Hyatt, a 44-year-old Indianapolis native, was doing on-foot site analysis for his master’s thesis project in architecture across a 22-mile stretch of U.S. 40 from east of Washington Square Mall west past the Indianapolis International Airport. Somewhere along the way, Hyatt realized he was more interested in recording contextual audio than in the idea of designing a building. “It felt like I was discovering my own set of invisible cities within this whole cross-section of culture and humanity,” he remembers. “You can’t get a stranger juxtaposition than people living in a downtown homeless camp waking up to barking sea lions at the Indianapolis Zoo across the street. I knew those were the sorts of unexplored sounds and stories I wanted to celebrate.”

Hyatt’s academic advisors at Ball State University worked with him to reimagine his original thesis concept as an opportunity to make music, and many of the “found sounds” Hyatt recorded during his research went on to form the basis of his debut album, The National Road, released in 2014. He earned his M.ARCH degree the same year. Hyatt credits the Suzuki violin lessons he took as a boy with instilling an intuitive sense of scale, rhythm, harmony and pitch, but admits he had no interest in learning to read music or understand theory. During middle and high school, he caught the recording bug by playing around with tape decks and 4-track recorders. A fan of rap and hip hop, Hyatt also found inspiration in experimental electronic artists like the Avalanches and the Books. “These artists didn’t want to sound like a well-rehearsed band playing into one microphone,” he says. “They wanted to develop intricately layered pieces of music through advanced technology. I was really drawn to that.” ➤

Because he lacks formal training, Hyatt doesn’t delineate between traditional music and other types of sound. “You can assign musical value to a cello and a leaf blower,” he explains. “While you may prefer to listen to the cello, I find the leaf blower can be an interesting instrument as well in its own right.” Intrigued by the idea of the studio itself as an instrument, Hyatt called dibs on the three-car garage when he and his family moved into their Meridian-Kessler home in 2011, transforming it into his own personal recording/mixing space. Among several big projects currently on his plate, Hyatt plans to collaborate with Lebanese musicians in Beirut early in 2019. He will also expand his Field Works label to include a joint project with IUPUI and Indiana State University, highlighting ultrasonic bat noises.

Hyatt is a member of the M12 Studio artist collective, a venture through which he contributes to an ongoing Colorado-based historic recordings project. And just this past year, he finally learned to appreciate the merits of sheet music. “I was working with a group of professional orchestra musicians for the [Metaphonics] Glen Rose Formation recording, and we had to transcribe all this stuff I’d created through drawings and notes describing what I wanted in terms of non-musical adjectives,” he says. “It was like we were speaking different languages. But when we gave them the sheet music to follow at our first rehearsal, it came out sounding exactly the way I wanted it to. I actually wept because I finally understood how it works!” ■

reater indianapolis is our only stage.

The largest locally-owned national bank is proud to be a major supporter of the Arts.

NEW CLASSICAL:

THE ART OF NOISE

METAPHONICS EXPLORES THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MUSIC, NATURE AND URBAN SOUND. ____ by Amy Lynch Blurring the lines between music and organic sound, Stuart Hyatt’s Metaphonics: The Complete Field Works Recordings marks a happy, and unexpected, detour from what began five years ago as a Ball State University architecture program master’s thesis project. Hyatt, an Indy-based sound artist, found himself fascinated by the streetscape noise, conversations and nature he recorded while walking across Washington Street as part of a site analysis. Along with other autobiographical sound bites, some of the field recordings Hyatt made eventually found their way into his Metaphonics 7-LP box set released last September on the Temporary Residence LTD label out of Brooklyn, New York with a companion guide published by Dutch imprint Jap Sam Books. Through his interdisciplinary projects, Hyatt aims to bring awareness to social issues like at-risk communities and endangered animals. “I like to think of my work as environmentally conscious, focusing on subjects that resonate with me,” he says. “Hopefully, that comes across to the listener through an enjoyable sound experience rather than a soapbox lecture.” By breaking Metaphonics down into four themed categories — Geophony, Biophony, Anthropophony and Cosmophony — Hyatt is able to explore each authentic soundspecific atmosphere, from natural landscapes to urban settings and even outer space. The box set features collaboration with more than a dozen musicians and writers, contacts Hyatt made networking through word of mouth and personal connections. “I really just reach out to people whose work I admire,” he says. “It’s gotten easier to find collaborators as my own body of work has grown and I have something to show them.” ➤

