The month of May means graduation, the end of another academic year, and an opportunity for colleges and universities around the nation to take a breath and begin gearing up for the fall semester.
When it comes to its arts and entertainment offerings, though, Indiana University is just getting warmed up.
It doesn't get much hotter than the star-studded lineup that will perform at IU's Summer Music Festival. International violin sensation and IU alumnus Joshua Bell, Menahem Pressler and the Beaux Arts Trio, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, National Public Radio personality and violist Miles Hoffman, and world-famous conductors Leonard Slatkin and Michael Stern highlight a powerful array of stars who will take part in the annual celebration at the IU Jacobs School of Music, scheduled from June 18 to Aug. 13.
The festival will also feature IU Opera Theater's presentation of The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, the world premiere of a composition by acclaimed Scottish composer James MacMillan, and the debut of a new Festival Jazz Orchestra led by IU Distinguished Professor and renowned jazz educator and composer David Baker. The Grammy Award-winning Bell , National Symphony Orchestra director Slatkin and Stern, who founded the acclaimed IRIS Chamber Orchestra, will take turns leading the Festival Orchestra. Considered one of the finest orchestras in the region, the Festival Orchestra features guests, outstanding students and distinguished faculty members at the Jacobs School of Music.
This month marks the return of the annual Bloomington Early Music Festival, which brings together leading soloists and ensembles for a series of concerts, opera and oratorios, workshops, and pre-concert talks. As the only festival of its kind in the Midwest, the festival, which will take place from May 19-29 at venues across Bloomington , features a number of IU faculty and student performers. BLEMF's resident ensemble, Bloomington Baroque, celebrates instrumentalists and singers who have studied at IU's Early Music Festival. The ensemble is directed by IU violin professor Stanley Ritchie, one of the world's leading performers of Baroque and classical violin. This year's festival will celebrate Mozart's 250 th birthday with performances of his chamber and orchestral music as well as the Bloomington premiere of his opera Il Re Pastore (The Shepherd King).
Music can be heard on many of IU's campuses throughout the spring and summer months. The Indy Jazz Fest, one of the state's biggest music events, will take place from June 16-18 at Indianapolis ' Military Park , which is adjacent to the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. The lineup of performers for this year's festival includes Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, Wynton Marsalis and the Neville Brothers.
Also in June, IU Southeast will host a concert band pops concert (June 4) and an orchestra and concert band summer pops concert (June 18) at Richard K. Stem Concert Hall in New Albany , Ind. The following month, the IU Art Museum in Bloomington will resume its popular “Jazz in July” concert series.
Theater-lovers will once again descend on Nashville , Ind. , this spring and summer for performances at the Brown County Playhouse, a professional theater company that has been a Hoosier tradition since it was founded in 1949 by Nashville businessman A. Jack Rogers and IU professor Lee Norvelle. The 58 th season kicks off on June 8 with a production of the rapturous family musical Smoke on the Mountain . The show will be directed and choreographed by IU musical theatre professor and Tony-nominated choreographer George Pinney. Other performances throughout the summer include George Bernard Shaw's most popular play, Arms and the Man , the madcap comedy The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged) , and the spine-tingling ghost story The Woman in Black .
The Indiana University Writers' Conference will celebrate its 66 th year with a number of nationally prominent writers who will lead workshops in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for conference attendees and give free nightly readings in Bloomington for members of the general public. This year's faculty includes National Book Award-nominee Amy Bloom, poet Tyehimba Jess, whose first book of poetry, leadbelly , won the 2004 National Poetry Series, IU alumna Dana Johnson, who won the 2000 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and IU Bloomington creative writing professor Samrat Upadhyay, whose novel The Guru of Love was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003. The conference will be held from June 11-16 in Bloomington .
For additional information on these events, visit the following links:
Bloomington Early Music Festival
Brown County Playhouse
http://www.indiana.edu/~thtr/bcplay.html
Indy Jazz Fest
IU Art Museum
IU Summer Music Festival:
http://www.music.indiana.edu/publicity/summer_fest/2006/
IU Writers' Conference
http://www.indiana.edu/~writecon/
