
Now entering its 34th season, the free and acclaimed program features UIndy music faculty and distinguished guests performing historic and contemporary classical music and jazz. The 18 concerts take place Monday evenings from September through March.
The Sept. 15 concert will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the DeHaan Center, which opened in 1994 to house the departments of music and art and design. Its 500-seat performance hall, modeled after the legendary 1870 Musikverein concert hall in Vienna, Austria, has hosted appearances by pianist Andre Watts, cellist Janos Starker, soprano Kathleen Battle, the Prague Chamber Orchestra and other artists.
Performers at the opening concert will include UIndy’s Festival Orchestra and choral ensembles along with soloists Austin Hartman, violin; Anne Reynolds, flute; Tamara Thweatt, flute; Kathleen Hacker, soprano; and Mitzi Westra, mezzo-soprano. Guiding them will be Leppard, conductor laureate of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and artist-in-residence at the center since its opening.
The program will begin with Gustav Holst’s spirited “St. Paul’s Suite,” Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 4” and excerpts from Handel’s 1725 masterpiece, “Rodelinda.”
After intermission, Leppard will discuss his career and his latest activities with UIndy choral director Paul Krasnovsky. Leppard then will lead the choral ensembles and the Festival Orchestra in selections from Mozart’s “Mass in C Major, K. 257.”
One of the most respected international conductors of the past 60 years, Maestro Leppard has appeared with most of the world’s leading orchestras. He has conducted more than 170 recordings, earning five Grammy Awards, a Grand Prix Mondial du Disque, a Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and an Edison Prize.
The series will continue Sept. 22 with a program of jazz standards featuring trombonist Freddie Mendoza, the new director of UIndy’s jazz studies program. Joining him will be Steve Allee on piano, Steve Houghton on drums and UIndy alumnus Nick Tucker on bass.