While the experimental trend of merging nature and urban sound with traditional music is still far from mainstream, Hyatt says that finding a record label has helped make his work more accessible to the masses. “I don’t have a target demographic; my work is appropriate for all ages,” he says. “It’s not heavily compressed like pop music, and it’s not meant to be heard at deafening volume. It has a human element. The funny thing about music production is that we mix and master our work in this pristine sound environment, but in real life, people actually listen to it on Spotify in the car while picking kids up from school.” There has been some commercial interest in Hyatt’s work, a market he’s not opposed to considering if the project feels appropriate. In the meantime, he travels frequently to discover new sound possibilities to work with and performs live on rare occasions, including a show at The Cabaret in Indianapolis last fall. “It was an amazing experience — hyper-focused in terms of sound quality and video projection,” he recalls. “The audience was so engaged, they were absolutely silent during the performance.” Next up for Hyatt is a project in tandem with IUPUI and Indiana State University to record the endangered Indiana bat, work he hopes will shift public perception about what is often a feared and misunderstood species. Seismic plate movements and sub-frequency elephant communications rank high among other wish-list subjects Hyatt hopes to explore. “I’m in great debt to Bernie Krause who wrote the forward to Metaphonics; he’s one of the forefathers of ecological soundscape,” he says. “In The Great Animal Orchestra, he divides soundscapes into human, animal and environmental components, which really became the framework for my whole project.”

New Classical

The Metaphonics: The Complete Field Works Recordings box set retails for $150 and is available locally at Luna Music and Indy Reads, or through the Temporary Residence web site and third-party distributors. The companion guide ($25) can be ordered through European-based Amazon sites. ■

For more information, visit stuarthyatt.org.

CLASSICAL I N T H E C O M M U N I T Y:

ENSEMBLE MUSIC SOCIETY OF INDIANAPOLIS TO CELEBRATE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

____

by Nicholas Johnson, Ph.D. In 1943 a group of friends gathered for dinner in Indianapolis and decided the city needed a chamber music society. They were musical and business leaders who felt that building a stronger connection to the international music scene would provide a cultural boost to the city. The first concert was by the Musical Arts Quartet from the Julliard School, held in April of 1944 at the Indiana War Memorial. Fast-forward 75 years and the Ensemble Music Society (EMS) is thriving. Ticket sales and attendance have nearly doubled over the last decade as the group continues to bring the world’s top chamber musicians for performances in packed houses. It remains a unique player in the Indianapolis cultural scene, with a strong vision for the future.

University is one of the most acclaimed string quartets in the United States. The concert will be at the Indiana Landmarks Center, and to celebrate the occasion, there will be hors d’oeuvres, full bar, refreshments and an illustrated history presentation by DeeDee Davis, visual resources specialist at the Herron Art Library. One of the unusual elements of EMS is its emphasis on performances that are modern compared to traditional classical music one might expect to hear. Several concerts feature mainstays like Beethoven, Brahms or Haydn, but styles such as atonality, minimalism and serialism are frequently heard too. These performances give people a new concert experience and attract audiences who enjoy modern music. The EMS is also demonstrating how to foster an active and thriving classical music organization. Six years ago they decided to rethink the seasonticket model and drastically lowered seasonticket prices for a few weeks after each new season announcement in the spring. The result has been significantly more season-ticket sales, twice as many attendees at each concert and more donations than ever. In an era of ubiquitous recorded music, the live concert has become an even more important opportunity for deep listening, and music fans are rediscovering the enriching experience of hearing live music. ■ Watch for the announcement of the 75th Anniversary Season at the Emerson String Quartet performance on May 1. More information on concerts can be found at ensemblemusic.org.

The EMS presents five concerts a season, often at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center. Concerts feature string quartets as well as other ensembles. “The goal of this organization is to bring touring international artists in chamber music to Indianapolis, and to continue to bring those groups that stimulate and add to the diversity of musical programs,” says John Failey, board president of the all-volunteer organization. One such program is the organization’s 75th anniversary concert. On May 1, 2019 the Emerson String Quartet will perform works by Haydn, Beethoven and Britten. As winners of nine Grammy awards, this group from Stony Brook

HIDDEN CLASSICAL:

An Indianapolis Landmark with Musical Roots ____

by Crystal Hammon

Wilking Music, Pennsylvania Street, 1960. Bass Photo Co. Collection, Indiana Historical Society.

Every city has a forgotten history, a collection of places people walk or drive past regularly without much thought for their origins. In Indianapolis, one of those oft-ignored sites is a 147-year-old façade on the east side of Circle Centre on Meridian Street. The façade once covered the Vajen Building, constructed at 120 North Pennsylvania in 1872 by John Vajen. It is historically significant because it is one of the best (and perhaps the only) local examples of 19th century, American cast-iron architecture, and also for its connection to the city’s musical heritage. The façade’s musical legacy was left by one of the building’s former occupants, the Wilking Music Company, an Indianapolis icon for at least five decades. Saved by the Indiana Landmark Foundation in 1980 when American Fletcher National Bank demolished the Vajen Building to construct the skyscraper that is now home to Salesforce, the façade was purchased for an estimated $41,000. It was carefully dismantled from the building and stored at the abandoned Central State Hospital until the early 1990s when the city began construction of Circle Centre. Prior to construction, negotiations went back and forth as preservationists sought to keep historic buildings near Circle Centre. Those efforts not only protected landmarks like St. Elmo’s Steak House and the former Canterbury Hotel; they also preserved character in downtown Indianapolis, convincing developers, architects and city leaders to integrate a retrofitted version of the Wilking Music Company façade (and others) into the mall’s exterior. Preserving a historic facade was considered a win at the time, but it isn’t a preferred strategy by today’s preservation standards. That’s because a façade can never quite touch what happens inside a building, according to Mark Dollase, vice president of preservation services

at Indiana Landmark Foundation. “The history of a building takes place in more than just the façade,” he says. “It occurs through the good times and the wonderful interchange between people who live, worship and interact with each other throughout a place.” The birth of a musical paragon

The spaces where Wilking Music Company did business are textbook examples of Dollase’s point. Frank Wilking founded the store in 1922 with his brother, Forrest, as a partner. Before that, Frank attended Shortridge High School, and at the age of 17, revealed his entrepreneurial spirit by opening a record shop. He later studied at Valparaiso University, the University of Michigan and the Metropolitan School of Music, where he majored in piano. (The Metropolitan School of Music was purchased by Arthur Jordan in 1928 and merged with the Indiana College of Music and Fine Arts to form the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music, later affiliated with Butler University.)

Photo credit: Indiana Landmarks

After college, Frank Wilking taught piano and became a salesman at the Pearson Piano Company, later known as Pearson Music Company. Wilking left the company started Wilking Music Company with his brother in a small storefront at 211 Massachusetts Avenue — essentially one room. They quickly outgrew the space, and in 1924, moved to a bigger location ➤

Photo credit: Indiana Landmarks

in the 100 block of East Ohio Street. Forrest Wilking left the company in 1930 and founded the Marion Music Company, which he ran until his retirement in 1967. On his own, Frank must have prospered because in 1932, it appears that he and his wife, Julia, built a quaint, Old-English style home at 5724 Wildwood Avenue. An article in the Indianapolis Star gushes about the home and its unique wooded setting. “No matter from what angle the dwelling is viewed,” the Indianapolis Star reported, “beauty is found.”

Hidden Classical

The Ohio Street address was Wilking’s main business location until at least 1946, when the store secured a 10-year lease of the Vajen Building, which occupied 114 to 126 North Pennsylvania Avenue. It offered 52,000 square feet of floor space, making Wilking Music Company one of the largest music centers in the country at the time.

A January 1946 edition of Music Trade Review covered the store’s new Pennsylvania Street location and revealed Wilking’s plans to include his son Frank R. Wilking in the business upon his return to civilian life after World War II. The Wilking family also planned to make room for an art salon to display work from prominent Indiana artists. Curiously, the new space was only a few steps from his former employer, Pearson Music Company at 128 North Pennsylvania. Pearson sold pianos and other musical instruments

side-by-side with household furniture until 1945 — a business decision related to the shortage of pianos beginning in the 1930s. Wilking documented the shortage in a story published in a 1937, full-page advertisement in the Indianapolis Star — a regular feature in local newspapers for decades. The headline read, “Great Boom Felt In Piano Industry.” Manufacturers were running at full capacity to keep up with the demand for pianos. The article attributed increased demand to the influence of radio, which gave Americans a greater appreciation for music and created what Wilking called, “a musical renaissance.” Manufacturers also began making compact pianos and organs that easily fit in small homes. “That people are buying pianos isn’t news,” he wrote. “And hasn’t been for the past two years, when the industry started to breathe again following the depression.” Raconteurs of the Indianapolis music scene

Regular newspaper content made Wilking Music Store a juggernaut within the city’s music community. In fact, the pages were dedicated, “to the Music-Loving Public.” For anyone interested in music or music education, the Wilking page was a comprehensive guide. It published a calendar of local recitals and concerts, many of which happened in the store’s auditorium. Wilking also brought nationallyknown musicians to teach master classes

for musicians and hosted train-the-trainer workshops for area piano and organ teachers. The store was a lively place where celebrities and nationally-known musicians performed and taught. In November of 1946, Hoagy Carmichael was there, greeting fans and autographing copies of his recordings and his first book The Stardust Road. A maverick in the music industry

Frank O. Wilking, 1929. The Bretzman Collection, Indiana Historical Society.

Wilking wrote several manuals that taught his innovative method of piano instruction as well as sales manuals that were distributed nationally to train piano sales staff. He is also credited with directing one of the first performances of its kind — the mass piano concert. In fact, he conducted the world’s largest such concert at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, employing 150 pianos and over 1500 performers. He came to prominence in 1935 after founding and directing similar events in Detroit and Indianapolis. Locally, those festivals were presented at Butler University and the Indiana State Fairground Coliseum.

Wilking was also an accomplished composer, writing music for several movies as well as the operetta, Gypsyana, which was performed at the English Hotel and Opera House on Monument Circle. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and other American orchestras also performed Wilking compositions.

The Wilking Music Company became a Steinway dealer in 1936 — most likely Steinway’s exclusive dealer in the area — and the Wilkings maintained a friendly relationship with the Steinway family. In 1954 Wilking and his wife hosted Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Steinway for a reception at the Columbia Club, where Wilking was a member and leader. At the time, Mr. Steinway was president of Steinway & Sons. The Steinways were in town for the Steinway Centennial Concerts played by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at the Murat. The ISO’s conductor, Fabien Sevitzky, presented Mr. Steinway with the manuscripts of four original symphonic works, composed as a tribute to Steinway’s 100th anniversary. The Steinways purchased Wilking Music Company in 1960, and Wilking remained president until his retirement in 1965, when Charles Steinway took the helm. After the downtown location was demolished in 1980, the company was sold to Kimball International, which ran it until 1995. Frank Wilking’s enduring legacy

As a musician and businessman, Frank Wilking led a remarkably productive life — one that had a lasting influence in Indianapolis and beyond. In the music industry, he held leadership roles with the American Music Conference, the National Association of Music Merchants, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra as well as Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Symphony Orchestra Society. In addition to authoring sales and instructional manuals, Wilking had also written a novel, Military Park, and was working on another at the time of his death in 1970 at the age of 76. ■ NOTE gratefully acknowledges HistoricIndianapolis.com for publishing a post that inspired this story.

Hidden Classical

Life, Fortune and Time magazines reported on the World’s Fair event, but details are sketchy. One can only imagine that the performances were an extraordinary spectacle with hundreds of musicians playing simultaneously as an orchestra of grand pianos. The Indianapolis News reported that eight weeks ahead of the third annual event at Butler University’s fieldhouse in May of 1938, Wilking had been rehearsing pianists (in groups of 100) drawn from 40 cities.

The Steinway connection

MUSIC UNITES PROGRAMMING

Senior Concerts Have Social Impact ____

by Crystal Hammon

The Senior Concert series is made possible by:

It’s just after lunch on a December afternoon at the Homewood Health Campus, and residents of this Lebanon, Indiana assisted care center are making their way toward a common living room, furnished in comfortable, overstuffed sofas and chairs. A row of 20 to 30 small Christmas trees forms an L-shape on two sides of the room, where a few dozen seniors gather around a Classical Music Indy banner and four empty chairs. They’re a patient audience, watching one of winter’s first snow falls while they wait. Suddenly the front doors pop open, allowing a gust of cold air — and youth — to blow through the room. With their instruments in tow, four professional musicians stride toward the empty chairs and set up for a concert. The ad hoc string quartet will play for an hour, performing classical music along with Christmas tunes. It’s just one of

many concerts in an ongoing series for seniors, organized by Classical Music Indy as part of its Music Unites programming. The quartet is drawn from a pool of carefullyselected musicians invited to perform. Their mission is to bring classical music to residents in assisted care, memory care and rehabilitation centers in central Indiana. “When I’m choosing music for our ensembles, I usually pick familiar classical tunes people will know, like a Bach piece that’s been in popular culture,” says Bethany Daugherty, a Classical Music Indy violinist. “If people aren’t familiar with classical music, that gives them something to hang on to. We also use hymns, which are a really great way for people to connect with the music.”

a family tradition and pay tribute to her grandmother, a former Homewood Health Campus resident who loved music. Daugherty says she typically leaves feeling refreshed. Judging by the audience’s reactions and the conversations they share with musicians afterwards, the feeling is mutual. “It’s a breath of fresh air to have music of this caliber brought to us,” says 84-year-old Jim P., a retired farmer and World War II veteran who enjoyed piano lessons as a child. During retirement, Jim resumed his study of music and taught himself to play the organ. When the concert ends, he approaches one of the musicians to share his musical background and to marvel over the music. “That arrangement of Silent Night in three keys,” Jim says. “The excitement just builds with every change in key. Something there will influence how I play. You can always learn by listening to other musicians.” Most Classical Music Indy musicians are in their 20s and 30s, and Daugherty says they love hearing stories, engaging with seniors and seeing them tap their toes, or sing along with familiar music. Sharing music is the emphasis of the concert series, but the social interactions between generations may be just as important, according to Eric Salazar, assistant director of community engagement at Classical Music Indy. Social isolation is a big concern for people who live in senior communities where contact with family and friends may be limited.

Daugherty is convinced that the music they share makes a meaningful difference for seniors. “I grew up in a family where we all played instruments, and we would go around and perform for nursing homes and churches, so it’s something I’ve always done,” she says. “I really love the opportunity to bring music into senior communities.” The concerts are an opportunity to continue

Along with their musical prowess, Salazar says the artists bring a framework of understanding that helps them relate to seniors. That trait is obvious, whether they are choosing relevant music, conversing with members of the audience or noticing that someone is dozing during a concert. “As musicians, we can’t heal or cure, but if someone gets a good rest because they feel relaxed and peaceful, maybe we’ve had a hand in making them feel a little better that day,” he says. ■

music unites artist

Leilah Smith PLAYING FOR THE JOY OF IT

____

Photo credit: Sarah Werner, Indigo Squirrel Photography

by Chantal Incandela

Leilah Smith’s unconventional story as a musician unfolds in non-sequential chapters. Even the beginning isn’t typical. Many youngsters pick up an instrument and run with it, but Smith only identified cello as her instrument of choice after playing several others. “I started on piano at 6 years old and did that for two years,” says the Music Unites Artist, one of several elite musicians selected to represent Classical Music Indy. “Then I quit and played every instrument under the sun.” After piano came a succession of string instruments, the viola, the mandolin (hers was painted like a watermelon) and the violin. She fell in love with the cello after hearing a piece by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. “It sounded so beautiful,” she says. “I loved its tone.” After choosing the cello, Smith dove in head first, attending the Suzuki Academy for a while, and later the String Academy at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. “It really kicked my butt,” she says of the String Academy. “It helped me progress a lot and see what intense musical study was like.” Her days at the String Academy were long ones filled with private lessons, theory class, chamber music studies and cello class. Smith was curious about the range of her talents and wanted to explore other things she might enjoy, so she made a jarring decision to quit cello. A few years later, she was lured back by members of a chamber festival who were desperate for a cellist. During that time, she played for a cello professor and began studying cello in college, but quit again after one semester. “I decided I was never going to be Yo-Yo Ma,” she says. “I started to see reality and how competitive the classical music world is. It scared me.” Smith drifted away from the cello and only returned after getting a tattoo, a treble clef with a cello bow drawn through it. The tattoo was a reminder that she didn’t have to impress anyone. “I was only going to play for me, for fun, and make sure that I always enjoyed it,” she says.

Almost by accident, Smith discovered her passion for music education when a school orchestra director asked her to work with his cello students. Despite her inexperience with teaching, she agreed and later decided to get a music education degree from the University of Indianapolis, graduating in 2015. Smith now teaches from home and has about 40 students. Her childhood experience with the Suzuki method is never far from her daily routine. “I swore I’d never play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star again,” she says. As a teacher, Smith aims to go beyond producing proficient cellists. “When I teach, I try to work on developing their character first,” she says. “Then we work on musical things.” Smith credits a former cello teacher as her inspiration to teach. “She was a huge light in my life and was supportive when I needed it,” she says. “I want to provide that for other people as well.” Smith feels rewarded by helping others find creative expression — something they can call their own. Her role as a Music Unites Artist takes Smith to schools, where she gives mini-lessons to kids. “I’m in my element there,” she says. “We get to teach them things like rhythm, matching pitch, all in a short time, which is a great challenge. I love seeing their faces light up.” Playing in hospitals and nursing homes is equally gratifying, especially when it seems to soothe people who are navigating hard times. “One time a patient began singing along with a jazz song I was performing,” she says. “She told me that she’d recently been diagnosed with an illness, and [she] wanted to hear something more somber. So I played the prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2. She was so grateful. It was so great to bring music to someone this way and form a musical connection. Music really can and does unite us.” ■ Learn more about Leilah Smith at her artist website, Leilah’s Music Studio, leilahsmusicstudio. mymusicstaff.com.

Classical Pairings CELEBRATE CLARA SCHUMANN’S 200TH BIRTHDAY WITH LOCAL WINE.

____

by Nicholas Johnson, Ph.D. • Photo by Esther Boston

CLARA SCHUMANN WAS, BY ALL ACCOUNTS, ONE OF THE BEST PIANISTS OF THE 19TH CENTURY. SHE WAS ALSO A GIFTED COMPOSER AND BRILLIANT CONVEYOR OF EMOTIONS. LET’S ALL RAISE A GLASS IN CELEBRATION OF HER 200TH BIRTHDAY! WHAT BETTER PLACE TO CELEBRATE THAN A CHARMING, FAMILY-OWNED LOCAL WINERY? HEAD TO TRADERS POINT WINERY AND TASTE THESE WINES, THE IDEAL COMPANIONS FOR MUSIC COMPOSED BY A CLASSICAL MUSIC PIONEER.

THE WINE:

Traminette THE COMPOSITION:

Mein Stern

Traminette is the signature wine of Indiana, and this one is worth your attention. A crisp white wine with a hint of sour, it oozes with notes of sour apple and a touch of sun-ripened sweetness. This wine’s hesitation and tenderness pair perfectly with Schumann’s lovely art song Mein Stern. Her husband is better known for his art songs than Clara, but for my money, Robert Schumann’s work doesn’t capture the sense of longing and yearning found in Mein Stern and others composed by Clara. Maybe it’s due to her tangled relationship with Johannes Brahms. Listen for the sense of urgency as the soprano asks her star to “appear as my friend’s bright angel in his dark night.” This wine cuts through the darkness, but never forgets its past. THE WINE:

Rhubarb THE COMPOSITION:

Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22 You will either love or hate this wine. I’m happily in the love category, surprised by the fruitiness and perfect balance of sweetness. It is made from fermented rhubarb and added sugar, but the tartness is remarkably mellow. This piece was among the last composed by Clara Schumann, and it displays tremendous maturity and depth. Three short movements express regret, love and the complexity of life.

Schuman surprised audiences of the 19th century, many of whom believed a woman should not compose music. After hearing this composition, few ever questioned her work again. It is truly a masterwork of emotional expression. Give this unique wine a try, and reflect on artistic pioneers from the past and present. THE WINE:

Manslave (Port Style Blend) THE COMPOSITION:

Soirées musicales, Op. 6 This port blend was the highlight of my tasting. Admittedly, it was also my last after a lengthy session, so the mood was right. This fruit-forward, brandy-infused blend is not to be missed. It is seductive, alluring, complex and bittersweet. And here’s the kicker: Traders Point Winery sells it in a bottle dipped in dark chocolate from the Schakolad Chocolate Factory, a widely-acclaimed brand of European chocolate. The bottle! Dipped. In. Chocolate. Seriously, just go buy one now. I’ll wait. Okay, let’s talk about the perfect music to enjoy alongside this delicious port, dipped in chocolate! Clara Schumann wrote this collection of six short piano works when she was just 17 years old. It is full of youthful turns of emotion, each one deeply and purely felt. Its harmonic richness matches the depth of this wine. There is boldness, but occasional timidity; emotional reservation, but sporadic outpourings of passion; a fear of loss, countered by moments of reckless abandon. ■ Traders Point Winery is one of Indiana’s newest wineries. Their tasting room at 5524 West 84th Street is open noon – 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and Sunday 1 – 5 p.m.

23 29

NEIGHBORHOOD MUSIC:

Community Catalyst INDY CONVERGENCE BEGINS 2019 PERFORMANCES WITH A FLOATING STAGE ON THE WHITE RIVER. ____

by Crystal Hammon

Ray Hutchins (front) sings with Palace at the Haughville party during the Near West Rara.

Henry James’ famous advice to creative people — to be one on whom nothing is lost — has inspired artists since 1884, when his essay The Art of Fiction was published in Longman’s Magazine. Local artists Caitlin and Robert Negron have not only embraced James’ advice; they’re using it as a catalyst for community development on the city’s west side through Indy Convergence, a company they founded in 2007.

They began with a two-week summer residency, focusing on collaborations between artists from various disciplines. The remainder of the year, Indy Convergence offers residencies for individual artists. Both programs give artists time, space and materials to develop new work.

Indy Convergence originated as an informal collaboration between three artists — Caitlin, a dancer; her husband Robert, an actor and playwright; and Dara Weinberg, a playwright and director. Their initial plan was to blend talents from each discipline in an annual experimental project to help them grow as artists and teachers.

Early on, the Negrons recognized that engagement with westside neighbors would be a key component for success. Music quickly marked itself as one of most effective tools for engagement, a strategy confirmed by Robert Negron’s visit to Haiti, where a friend was building community centers steeped in music and the arts. There, Negron learned about Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) — a formal model that suggests how to interact with community partners.

From their own experiences, all three knew how tough it is to invest money in risky projects that might fail or get terrible reviews, yet they felt some of their best work came from taking risks. Expanding the idea seemed an ideal way to invest in artists and communities. “We wanted to create a space [for artists] to make those mistakes,” says Caitlin Negron, executive director of Indy Convergence.

SINKING ROOTS ON THE CITY’S WEST SIDE

In February 2016, the Negrons bought a building on West Michigan Avenue in Haughville as a home for the organization, using everything — their experiences, skills, relationships and the geographic features of the Near West neighborhood — as inspiration for Indy Convergence. The building offered living quarters as well as workspace. The Negrons moved in and started learning about the neighborhood where they now live and work. “We spent a year just going to meetings and having conversations to see how Indy Convergence could fit in and contribute best,” Caitlin says.

A HAITIAN CUSTOM COMES TO NEAR WEST NEIGHBORHOODS

The emphasis of the ABCD model is to identify and mobilize all neighborhood assets and use them to create opportunities. “Even though we went to Haiti specifically to work with artists, the nature of the location was all community work, all the time,” Caitlin says. From that trip, a lasting partnership began, with artists from the United States and Haiti going back and forth to exchange experiences. When a group of Haitian artists visited Indianapolis last April, Indy Convergence solicited ideas to galvanize and engage Near West neighborhoods. Their Haitian friends suggested a Rara, a progressive parade of music that begins in the mountains of Haiti and travels toward a spot in the city below, collecting people along the way. It ends with thousands of people, all singing and playing various kinds of music. Last summer Indy Convergence initiated a westside version of the Rara, which featured musicians like Ramon Hutchins, a former Haughville resident. Hutchins grew up with an interest in classical and baroque

music and now leads Palace, a band that plays a mix of blues and soul. “Ray has this great way of connecting on a really personal level with people, which we needed in our neighborhood,” Caitlin says. “We knew they were the right group to ask, and they were daring enough to accept.” With support from Indy Convergence, Reconnecting to Our Waterways, the Near West Livability Task Force and neighbors who hosted four block parties, the Rara became a celebration of four distinct neighborhoods on the city’s west side: Haughville, Hawthorne, We Care and Stringtown. Hutchins’ band performed on a float that moved from one party to the next, culminating in a final celebration near the Haughville branch of the Indianapolis Public Library. “It was really fun,” he says. “If the same thing had happened in my neighborhood when I was a kid, I would have been running behind that truck.” Hutchins likes the unobtrusive way the organization works. “Its purpose is not just to revitalize, but to pump up a neighborhood’s morale without taking its power, and they use the arts — everything from music, theatre and dance — to do it,” he says.

FLOATING ARTISTS Leveraging the universal appeal of music and their proximity to the White River, Indy Convergence launches a grand project in March — the Rising Tide Initiative. The project’s highlight is a floating stage for performances on the White River, funded by a grant from Reconnecting to Our Waterways. The floating stage will feature five performances in 2019, starting with Hutchins’ band. They hope to draw small, manageable audiences in 2019, which will give them ample time to refine logistics. “Our goal in 2020 is to do 20 performances along the river,” Caitlin says. Most performances will be bring-your-own seating on the banks of the White River. Eventually, Indy Convergence wants to build an amphitheater and make the concerts widely accessible with transportation. Not all the programming will be music; some will feature community partners such as Fonseca Theatre Company, Eiteljorg Museum and Kenyetta Dance Company. The 2019 season starts with outdoor music, a seasonal arts experience everyone understands. “People love music outside in the summer,” Caitlin says. “When people see dance, they may be in awe of the movement, but they can feel left out if they think they don’t ‘understand it.’ With music, you just have to be there, listen and enjoy.” ■

Ray Hutchins and James Knott from Palace at the Near West Rara’s first stop in Hawthorne.

On Air

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was up for a Grammy — again ____

by Michael Toulouse WHEN CLASSICAL MUSICIANS SAY IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED FOR A GRAMMY AWARD, THEY’RE NOT KIDDING. THERE’S LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NOMINATION AND THE AWARD ITSELF, AT LEAST IN TERMS OF PURE GLORY, BECAUSE TROPHIES FOR THE CLASSICAL CATEGORIES AREN’T HANDED OUT IN THE NATIONWIDE TELEVISION BROADCAST. COMPOSERS, PERFORMERS, ENGINEERS, AND THE LIKE ARE HONORED IN A “PREMIERE CEREMONY,” WHICH IS HELD A FEW HOURS BEFORE THE MAIN EVENT. Thanks to its low profile, the Premiere Ceremony enjoys a kind of privacy by default. Perusing the annual list of winners can feel like eavesdropping on a conversation that has been going on for a long time. That was especially true this year, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra contending for the Best Orchestral Performance and Best Engineered Album prizes. The same band won in both categories last time around, for its recording of the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony and the Barber Adagio. The Pittsburghers moved the discussion forward with a masterful performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica.” Manfred Honeck, the Austrian-born conductor now in his eleventh season as PSO Music Director, chose to emphasize the work’s power as a personal statement, rather than a political one. In extremely detailed liner notes, Honeck downplayed the long-standing association between the “Eroica” and Napoleon (it was originally named for the French general), and instead made the case for Beethoven himself as the hero of his own symphony. The circumstantial evidence for this is strong: the first hints of the “Eroica” date back to 1802, the year the composer wrote movingly to his brothers of his struggle with oncoming deafness.

Although Honeck brings impressive skills to the table as a writer, he uses them most effectively when he’s describing his work as a conductor. The maestro takes us through the masterpiece in his notes, identifying each point–by minutes, seconds, and bar numbers–where Beethoven’s genius has inspired him to make unexpected choices. The most striking example comes in the second movement, which Honeck says is “somehow the center of the symphony” for him. As the orchestra builds to a stirring climax, there’s a sudden outburst from the middle of the horn section: the third player blasts out four notes, in the very same pattern that the composer would later use as the foundation for his Fifth Symphony. It’s an arresting moment, which too many other conductors have simply let pass. The classical Grammy awards, for all their odd privacy, are still meant to recognize achievements in a public artform. Performers must have the courage to reveal their innermost thoughts about the music, no matter whether they work as solo acts or as members of much larger groups. Manfred Honeck took it a step further with his copious annotations, transferring those private thoughts to the printed page after bringing them to life on stage. Although this year’s prizes went to another conductor and orchestra, the accolades for Honeck’s work in Pittsburgh are not likely to stop anytime soon.

Celebrating 50 years of classical music on-air, online and in the community. UPCOMING EVENTS:

Music in Nature

SATURDAY, APRIL 13 2 P.M. Fort Harrison State Park

Virginia Avenue Music Festival

Random Act of Music

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 6:30 P.M. SATURDAY, MAY 11 Chilly Water Brewing Co NOON SATURDAY, MAY 11, 5:30 P.M. The Fashion Mall at Keystone La Margarita

NOTE Magazine is made possible by: